An American Girl Abroad Part 2

These are the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.

These are the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.

These are the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.

These are the "military knights" forlorn, founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.

These are the knights that the garter have worn, with armorial banners tattered and torn, that look down on the military knights forlorn, founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.

This is the dean, all shaven and shorn, with the canons and clerks that doze in the morn, that install the knights that the garter have worn, with armorial banners tattered and torn, that look down on the military knights forlorn, founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.

And so on. The train within the castle walls that follows the queen is endless.

We pa.s.sed through the great, grand, state apartments, refurnished at the time of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, for the use of the Danish family. We mounted to the battlements of the Round Tower by the hundred steps, the grim cannon gazing down upon us from the top. Half a dozen visitors were already there, gathered as closely as possible about the angular guide, listening to his geography lesson, and looking off upon the wonderful panorama of park, and wood, and winding river. Away to the right rose the spire of Stoke Pogis Church, where the curfew still "tolls the knell of parting day." To the left, in the great park below, lay Frogmore, where sleeps Prince Albert the Good. Eton College, too, peeped out from among the trees, its gardens touching the Thames, and in the distance,--beyond the sleeping villages tucked in among the trees,--the shadowy blue hills held up the sky.

St. George's Chapel is in the quadrangle below. It is the chapel of the Knights of the Garter. And now, when you read of the chapels, or churches, or cathedrals in the old world,--and they are all in a sense alike,--pray don't imagine a New England meeting-house with a double row of stiff pews and a choir in the gallery singing "Antioch"! The body of the chapel was a great, bare s.p.a.ce, with tablets and elaborate monuments against the walls. Opening from this were alcoves,--also called chapels,--each one containing the tombs and monuments of some family. As many of the inscriptions are dated centuries back, you can imagine they are often quaintly expressed. One old knight, who died in Catholic times, desired an open Breviary to remain always in the niche before his tomb, that pa.s.sers might read to their comfort, and say for him an orison. Of course this would never do in the days when the chapel fell into Protestant hands. A Bible was subst.i.tuted, chained into its place; but the old inscription, cut deep in the stone, still remains, beginning "Who leyde thys book here?" with a startling appropriateness of which the author never dreamed. Over another of these chapels is rudely cut an ox, an N, and a bow,--the owner having, in an antic manner, hardly befitting the place, thus written his name--Oxenbow.

You enter the choir, where the installations take place, by steps, pa.s.sing under the organ. In the chancel is a fine memorial window to Prince Albert. On either side are the stalls or seats for the knights, with the armorial banner of each hanging over his place. Projecting over the chancel, upon one side, is what appears to be a bay-window. This is the queen's gallery, a little room with blue silk hangings,--for blue is the color worn by Knights of the Garter,--where she sits during the service. Through these curtains she looked down upon the marriage of the Prince of Wales. Think of being thus put away from everybody, as though one were plague-stricken. A private station awaits her when she steps from the train at the castle gates. A private room is attached to the green-houses, to the riding-school in the park, and even to the private chapel. A private photograph-room, for the taking of the royal pictures, adjoins her apartments. It must be a fine thing to be a queen,--and so tiresome! Even the gold spoon in one's mouth could not offset the weariness of it all, and of gold spoons she has an unbounded supply; from ten to fifteen millions of dollars worth of gold plate for her majesty's table being guarded within the castle! Think of it, little women who set up house-keeping with half a dozen silver teaspoons and a salt-spoon!

We waited before a great gate until the striking of some forgotten hour, to visit the royal mews. You may walk through all these stables in slippers and in your daintiest gown, without fear. A stiff young man in black--a cross between an undertaker and an incipient clergyman in manner--acted as guide. Other parties, led by other stiff young men, followed or crossed our path. There were stalls and stalls, upon either side, in room after room,--for one could not think of calling them stables,--filled by sleek bays for carriage or saddle. And the ponies!--the dear little s.h.a.ggy browns, with sweeping tails, and wonderful eyes peeping out from beneath moppy manes, the milk-white, tiny steeds, with hair like softest silk,--they won our hearts. Curled up on the back of one, fast asleep, lay a Maltese kitten; the "royal mew" some one called it. The carriages were all plain and dark, for the ordinary use of the court. In one corner a prim row of little yellow, wicker, baby-wagons attracted our attention, like those used by the poorest mother in the land. In these the royal babies have taken their first airings.

