BRAMPTON-AMONG-THE- ROSES.

in those days, they rode or walked through the open
country to where the baronial tower stood as a land-
mark long before Sir Baldwin's mansion was built; for
there was mention of barbican, and portcullis, and
drawbridge in the ancient documents preserved in the
iron-bound chest kept in the church, which also
contained grants of livery, and seizen, and sockage,
and all those forms which our forefathers used when
they transferred property, and which to be acquainted
with is to treasure up ancient wisdom and learn how our
English freedom was built up bit by bit until it grew
to what it is.
 I have conversed with few gentlemen better read
in the history of our country than the curate of
Brampton; and as Christabel was his especial favourite
and accompanied him in his daily walks, it will be
readily imagined that such an intelligent pupil re-
membered much of his conversation, for she had a
most retentive memory. And I thought that the
knowledge that she had descended from a long line of
barons made her grave beyond her years, as if the
shadow of grandeur which fell so far back could not be
obliterated, faintly as it showed; for one had been
beheaded, and after that there was a blank until
Baldwin, the brave soldier, was knighted by James the
First, but the old title was never restored. The good
old poet Shirley has told us in a few lines that will last
as long as poetry is treasured, that--

 "The glories of our blood and state
 Are shadows, not substantial things;
 There is no armour against fate;
 Death lays his icy hands on kings:
 Sceptre and crown
 Must tumble down,
 And in the dust be equal made
 With the poor crooked scythe and spade.