Storm winds of the equinox.”
Yes, he seemed to bear me clear to the musical murmurs of Minnehaha, Laughing Water, and from Acadia to Spain. I travelled fur and wide.
And then there wuz the tomb of Thomas Campbell and Matthew Prior and James Watt and Mrs. Siddons. Not all in one place are these tablets and busts and monuments, but my mind seems to kinder gather ’em in together as I look back.
The most elegant chapel in the Abbey is that of Henry VII. Its noble arched ceilin’ is exquisitely ornamented and carved—flowers, vines, armorial designs, etc., etc., in almost bewilderin’ richness and profusion. Henry and his wife Elizabeth the last to rain of the House of York.
In this chapel is also the tomb of poor Mary, Queen of Scots, with her figger in alabaster on top of it.
If it wuzn’t in alabaster—if she wuz alive, and if the kings and queens wuz also alive and actin’—what a time there would be in that old Abbey!
If that exquisite body had agin that rare gift of magnetism—or, I d’no what it wuz, anyway, it wuz sunthin’ that drawed men to her despite their own will, and, it is needless to say, aginst their pardners’ wishes—what a time, what a time there would be!
How the emperors and kings and princes that now stood so still and demute would gather round her! How the wives would draw back and glare! And mebby some on ’em, bein’ quick-tempered, would throw their septers at her.
Poor creeter! mebby it’s jest as well that she is made of alabaster; for not fur from her is the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, a-layin’ down guarded by four lions.
She’d a-needed ’em, Lib would, if she’d a-expected to keep her lovers from a-follerin’ after Mary. She wuz a jealous creeter, and vain, although a middlin’ good calculator.