Of course they wandered about a little in pairs and trios while these dainties were being prepared for them. This St. James's tomb is a little temple built on the side of the rock, singularly graceful. The front towards the city is adorned with two or three Roman pillars, bearing, if I remember rightly, plain capitals. There is, I think, no pediment above them, or any other adjunct of architectural pretension; but the pillars themselves, so unlike anything else there, so unlike any other sepulchral monument that I, at least, have seen, make the tomb very remarkable. That it was built for a tomb is, I suppose, not to be doubted; though for whose ashes it was in fact erected may perhaps be questioned. I am not aware that any claimant has been named as a rival to St. James.
The most conspicuous of these monuments is that which tradition allots to Absalom, close to this other which we have just described. It consists of a solid square erection, bearing what, for want of a better name, I must call a spire, with curved sides, the sides curving inwards as they fall from the apex to the base. This spiral roof, too low and dumpy to be properly called a spire, is very strong, built with stones laid in circles flat on each other, the circles becoming smaller as they rise towards the top. Why Absalom should have had such a tomb, who can say? That his bones were buried there, the Jews at least believe; for Jewish fathers, as they walk by with their children, bid their boys each cast a stone there to mark their displeasure at the child who rebelled against his parent. It is now nearly full of such stones.
While Miss Waddington was arranging her toilet within the tomb of St. James, her admirers below were not making themselves agreeable to each other. "It was the awkwardest thing I ever saw," said Mr. Cruse to Mr. M'Gabbery, in a low tone, but not so low but what Bertram was intended to hear it.
"Very," said Mr. M'Gabbery. "Some men are awkward by nature;—seem, indeed, as though they were never intended for ladies' society."
"And then to do nothing but laugh at the mischief he had caused. That may be the way at Oxford; but we used to flatter ourselves at Cambridge that we had more politeness."
"Cambridge!" said Bertram, turning round and speaking with the most courteous tone he could command. "Were you at Cambridge? I thought I had understood that you were educated at St. Bees." Mr. Cruse had been at St. Bees, but had afterwards gone to the University.
"I was a scholar at St. John's, sir," replied Mr. Cruse, with much dignity. "M'Gabbery, shall we take a stroll across the valley till the ladies are ready?" And so, having sufficiently shown their contempt for the awkward Oxonian, they moved away.
"Two very nice fellows, are they not?" said Bertram to Mr. Hunter. "It's a stroke of good fortune to fall in with such men as that at such a place as this."
"They're very well in their own way," said Mr. Hunter, who was lying on the grass, and flattering himself that he looked more Turkish than any Turk he had yet seen. "But they don't seem to me to be quite at home here in the East. Few Englishman in fact are. Cruse is always wanting boiled vegetables, and M'Gabbery can't eat without a regular knife and fork. Give me a pilau and a bit of bread, and I can make a capital dinner without anything to help me but my own fingers."
"Cruse isn't a bad kind of coach," said young Pott. "He never interferes with a fellow. His only fault is that he's so spoony about women."