The state equipages we saw another day at Buckingham Palace,--the cream-colored horses, the carriages and harnesses all crimson and gold.

There they stand, weeks and months together, waiting for an occasion.

The effect upon a fine day, under favoring auspices,--the sun shining, the bands playing, the crowd of gazers, the prancing horses, the gilded chariots,--must almost equal the triumphal entry of a first cla.s.s circus into a New England town!

CHAPTER IV.

SIGHT-SEEING IN LONDON.

The Tower.--The tall Yankee of inquiring mind.--Our guide in gorgeous array.--War trophies.--Knights in armor.--A professional joke.--The crown jewels.--The house where the little princes were smothered.--The "Traitor's Gate."--The Houses of Parliament.--What a throne is like.--The "woolsack."--The Peeping Gallery for ladies.--Westminster Hall and the law courts.--The three drowsy old women.--The Great Panjandrum himself.--Johnson and the pump.--St.

Paul's.--Wellington's funeral car.--The Whispering Gallery.--The bell.

THE TOWER.

IT is not a tower at all, as we reckon towers, you must know, but a walled town upon the banks of the Thames, in the very heart of London.

Hundreds of years ago, when what is now this great city was only moor and marsh, the Romans built here--a castle, perhaps. Only a bit of crumbling wall, of mouldering pavement, remain to tell the story. When the Normans came in to possess the land, William the Conqueror erected upon this spot a square fortress, with towers rising from its four corners. Every succeeding monarch added a castle, a tower, a moat, to strengthen its strength and extend its limits, until, in time, it covered twelve acres of land, as it does to this day. Here the kings and queens of England lived in comfortless state, until the time of Queen Elizabeth, having need to be hedged about with something more than royalty to insure safety. Times have changed; swords have been beaten into ploughshares; and where the moat once encircled the tower wall, flowers blossom now. The dungeons that for centuries held prisoners of state do not confine any one to-day; and the strongholds that guarded the person of England's sovereign keep in safety now the jewels and the crown. There are round towers, and square towers, and, for anything I know, three-cornered towers, each with its own history of horrors. There are windows from which people were thrown, bridges over which they were dragged, and dark holes in which they were incarcerated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A dozen umbrellas were tipped up; the rain fell fast upon a dozen upturned, expectant faces." Page 57.]

To appreciate all this, you should see it--as we did one chilly May morning. We huddled about the stove in the waiting-room upon the site of the old royal menagerie, our companions a round man, with a limp gingham cravat and shabby coat, a little old woman in a poke bonnet, and half a dozen or more schoolboys from the country. A tall Yankee of inquiring mind joined us as we sallied from the door, led by a guide gorgeous in ruff and buckles, cotton velvet and gilt lace, and with all these glories surmounted by a black hat, that swelled out at the top in a wonderful manner. Down the narrow street within the gates, over the slippery cobble-stones, under considerable mental excitement, and our alpaca umbrella, we followed our guide to an archway, before which he paused, and struck an att.i.tude. The long Yankee darted forward. "Stand back, my friends, stand back," said the guide. "You will please form a circle." Immediately a dozen umbrellas surrounded him. He pointed to a narrow window over our heads; a dozen umbrellas were tipped up; the rain fell fast upon a dozen upturned, expectant faces. "In that room, Sir ----" (I could not catch the name) "spent the night before his execution, in solemn meditation and prayer." There was a circular groan of sympathy and approval from a dozen lips, the re-cant of a dozen dripping umbrellas, and we pattered on to the next point of interest, following our leader through pools of blood, figuratively speaking,--literally, through pools of water,--our eyes distended, our cheeks pale with horror. Ah, what treasures of credulity we must have been to the guides in those days! Time brought unbelief and hardness of heart.

We mounted stairs narrow and dark; we descended stairs dark and narrow; we entered chambers gloomy and grim. The half I could not tell--of the rooms filled with war trophies--scalps in the belt of the nation--from the Spanish Armada down to the Sepoy rebellion; the long hall, with its double row of lumbering old warriors encased in steel, as though they had stepped into a steel tower and walked off, tower and all, some fine morning; the armory, with its stacked arms for thirty thousand men. "We may have occasion to use them," said the guide, facetiously, making some reference to the speech of Mr. Sumner, just then acting the part of a stick to stir up the British lion. The Yankee chuckled complacently, and we, too, refused to quake. There was a room filled with instruments of torture, diabolical inventions, recalling the days of the Inquisition.

