I told Mrs. D. the story of Sir Thomas More's head, which his daughter bribed a man to remove from the spike on the bridge and drop into a boat below where she sat, and the old lady said, "It must 'ave bin a good shot". The person responsible for Mrs. D.'s anatomy left out the bump of reverence; sentiment is also foreign to her composition, whilst her scepticism of anything she cannot actually see and touch is a deeply ingrained quality. Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII, Charles II, the Christian martyrs, are, in her estimation, to be taken with a grain of salt. She makes no distinction between them and "'Amblet" or the creations of Bunyan's brain. Tradition is a dead letter to her, and although she takes a marked interest in the Plague and the Great Fire, I have a suspicion if she were asked to "have a bit" on the actuality of those happenings, she would lay odds for, with a sensation of risk.
Another story of a head, instinct with the fee-faw-fum spirit of the times, is that about good old John Fisher, who would not recognise the spiritual claims of Henry VIII. Fisher's head was parboiled before being spiked, and, according to Walter Thornbury, in his "Old and New London," "the face for a fortnight remained so ruddy and lifelike and such crowds collected to see the so-called miracle, that the king, in a rage, at last ordered the head to be thrown down into the river".
But, dear lady, I am burning the midnight oil and must to bed. Do I dream, or does the old watchman pass my window crying:—
Maids in your smocks,
Look to your locks,
Your fire and your light,
And give you good night?
Anyhow, it is a relief to turn from those ghastly trophies on the battlements of the Bridge to this kindly warning with its concluding benediction.
I echo the latter, and am ever yours,
GEORGE.
CHAPTER IV
CARRINGTON MEWS,
7th October.