These Hazel Lanes Were Once The Scene Of Puritan Marchings To And Fro, Of Fifth Monarchy Men Who Likened The Seven-Hilled City To The Beast; Furious Men With Musket And Pike, Whose Horses' Hoofs Had Defaced The Mosaic Pavements Of Cathedral.

These hazel lanes, lovely nut-tree boughs, with 'many an oak that grew thereby,' have been the scene of historic events down from the days of St. Dunstan.

In the quiet of the Sunday afternoon, when the clashing of the bells was stilled, there walked in the shade of the oaks a young priest and a lady. His well-shaped form seemed the better shown by his flowing cassock; his handsome face was refined by its air of late devotion. The lady, dressed in the highest style of aristocratic fashion, that is to say with grace, was evidently a member of good society. A little picture certainly: only two figures, no pronounced action, no tragedy, yet what a meaning in that cassock! It spoke of confession, of ritual, of transubstantiation, of all the great historic romance of Rome ecclesiastical. The great romance of Rome: its holy footsteps of St. Peter, its aerial dome of Michael Angelo, its Vatican of ancient manuscripts, of beauteous statue and chariot - the great romance of Rome, its Borgia, its dungeons and flames of the Inquisition. A picture of two figures only, but consider the background. Consider the thousands of broad English acres that now support great monasteries and convents in quiet country places where one could scarce expect to find a barn. The buildings are there; that is a solid fact, take what view you like of them, or take none at all. There are men about country roads with shaven crown and cassock whose dark Continental faces have an unmistakable stamp of priesthood; faces that might be pictured with those of the monks of old Spain. Women in long black cloaks, black hoods and white coif, women with long black rosaries hanging from the girdle, go to and fro among the wheat and the clover. One rubs one's eyes. Are these the days of Friar Laurence and Juliet? Shall we meet the mitred abbot with his sumpter mule? Shall we meet the mailed knights? In some places whole villages belong to English monks, and there is not a man or woman in them who is not a Catholic; there are even small country towns which by dint of time, money, and territorial influence have been re-absorbed, and are now as completely Catholic as they were before Henry VIII. In these half-village half-towns you may chance on a busy market day to come across a great building abutting on the street, and may listen to the organ and the chant; there is incense and gorgeous ceremony, the golden tinkle of the altar-bell. Bow your head, it is the host; cross yourself, it is the mass. The butcher and the dealer are busy with the sheep, but it is a saint's day.

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