The Yankee expressed a desire to "see how some o' them things worked."

Opening from this was an unlighted apartment, with walls of stone, a dungeon indeed, in which we were made to believe that Sir Walter Raleigh spent twelve years of his life. No shadow of doubt would have fallen upon our unquestioning minds, had we been told that he amused himself during this time by standing upon his head. "Walk in, walk in," said the smiling guide, as we peered into its darkness. We obeyed. "Now," said he, "that you may appreciate his situation, I will step out and close the door." The little old woman screamed; the Yankee made one stride to the opening; the guide laughed. It was only a professional joke; there was no door. We saw the bare prison-room, with its rough fireplace, the slits between the stones of the wall to admit light and air, and the initials of Lady Jane Grey, with a host more of forgotten names, upon the walls. Just outside, within the quadrangle, where the gra.s.s grew green beneath the summer rain, she was beheaded,--poor little innocent,--who had no desire to be a queen! In another tower close by, guarded by iron bars, were the royal jewels and the crown, for which all this blood was shed--pretty baubles of gold and precious stones, but hardly worth so many lives.

You remember the story of the princes smothered in the Tower by command of their cruel uncle? There was the narrow pa.s.sage in the wall where the murderers came at night; the worn step by which they entered the great, bare room where the little victims slept; the winding stairs down which the bodies were thrown. Beneath the great stone at the foot they were secretly buried. Then the stairway was walled up, lest the stones should cry out; and no one knew the story of the burial until long, long afterwards--only a few years since--when the walled-up stairway was discovered, the stones at the foot displaced, and a heap of dust, of little crumbling bones, revealed it. A rosy-faced, motherly woman, the wife of a soldier quartered in the barracks here, answered the rap of the guide upon the nail-studded door opening from one of the courts, and told us the old story. "The bed of the princes stood just there," she said, pointing to one corner, where, by a curious coincidence, a little bed was standing now. She answered the question in our eyes with, "My boys sleep there." "But do you not fear that the murderers will come back some night by this same winding way, and smother them?" How she laughed! And, indeed, what had ghosts to do with such a cheery body!

Down through the "Traitors' Gate," with its spiked portcullis, we could see the steps leading to the water. Through this gate prisoners were brought from trial at Westminster. It is said that the Princess Elizabeth was dragged up here when she refused to come of her own will, knowing too well that they who entered here left hope behind. A little later, with music and the waving of banners, and amid the shouts of the people, she rode out of the great gates into the city, the Queen of England.

THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

Though they have stood barely thirty years, already the soft gray limestone begins to crumble away,--the elements, with a sense of the fitness of things, striving to act the part of time, and bring them into a likeness of the adjoining abbey. There is an exquisite beauty in the thousand gilded points and pinnacles that pierce the fog, or shine softly through the mist that veils the city. Ethereal, shadowy, unreal they are, like the spires of a celestial city, or the far away towers and turrets we see sometimes at sunset in the western sky.

Here, you know, are the chambers of the Houses of Lords and Commons, with the attendant lobbies, libraries, committee-rooms, &c., and a withdrawing-room for the use of the queen when she is graciously pleased to open Parliament in person. The speaker of the House of Commons, as well as some other officials, reside here--a novel idea to us, who could hardly imagine the speaker of our House of Representatives taking up his abode in the Capitol! Parliament was not in session, and we walked through the various rooms at will, even to the robing-room of the n.o.ble lords, where the peg upon which Lord Stanley hangs his hat was pointed out; and very like other pegs it was. At one end of the chamber of the House of Lords is the throne. It is a simple affair enough--a gilded arm-chair on a little platform reached by two or three steps, and with crimson hangings. Extending down on either side are the crimson-cushioned seats without desks. In the centre is a large square ottoman,--the woolsack,--which might, with equal appropriateness, be called almost anything else. Above, a narrow gallery offers a lounging-place to the sons and friends of the peers; and at one end, above the throne, is a high loft, a kind of uplifted amen corner, for strangers, with a s.p.a.ce where women may sit and look down through a screen of lattice-work upon the proceedings below. It seems a remnant of Eastern customs, strangely out of place in this Western world, and akin to the shrouding of ourselves in veils, like our Oriental sisters. Or can it be that the n.o.ble lords are more keenly sensitive to the distracting influence of bright eyes than other men?

