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On the shady side of the square, and half-hidden in ivy, was a Noah's Ark church, topped by a quaint belfry holding a bell that had not rung for years, and faced by a clock-dial all weather-stains and cracks, around which travelled a single rusty hand.
"A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall." Wherever a stage line was established, a good country tavern, every few miles along the route, became a necessity.
Here she is, just behind, under the tree, if you'd like to see her? a very nice homespun woman to look at, too, for all her few weather-stains. . . . Well, well, where can my lady be? And I the trusty jineral man 'tis more than my place is worth to lose her! Come forward, Christiana, and talk nicely to the work-folk.
Such dilapidated buildings, after the lapse of years, during which nature has gradually covered the effects of violence with creeping plants, and with weather-stains, exhibit, amid their decay, a melancholy beauty.
Similar weather-stains and odd kicks and bulges the old rancher's person exhibited, when he came out to sun himself of a rimy morning, when cobwebs glittered on the short, late grass, and his joints reminded him that the rains were coming.
"I will tell you without your asking," I went on. "Miss Fairlie has received your letter." She had been down on her knees for some little time past, carefully removing the last weather-stains left about the inscription while we were speaking together.
And by and by they thought of beauty too; and in this time helped them with its weather-stains, and the ivy that grew over the walls, and the grassy depth of the dried-up moat, and the abundant shade that grew up everywhere, where naked strength would have been ugly.
"With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall." But these difficulties are the least troublesome to adjust, if the walls are good, and ceilings of a fair modern height.
And if the lines of the writer shall be traced in quaint characters, and be filled with a grave humor, or break out at times into merriment, all this will be no presumption against their wisdom or his goodness. Is the oak less strong and tough because the mosses and weather-stains stick in all manner of grotesque sketches along its bark?
Nature has done her utmost for nigh two thousand years to bring back this monument to her own bosom, but she has been foiled in all her attempts, the travertine blocks of its exterior, though fitted to each other without cement, being as smooth and even in their courses of masonry as when first constructed, and almost as free from weather-stains as if they had newly been taken from the quarry.
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