“Iron legs!” sez I; “how could he git round?”
“By main strength.” Sez he, “He wuz a powerful man; he wuz called the ‘Iron Duke.’”
I gin him a pityin’ glance, but strangers wuz by, and I wouldn’t humiliate him by disputin’ him. I merely sez, “If I wuz in your place I would keep still for the rest of the day, Josiah Allen.”
But Adrian, who took it all in good part, and with immense interest, sez—
“How funny it must be to shake hands with him, but how it would hurt to have him strike you over the ear!”
Sez I, “Adrian, you keep with Alice and me.” Sez I, “We’re a-goin’ to look at General Gordon’s statute.”
This noble life and noble death are kep’ in memory by a beautiful statute, recumbient and a-layin’ down. The face, they say, is a good likeness. And as I looked at it, the thought of that noble and manly creeter almost brung tears to my eyes.
Wall, we proceeded on eastward to the dome. Here is the pulpit and the place where the bigger part of the congregation sit.
Lookin’ up, we see glitterin’ spaces filled with beautiful mosiacs, and up there are the benine figgers of the Evangelists, and the four great Prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
Agin that thought of what would be done with our memories hanted me. They wandered about in goats’ skins here—afflicted, persecuted; did they think they would ever be throned in sech gorgeous places? No, indeed.