Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/136

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
102
CALLINGTON


till one night he dreamed that Dubricius appeared to him and assured him that Morinus was admitted to the company of the blessed. With a glad heart Samson ordered the body to be at once exhumed and laid in consecrated ground.

One night in midwinter a thief got into the church, and stole thence a cross adorned with gems and gold and all the money he could lay his hands on, and ran away with the spoil wrapped in a bundle. He made for the moors and ventured over a bog, trusting that the frozen surface would bear him. But his weight broke through the thin ice, and he sank to his waist. Afraid of going under altogether, he threw away his burden, and did that which everyone who has wits will do in a bog—spread out his arms on the crust.

There the man remained till morning, when a hue and cry was set up after the stolen goods. He was found and the plunder recovered. What was done with the man we are not informed. At Southill is S. Samson's Well, and it was in clearing it out, having become choked, that the stone with the inscription on it was found.

The old tribeland or principality of Gallewick was reduced in the Middle Ages to a manor of Kelliland, which, however, remained of considerable importance, and is now held by Countess Compton. The church is Perpendicular, of no particular interest, but it possesses an Easter sepulchre, and an early font on which are carved grotesque animals and a representation of the Tree of Life. Callington has in it a fine church that is chapel-of-ease to Southill. It is good Perpendicular, and suffered a "restor-