Every now and then one crosses a great dyke,
a sapphire streak of calm water between green flood-banks, running as
straight as a line from horizon to horizon. One sweeps through a pretty
village at long intervals, with its comfortable yellow-brick houses,
and an old church standing up grey in the sun. It was on a day always
to be marked with letters of gold in my calendar that I found the house
of Bellasyze in a village in the fen. Imagine a great red-brick wall
running along by the high road, with a pair of huge gate-posts in the
centre, with big stone wyverns on the top. Inside, a little park of
ancient trees, standing up among grass golden with buttercups. A
quarter of a mile away in the park, an incredibly picturesque house of
red brick, with an ancient turreted gate-house, innumerable brick
chimney-stacks, gables, mullioned windows, and oriels, rising from
great sprawling box-trees and yews. By a stroke of fortune, the young
kindly squire was coming out at the gate as I stood gazing, and asked
me if I would care to look round. He led me up to the gate-house, and
then into a great hall, with vast doors of oak, flagged with stone.
"There is our ugliest story!" he said, pointing to the flags. I do not
profess to explain what I saw; but there was in one place a stain
looking like dark blood just sopped up; and close by, outlined in a
damp dimness, the rough form of a human body with outstretched arms,
just as though a warm corpse had been lying on the cold stones.
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