We who pass casually, and pause, and step in and look, with a curious and antiquarian eye, for a bit of old brasswork or carved screen, miss the intimate beauty of these churches as much, perhaps, as if we read them in a catalogue: "St. Dubric; 12th cent.; fine marble monument of 15th cent. . . ., and so on." The plainest and simplest holds within its whitewashed walls the beauty of continuous tradition; you must see it in all its aspects of daylight and evening light, summer and winter, the rainy, tumultuous November afternoons and the long, golden, mellow evenings of June, to realize what it offers, of peace and order, tenderness and calm.
Inside Porlock Church, which is light and white and simple, there is a beautiful canopied tomb of the fifteenth century, with the recumbent figures of Baron Harington and his wife Elizabeth Courteny, carved in alabaster. Whoever made these marble figures was an artist; not only is the detail of the dress intricately and beautifully carved, the foliated wreath of his helmet, the elaborate decoration of her girdle, and the curved "horns" of her head-dress rolled either side of her face, but the whole pose and outline of the figures is firm and gracious.
I find that this tomb is quite famous among virtuosi, though I was unaware of it when I came upon the monument in the quiet of a workaday afternoon; but its beauty at once claimed my eye, presenting something so different from the average mediaeval tomb, of interest chiefly for its age. These figures are slightly defaced, the sharp edges worn smooth by time, and scores of initials have been scratched roughly on the surface of his armour or her mantle; but there is a certainty of line, a sharpness, and at the same time a suavity of angle, a way of disposing the head and hands and body, all within the stiff convention of rigid tomb carving, that to any lover of sculpture reveals the sure hand of a master, whether he were a nameless stonemason, working in a secluded village, or a renowned man, invited from far.
Standing by this beautiful tomb I can see the sunlight through the open door, with a black splash across the gold, of the great yews beyond; I hear the crowing of cocks and the voice of children, the creak of a passing cart and the song of birds, all the simple, jolly sounds of that everyday life which is the plain fabric on which all history, of nations and empires and monarchs, is (if you like) the embroidery.