Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/379

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AN ANCIENT BRASS thereon that looked interesting, we began to examine it; but the lettering was somewhat indistinct from wear, besides being in those puzzling straight up-and-down lines so much favoured in the fifteenth century, and we found considerable difficulty in deciphering it in its entirety, a difficulty enhanced by the dim light at the moment. The strange lady was unable to help us here, but promised, if we would give her our name and address, that she would send us a rubbing of the brass. The kindness of strangers never seemed to fail us, for on our return home we duly found a letter awaiting us with a careful rubbing of the brass enclosed therein. Provided with this, all at our leisure, we read the inscription thus:—Orate p' aīa Albini d'Enderby qui fecit fieri istam ecclesiam cum campanile qui obiit in Vigilia sc̄i Mathie [=ap]o Āo Dn̄i MCCCCVII., which we roughly did into English: "Pray for the soul of Albinus of Enderby, who caused to be made this church, with bell-tower, who died in the vigil of St. Mathius the apostle, 1407."

The ancient font here is decorated with some curious devices carved in shields; the chief of these we made out—rightly or wrongly, for I should not like to be considered authoritative on the point—to be the Virgin holding the dead Christ; a man, possibly David, playing on a harp; a hart with a tree (query "the tree of life") growing out of his back, which tree the hart is licking with his tongue; a cross surrounded by a crown of thorns, and others. This font was raised above the pavement by a stone slab, a slab that, I regret to add, as is all too plainly