Can hurt me if I would,

I am so wrapt and throughly lapt

Of jolly good ale and old."

So at the next tithe-day supper at the Rectory a farmer who had in him the Dorset heart and blood, a very demi-god amongst the poor of Puddletown, arose in his place and asked the good Canon Carter if he still held to his purpose of converting the Christmas ale into nether garments for little boys, and the Canon replied to the effect that it was his intention to carry out that reform.

Then the farmer, full of the West, who had not come to talk balderdash, shouted: "I ban't agwaine tu see the poor folk put upon. I'll be blamed ef I du." His voice was very strong and echoed in the rafters in an alarming way, for he was of the breed that said "good-morning" to a friend three fields away without much effort. At this point certain stuffy people folded their hands, and called out "Fie!" and "Shame!" for it was their purpose to curry favour with the vicar, they having many small children in need of nether garments.

But the farmer cried out over them all (and all the other farmers cheered him on): "I tellee what tez. I don't care a brass button for you, with all your penny-loaf ways. That to ye all!" And with that he snapped his fingers in the face of all the company, walked out, mounted his powerful horse and turned back to his great, spacious farm-house. Here he counted out a great bundle of Stuckey's Bank notes, and calling his bailiff sent them post-haste to the landlord of the King's Arms with word to the effect that they were lodged against a quart of Christmas ale for every soul who should care to claim it on Christmas Eve. That is the story of Farmer Dribblecombe, and may we all come out of a trying position as well as he.

But to return to the church. There are the old oak pews of bygone days, a choir gallery with the date 1635, an ancient pulpit and a curious Norman font shaped like a drinking-bowl. The most interesting corner of the church is the Athelhampton aisle, which is entered through a quaint archway guarded by a tomb on which lies an armed knight carved in alabaster. Buried here are the Martins of many generations. They once owned the old manor-house, with the great barns behind it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. They once went forth swiftly and strongly, on hefty and determined horses, and worked hotly, and came in wearied with long rides and adventures. Now they rest together, "mediævally recumbent," and when their ghosts walk they do not inquire who owns the land where they tread. They let the hot world go by, and wait with patience the day when all the old squires of Athelhampton shall be mustered once again. A great company indeed! The offspring of one noble family, who, following each other for nearly four hundred years, ruled as lords of their little holding in Dorset. The first of the family came to Athelhampton in 1250, and the last in 1595. Everywhere is to be found carved on their tombs the dark and menacing motto, beneath their monkey crest, "He who looks at Martins' Ape, Martins' Ape shall look at him!" The crest is, of course, a play on the word Martin, which is an obsolete word for ape. But the menace of the motto has lost its power these three hundred years, and nothing of the might and affluence of the Martins remains but their mutilated effigies. I have been wondering to-day how they must look out upon us all with our cinematographs, jazzy-dances, lip-sticks, backless gowns, cigarettes, whisky and pick-me-ups, and our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I don't know that I said it aloud—such things need not be said aloud—but as I read a touching epitaph which urged a little prayer for two of the family, I turned almost numbly away, while my whole being seemed to cry out: "God rest your souls, God rest your souls."

Here, since we are on the subject, is the touching prayer from the lips of one of the ancient house of the Martins:

"Here lyeth the body of Xpofer Martyn Esquyer,

Sone and heyre unto Syr Wm: Martyn, knight,