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THE MILLER'S TOMB. 225
" peculiar " of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and a portion of what was once the palace of the Primate, now forms part of the village school-house. The hum of childish voices is heard where Becket may have meditated on the methods of his long struggle with Henry III. as to the respective share of church and state in the government of the English nation. In the Fig Garden close by, is a venerable tree which tradition asserts was planted by the hands of the prelate known to after ages as St. Thomas of Canterbury. But tradition has a bow of two strings, and as an alternative suggests the name of St. Richard of Chichester, whose biographer tells that he grafted fruit trees at Tarring with his own hand. It has been noted that in this locality, the lily of the valley, the favourite flower of the ascetic but stormy saint, is very plentiful. The fig trees of Tarring are also responsible for a summer bird of passage which appears when the harvest is ripe, and is believed to be identical with the beccafico of the Campagna.
Tarring Church has also some modern associations of interest. One of its former vicars was the Rev. John Wood Warter, a man of scholarly
accomplishments, and refined literary taste, whose
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