When Ethelwold had stolen an unusually large
sum one day, he founded the monastery and stocked it with nuns. It
was but a wooden shanty at first, but after having served till it was
worm-eaten and rotting with age, it was torn down and a fine stone
convent was built.
We walk about in that part of the abbey which is free from pews--by
far the larger part--and stare at the monumental stones let into the
floor and walls. If we did not know that Romsey had been the home
of Palmerston, we should learn it now, for these stones are thickly
covered with the legends of virtue in his family--wives, sisters, sons
and so forth, whose remains lie "in the vault beneath." After perusing
these numerous testimonials to the truly wonderful virtues of an
aristocracy whom we are permitted to survive, and after dropping some
shillings in the charity-box, which rather startle us by the noise
they make, we pass out of the cool abbey into the hot churchyard, and
read on a lonely stone which stands in a corner by the gate that
here lies the dust of Mary Ann Brown, "for thirty-five years faithful
servant to Mr. Appleford." Mary Ann no doubt had other virtues, but
they are not recorded: this is sufficient for a servant.
An hour's ride on the velvet cushions of a railway carriage brings us,
with our Paultons friends, the Boyce boys, to Southampton, which was
an old town when King Canute was young.
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