On our way back we went into St. Peter's, Cornhill, where the dusk of the sombre interior makes a rich setting for the lovely peacock blue of the windows at the east end. As we pushed back the door we were greeted with the solemn chant of Wagner's "Pilgrims' Chorus," a strange and beautiful substitute for the roar of the traffic in Cornhill. Who shall say the City churches are of no use when they provide such interludes of rest and refreshment for men and women working in the offices at their doors?
St. Peter's lives in my memory not because it claims to be the first Christian church founded in London, but by reason of a tablet which I once discovered there in a dark corner. On it is described a story that for pathos and terror stands alone in my experience of such things. At the conclusion of the organ recital I took Mrs. Darling to that spot at the south-east end of the church where the sinister record is to be seen. Below the sculptured heads of seven cherubs is the following inscription:—
"Jane, born 1773. May, 1774. Charles, 1776. Harriet, 1777. George, 1778. John and Eliza, twins, 1779.... The whole offspring of James and Mary Woodmason, in the same awful moment on the 18th January, 1782, were translated by sudden and irresistible flames, in the late mansion of their sorrowing parents, from the sleep of innocence to eternal bliss.
"Their remains, collected from the ruins, are here combined. A sympathetic friend of the bereaved parents, their companion during the night of the 18th January, in a scene of distress beyond the powers of language, perhaps of imagination, devotes this spontaneous tribute of the feelings of his mind to the memory of innocence."
We turned away in silence, and we had got the length of the church before Mrs. D. said, "I wonder wot them parents 'ad done to be treated like that by the Almighty. 'Tisn't as if you paid yer money and took yer choice about livin' in this ole world. They didn't ask to be born neither, did them poor lambs that was burnt."
I wondered too. Did those parents continue to live in an empty world? Did they even live long enough to forget that night of surpassing horror?
There was no one to answer these questions, and catching sight of the caretaker it occurred to me that I had another question to ask which she would certainly be able to answer.
I had heard there was a subterranean passage entered by a flight of steps from the belfry, and I wanted to know if it was true.
"Yes, it is quite true," she answered. The passage led "right across to St. Helen's," but this may be only hearsay, as it has been bricked up a number of years. Why brick up such relics of mediævalism? They are of no use, answers the practical person, so why keep them? and he might add, just for the edification of a few Paul Prys like yourself. Subterranean passages, secret drawers, sliding panels, concealed cupboards, all, alas! have gone out of fashion. They belong to a childish age which we have outgrown.
Mrs. D. said she had no patience with people who were always putting their noses into holes and corners, expressing her conviction that such passages had dark histories in connection with "them monks," and after this I had not the courage to name my desire to explore the flight of steps leading from the belfry to the passage.