Well, it is past midnight, and I had better end these unsatisfactory notes. Detective business is harder than I thought. How am I to evolve order out of all this chaos I hardly know, save to trust to luck and Jenny Paynton. And so to bed, as saith worthy Samuel Pepys.
IT is astonishing how closely one village resembles another in appearance. The square-towered church, the one winding street, the low-roofed inn, and red-tiled cottages, isolated by narrow alleys; corn lands and comfortable farms around, and still further the mansions, more or less stately, of the county families. Go where you will in the southern countries, all the villages are so constituted; one description serves for all, though on occasions the expanse of the Channel introduces a new feature into the landscape. Thorston was of the same class, but, in its own opinion, had more pretentions to grandeur than its neighbors.
Before the Conquest it had been a considerable Saxon town, and, as its name indicates, had flourished before the introduction of Christianity into England. There, according to tradition, a temple to Thor the Thunderer had stood on the hill now crowned with the church; hence the name of Thor's town. Report said that Edward the Confessor had built the church, but of his work little remained, and the present building was due to the piety or fears of a Norman baron, who wished to expiate his sins after the fashion of those times, by erecting a house to some interceding saint. In the present instance this church was dedicated to St. Elfrida, the holy daughter of Athelstan, who renounced her father's court to found a nunnery by the winding river Lax, famous for salmon, as is plainly hinted by its Scandinavian appellation. Yet notwithstanding church and tradition, Thorston had never since been of much importance, and it was now but an ordinary rural village, quaint and sleepy.
From Eastbourne the road, winding, dipping, rising, and curving like a white snake, ran over hill, through dale, along plain, till it ultimately formed the High Street of Thorston. Thence it ran again into the country, but at this point it made its way between houses, thatched and old; and toward the center opened into a market-place adorned by an antique cross. The Inn of St. Elfrida, with an effigy of the saint for a sign, stood on the right of this square, fronting the battered cross; directly opposite a narrow road led on to the village green, at the end of which rose the low hill whereon the Church of St. Elfrida stood amid its trees. Lower down by the Lax could be seen the ruins of her nunnery, and a well frequented by her was to be inspected in the near neighborhood. Here, said the legend, she fought with the devil, who strove to carry away the tower of the church, and being worsted, as the demons always were by Mother Church, he dropped the tower a few yards off the main building. As a matter of fact the square tower is detached from the church, but, as has before been stated, it was built by the Normans long after Elfrida was laid to rest. But the legend took no account of dates, nor did the natives of Thorston, who would have been highly offended had anyone denied the authenticity of their story. In confirmation thereof they referred to the guide book--a notable authority truly.