indication. Neat little printed forms were
addressed to those corners, beginning with
the words: "I give and bequeath."

Will it seem exaggerative to state my
belief that the most honest, the most modest,
and the least vain-glorious of all the records
upon this strange fly-loaf, was a letter from
the self-deceived discoverer of the recondite
secret "how to live four or five hundred
years"? Doubtless it will seem so, yet
the statement is not exaggerative by any
means, but is made in my serious and
sincere conviction. With this, and with a
laugh at the rest that shall not be cynical,
I turn the Fly-leaf, and go on again.

AS THE CROW FLIES.

DUE EAST. PLESHY AND DUNMOW TO COLCHESTER.

DUNMOW is not far from Pleshy, and Pleshy
is a place not to be lightly passed over by any
observant crow, being a Shakespearean place,
with the Bard's sign-manual engraved upon
every mossy stone of its ruins. In the quiet
little Essex village, embedded amid wheat and
clover fields, there is a grassy enclosure, and in
the midst of that green space rises a high steep
mound, with stumps of old walls showing here
and there among the turf, and with trees and
bushes sprinkling the slopes. That high steep
mound, ringed round by a deep ditch, which is
crossed by an old bridge with a high stilted
arch of old dark red brick, has been trodden by
many kings and barons. Pleshy has from time
immemorial been a fortress, and set apart for
a place of vantage, defiance, or safety. It
seems always to have won the soldier's eye,
and to have set men rearing walls and digging
trenches. It was first the Praetorian centre of
a Roman camp, and money of the Legionaries
has been found here. The Normans, who had
quick eyes for seeing strong places, and quick
hands for seizing them, built here in Stephen's
troublous reign, when Geoffrey Mandeville,
Earl of Essex, reared his keep upon the mound
of Pleshy.

Afterwards, there dwelt here the wise, but
harsh and severe Duke of Gloucester, the uncle
of Richard the Second. Gloucester waged
perpetual war on the Duke of Ireland and others
of the young king's weak and wicked favourites,
imprisoned Sir Simon Burley, a great warrior
in Gascony under the Black Prince, and finally,
in a rough and despotic way, settled matters
by beheading Sir Simon and his friends and
fellow minions, Sir Robert Trevilian, Sir Nicholas
Bramber, and Sir John Standwich. Richard of
Bordeaux, the son of the Black Prince, had begun
well; he had quelled Wat Tyler's rebellion in a
chivalrous way, by riding boldly among the
Kentish bowmen and hammermen in Smithfield.
He had led an army into Scotland and burnt
Melrose. He had taken up arms against
his turbulent and discontented barons, and
lastly, striking down many Kerns and Gallow-
glasses, in spite of their knives and darts, and
reducing to submission the Kings of Meath,
Ulster, Leinster, and Connaught, had knighted
them in Dublin Cathedral at the Feast of Our
Lady in March. But gradually this young
Absalom, this "plunger" of those days, grew
worse and worse, more wantonly extravagant,
more despotic, more like Edward the Second,
more surrendered to dissolute and dangerous
counsellors, abhorred by prelates, Lords and
Commons.

He dreaded the Lord of Pleshy, his stern
uncle, for his harsh reproofs, and his open
contempt, but still more because it was
rumoured that he would soon seize the crown,
and reign from the Thames to the Humber.
Into Richard's ready ear the wicked Achitophels
poured the "leprous distilment of their
devilish counsels." One summer afternoon
the fine young king, rich in cloth of gold
and jingling with golden bells, set out from
Eltham with his retinue to visit his stern uncle
at Pleshy. The king arrived before sunset;
the warm light steeped the royal towers,
and the duke, who was rough and soldierly in
his habits, was already rising from supper.
Food was served again for the king, and the
meal over, Richard besought the duke to ride
with him to London to give him advice on
matters of state. The lure took, the trap fell,
the duke was snared. He made himself ready
for the thirty miles' evening ride, the king
graciously saluted the duchess and her
attendants, and they set forth. It was a base deed,
and basely wrought. The duke once cajoled
from his eyrie had but his numbered days to
live. The king rode hard, avoiding Brentwood,
and at Stratford he spurred ahead. It
was about half-past ten at night, in a lane
that led to the Thames, that the king laughingly
waved his hand to his uncle, and struck
spurs into his horse. That moment the Earl
Marshal and his clump of spears rode up and
arrested the duke. The duke struggled and
shouted to the king. Richard, deaf to mercy,
would not even turn his head, but rode on
straight to his lodgings in the Tower. The duke
the men forced at once into a boat that took
him to a vessel lying ready at anchor in the
Thames. The Earl Marshal and his pitiless men
also embarked, the wind and tide were favourable;
they dropped down the river, and arrived
late the evening afterwards at Calais, of which
place the earl was governor. The next day the
king returned to Eltham and sent the Earls of
Arundel and Warwick to the Tower. The
Dukes of Lancaster and York, astonished at
the king's courage, were afraid to act.

The duke, refused leave to visit the town of
Calais, felt his death was near, and begged for
a priest to calmly confess his sins, and to help
him to appeal to God for mercy. His end was
very near, as far as Froissart could ascertain;
the day after his arrival, he was sitting down
to dinner, the tables were laid, and he was
already about to wash his hands, when four men
rushed from an adjoining chamber and strangled
him with a towel. Others, however, assert
that Hall, one of the men engaged,