WESTMINSTER HALL AND THE LAW COURTS.

Adjoining the Houses of Parliament is this vast old hall. For almost five hundred years has it stood, its curiously carved roof unsupported by column or pillar. Here royal banquets, as well as Parliaments, have been held, and more than one court of justice. Here was the great trial of Warren Hastings. It was empty now of everything but echoes and the long line of statuary on either side, except the lawyers in their long, black gowns, who hastened up and down its length, or darted in and out the three baize doors upon one side, opening into the Courts of Chancery, Common Pleas, and the Exchequer. Our national curiosity was aroused, and we mounted the steps to the second, which had won our sympathies from its democratic name.

There were high, straight-backed pews of familiar appearance, rising one above the other, into the last of which we climbed, a certain Sunday solemnity stealing over us, a certain awkward consciousness that we were the observed of all observers, since we were the only spectators--a delusion of our vanity, however. In the high gallery before us, in complacent comfort, sat three fat, drowsy old women (?) in white, curling wigs, and voluminous gowns, asking all manner of distracting questions, and requiring to be told over and over again,--after the manner of drowsy old women,--to the utter confusion of a poor witness in the front pew, who clung to the rail and swayed about hopelessly, while he tried to tell his story, as if by this rotary motion he could churn his ideas into form. Not only did he lose the thread of his discourse,--he became hopelessly entangled in it. Scratch, scratch, scratch, went the pens all around him. Every word, as it fell from his lips, was pounced upon by the begowned, bewigged, bewildering judges, was twisted and turned by the lawyers, was tossed back and forth throughout the court-room, until there arose a question in our minds, as to who was telling the story. All the while the lawyers were glaring upon him as though he was perjuring himself with every word--as who would not be, under the circ.u.mstances? And such lawyers! They dotted the pews all around us. The long, black gowns were not so bad; they hid a deal of awkwardness, I doubt not. But the wigs! the queer little curly things, perched upon every head, and worn with such a perverse delight in misfits! the small men being invariably hidden beneath the big wigs, and the large men strutting about like the great Panjandrum himself with the little round b.u.t.ton at the top! The appearance of one, whose head, through some uncommon development, rose to a ridge-pole behind, was surprising, to say the least. It was not alone that his wig was too small, that a fringe of straight, black hair fell below its entire white circ.u.mference; it was not alone that it was parted upon the wrong side, or that, being mansard in form, and his head hip-roofed, it could never, by any process, have been shaped thereto; but I doubt if the wearing of it upside down, added to all these little drawbacks, could conduce to the beauty or dignity of any man. Unmindful of this reversed order of nature, its happy possessor skipped about the court-room, nodding to his brethren with a blithesome air, to the imminent peril of his top-knot, which sustained about the same relation to his head as the sword to that of Damocles. He speered down upon the poor witness. He pretended to make notes of dreadful import with a screaming quill, and, in fact, comported himself with an airy unconsciousness delightful to see.

In regard to the proceedings of the court, I only know that the point under discussion concerned one Johnson, and a pump; and Mr. Pickwick's judge sat upon the bench. Whether he was originally round, red-faced, with gooseberry eyes, I do not remember; but all these pleasing characteristics he possessed at this present time, as well as a pudgy forefinger, with which to point his remarks.

"You say," he repeated, with a solemnity of which my pen is incapable, and impressing every word upon the poor man in the front pew with this same forefinger, "that--Bunsen--went--to--the--pump?"

"Johnson, my lord," the witness ventured to correct him, in a low tone.

"It makes no difference," responded the judge, irate, "whether it is Bunsen or Jillson. The question is, Did--Jillson--go--to--the--pump?"

Whom the G.o.ds destroy they first deprive of their five senses. Four, at least, of the poor man's had departed some time since. The fifth followed. "Johnson went, my lord," he replied, doggedly. Having found one point upon which his mind was clear, he clung to it with the tenacity of despair.

"Johnson! who's _Johnson_?" gasped the bewildered judge, over whose face a net of perplexed lines spread itself upon the introduction of this new character. In the confusion of denials and explanations that followed, we descended from our perch, and stole away; nor are we at all sure, to this day, as to whether Johnson did or did not really go to the pump.

ST. PAUL'S.

