"What did he do that for?"
"Well, I know not for certain. Some say one thing, and some another, but he gave it to one of our forebears, and for that I bless his memory."
"But he was cruel, and killed his wives."
"Some of them; yet I doubt not they deserved it." And then, pointing to two niches or small alcoves high up in the outer wall, and only some ten feet or so below the parapet, "See, Cecily—there is one of the builders of the abbey, Abbot Swincow."
"That figure in the cowl?"
"Yes; and 'tis said he keeps guard over the place to this day, though he has been dead these hundreds of years."
"And is it true?" asked the little girl, turning a look of semi-wonderment and awe on her companion.
"Nay, I know not, save that no harm has befallen the place, or us who live in it, since I can remember."
"Then it is true, I make no doubt," said the easily convinced child. "But who stands in the other little hole?"
"No one now. I have heard father say that there was a figure of a Father Anthony once, but that stem of ivy you see crept up, and, getting into the joints of the stone at the base, loosened them, and in a storm one night it was blown down and broken to pieces."