And he said he “never thought of makin’ idols of ’em—worshippin’ a tossel!” sez he, scorfin’ly. But he duz think too much on’t.
Wall, the next mornin’ the fog seemed to be lowered a little. I could see the sun, or pretty nigh see it, which I felt wuz indeed a blessin’; and after a good breakfast we sot off on a excursion.
I had sed from the first minute London wuz talked on, that Westminster Abbey wuz my first gole, and the rest seemed to feel a good deal as I did. Al Faizi and Alice wuz dretful anxious to see it, and Martin sed—
He thought it wuz probble what would be expected of him, and if he wuz summoned home on account of his business, he said he must be able to say that he had been to Westminster Abbey, anyway.
So he engaged a big carriage, and we sot off, Josiah kinder laggin’ back and actin’ onwillin’. He had found a New York World in the readin’-room for the first time sence he left home, and he sed openly—
That he had ruther stay to home with his dressin’-gown on and read that paper than to see any Abbey that ever wuz born.
He thought it wuz some noted woman, and I wuz deeply touched by his preference, and cast-iron principle; but I explained, and would make him go. So we sot off.
Wall, the first view I got of that imposin’ edifice looked jest as nateral as could be; for Thomas J. has got a big photograph of it framed in his office, with the two great, high towers, 225 feet high, and the big Gothic winder between ’em, and the great Gothic door below. The buildin’ is a immense one; it is built in the form of a cross, and is more’n five hundred feet long.
I can tell you, I had a sight—a sight of emotions, and about as large sized ones as I ever had, as I stood inside, under them lofty arches, full of the mellow light of the stained-glass winders, and looked off down, down that long colonnade of pillows, at the end of which, fur off, is the chapel of Edward the Confessor.
This chapel is full of the tombs of kings and queens—Henry III., in brass, lyin’ on top of a huge porphery tomb; Edward I. and his queen, Eleanor, who sucked the poison from her husband’s wound in Palestine; and Queen Philippi, who put down a insurrection in Scotland, while her pardner, Edward III., wuz away from home.