Imagine our surprise, one day, when admiring a pretty ribbon upon a friend, to be told that it came from St. Paul's Churchyard. Hardly the place for ribbons, one would think; but the narrow street which encircles the cathedral in the form of a bow and its string goes by this name, and contains, besides the bookstores and publishing houses, some fine "silk mercers'" establishments.

The gray surface of the grand edifice is streaked with black, as though time had beaten it with stripes, and a pall of smoke and dust covers the statues in the court before it. Consecrated ground this is, indeed. From the earliest times of the Christian religion, through all the bigotry and fanaticism of the ages that followed, down to the present time, the word of G.o.d has been proclaimed here--in weakness often, in bitterness many times that belied the spirit of its message; by a priesthood more corrupt than the people; by n.o.ble men, beyond the age in which they lived, and whom the flames of martyrdom could not appall. Under Diocletian the first church was destroyed. It was rebuilt, and destroyed again by the Saxons. Twice has it been levelled to the ground by fire.

But neither sword nor flame could subdue it, and firm as a rock it stands to-day, as it has stood for nearly two hundred years, and as it seems likely to stand for ages to come. The sacred stillness that invests the place was rudely broken, the morning of our visit, by the blows from the hammers of the workmen, resounding through the dome like a discharge of artillery. A great stage, and seats in the form of an amphitheatre, were being erected in the nave for a children's festival, which prevented our doing more than glance down its length. We read some of the inscriptions upon the monuments, that one, so often quoted, of Sir Christopher Wren, among them--"Do you seek his monument? Look around you;" glanced into the choir, with its Gothic stalls, where the service is performed, and then descended into the crypt beneath all this, that labyrinth of damp darkness where so many lie entombed. Here is the funeral car of Wellington, with candles burning around it, cast from the conquering cannon which thundered victory to a nation, but sorrow and death to many a home. Shrouded with velvet it is, as are the horses, in imitation of those which bore him to his rest. All around were marble effigies, blackened, broken, as they survived the burning of the late cathedral, at the time of the great fire. Tombstones formed the pavement. "Whose can this be?" I said, trying to follow with the point of my umbrella the half-worn inscription beneath my feet. It was that of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Strange enough it seemed to us, coming from a country so new as to have been by no means prolific in great men, to find them here lying about under our feet.

Having explored the crypt, we prepared to mount the endless winding stairs, whose final termination is the ball under the cross that surmounts the whole. Our ambition aimed only at the bell beneath the ball. We paid an occasional sixpence for the privilege of peeping into the library,--a most tidy and put-to-rights room, with a floor of wood patchwork,--and for the right to look down upon the geometrical staircase which winds around and clings to the wall upon one side, but is without any visible support upon the other. The "whispering gallery"

was reached after a time. It is the encircling cornice within the dome, surrounded by a railing, and forming a narrow gallery. "I will remain here," said the guide, "while you pa.s.s around until you are exactly opposite; wait there until I whisper." Had we possessed the spirit of Casabianca, we should at this moment be sitting upon that narrow bench against the wall, with our feet upon the gas-pipes. We waited and listened, and listened and waited; but the sound of the blows from the hammers below reverberated like thunder around us. We could not have heard the crack of doom. Becoming conscious, after a time, that our guide had disappeared, we came out and continued our ascent. Mrs. K.'s curiosity, if not satisfied, was at least quenched, and she refused to go farther. My aspirations still pointed upward. There was another sixpence, another dizzy mount of dark, twisting stairs, with strength, ambition, and even curiosity gradually left behind, and with only one blind instinct remaining--to go on. There was a long, dingy pa.s.sage, through which ghostly forms were flitting; there were more stairs, with twists and turns, forgotten now with other torments; there was the mounting of half a dozen rickety wooden steps at last, for no object but to descend shakily upon the other side, and then we found ourselves in a little dark corner, peering over a dingy rail, with a great, dusky object filling all the s.p.a.ce below. And that was the bell! "Well, and what of it?" I don't know; but we saw it!

CHAPTER V.

AWAY TO PARIS.

The wedding party.--The ca.n.a.ls.--New Haven.--Around the tea-table.--Separating the sheep from the goats.--"Will it be a rough pa.s.sage?"--Gymnastic feats of the little steamer.--O, what were officers to us?--"Who ever invented earrings!"--Dieppe.--Fish-wives.--Train for Paris.--Fellow-pa.s.sengers.--Rouen.--Babel.--Deliverance.