It
seemed almost natural that when the night was still the echoes of old
prayer and chant should still be heard, as folk said they were. Sir John
himself had heard such sounds, so he affirmed, and would not have his
belief explained away by the fact that the wind found much to make music
with in the ruins. Then there were rooms which never seemed to be
unoccupied; corridors where you felt that someone was always walking a
little way in front of you or had turned the corner at the end the
moment before; stairs upon which could be heard descending footsteps;
doors which you did not remember to have noticed before. But while of
legend there was plenty, of history there was little. It would appear
that the monks had forsaken their home even before the Reformation, for
the first Lanison had acquired in the Eighth Henry's reign a property
"long fallen into ruinous decay," according to an old parchment.
Possibly the writer of this description had not seen the Abbey,
trusting, perchance, to the testimony of a man who had not seen it
either, for certainly much of the present building was in existence
then, and could hardly have been as ruinous as the parchment would lead
one to suppose.
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