“There’s the Abbey right ahead of us.”—Page [25].
“This long, broad aisle extending from the main entrance to the choir is called the nave,” explained Mrs. Pitt. “The shorter aisles which form the crossing are the transepts, and the choir is always the eastern end of the building, containing the altar. These are facts which you will want to learn and remember.”
“The kings and queens are all buried here, aren’t they, Mrs. Pitt?” questioned John. “Will they put King Edward here, too, when he dies?”
“A great many kings and queens are buried here, though not all,” Mrs. Pitt told them. “The Royal Tombs are there, behind those gates, in the chapels which surround the choir. We can’t go in there unless we take a guide, and I thought we would wait for another day to visit the lovely chapel of Henry VII and all the famous tombs. I don’t want you to see too much at one time. No, John, King Edward probably will not be buried here. Queen Victoria, his mother, lies at a place called Frogmore, near Windsor, and it is likely that her son will choose that spot, also. Here’s the Poets’ Corner, and there is at least one face which I’m sure you will be glad to see. This is it.”
As she spoke, the party stopped in front of the well-known bust of our poet, Longfellow, which I suppose every American is proud to see.
“So they read ‘Hiawatha,’ even in England,” Betty remarked.
“There are tablets all over the floor, under our feet! Look, I’m standing on Dickens’ grave this very minute! And there’s ‘Oh, Rare Ben Jonson,’ right there on the wall; I’ve always heard of that. And here’s Spenser, and Chaucer, and Browning, and Tennyson, very close together. Oh! It’s dreadful! I don’t want to step on them! Why, everybody who ever was anybody seems to be here!” gasped John, forgetting his grammar in his interest.
“Here are busts of Scott (there’s the man for me!), and Burns, Goldsmith, and Coleridge; I know all these names. Here’s a statue of Shakespeare, though of course he isn’t buried here. There’s a tablet to Jenny Lind. Wasn’t she a singer? Seems to me I’ve heard my grandpa speak of her. And, if here isn’t Thackeray’s grave—there in the floor again! Well! Well!”
“Come over here, John, and see this,” called Philip, pointing to a tomb on which was this inscription: