THE SAXON PRIEST STRIKING THE IMAGES.
“I like the association of St. Joseph’s name with this old ruin so well,” said Wyllys, “that I wish to see the staff that you say is believed to bloom at Christmas.”
On the south side of Glastonbury is Weary-all Hill. It owes its name to a very poetic legend. It is said that St. Joseph and his companions, all of them weary in one of their missionary journeys, here sat down to rest, and the Saint planted his staff into the earth, and left it there. From it, we are told, springs the famous Glastonbury Thorn which blossoms every Christmas, and whose miraculous flowers were adored in the Middle Ages. Such a shrub still remains which blooms in midwinter, and perpetuates the memory of the pretty superstition.
CHAPTER XII.
LONDON.
London.—Westminster Abbey.—Westminster Hall and Parliament Houses.—The Tower.—Sir Henry Wyat and His Cat.—Madame Tussaud’s Wax Works.—Tommy Accosts a Stranger.—Hampton Court Palace.—Stories of Charles I. and Cromwell.—The Duchess’s Wonderful Pie.—The Boys’ Day.—Tommy goes Punch and Judy Hunting.—Street Amusements.—Tommy’s Misadventure.—George Howe’s Cheap Tour.—Windsor Castle.—Story of Prince Albert and his Queen.—Antwerp.
THE train, from its sinuous windings among old English landscapes and thickly populated towns, seemed at last to be gliding into a new world of vanishing houses and streets. It suddenly stopped under the glass roof of an immense station, where a regiment of porters in uniform were awaiting it, and where all outside seemed a world of cabmen.
London!—the world’s great city, the nations’ bazaar,—where humanity runs in no fixed channels, but ceaselessly ebbs and flows like the sea. Cabs, cabs! then a swift rattle through rattling vehicles, going in every direction, on, on, on! Names of places read in histories and story-books pass before the eye. The tides of travel everywhere seem to overflow; all is bewildering, confusing. What a map a man’s mind must be to thread the innumerable streets of London!
The Class stopped at a popular hotel in a fine part of the city, called the West End. It is pleasanter and more economical to take furnished lodgings in London, if one is to remain in the city for a week or more, but as Master Lewis was to allow the boys but a few days’ visit, he took them to a hotel in a quarter where the best London life could be seen.