Jonson,’ right there on the wall; I’ve always heard of that. And here’s Spenser, and Chaucer, and Browning, and Tennyson, very close together. Oh! It’s dreadful! I don’t want to step on them! Why, everybody who ever was anybody seems to be here!” gasped John, forgetting his grammar in his interest.

“Here are busts of Scott (there’s the man for me!), and Burns, Goldsmith, and Coleridge; I know all these names. Here’s a statue of Shakespeare, though of course he isn’t buried here. There’s a tablet to Jenny Lind. Wasn’t she a singer? Seems to me I’ve heard my grandpa speak of her. And, if here isn’t Thackeray’s grave—there in the floor again! Well! Well!”

“Come over here, John, and see this,” called Philip, pointing to a tomb on which was this inscription:

“Well, that beats them all!” laughed John, who was greatly pleased.

Mrs. Pitt now led the rest into the little chapel of St. Faith, off the south transept, where they sat down to rest.

“It’s the most wonderful place I ever dreamed of!” said Betty quietly, as though she were talking to herself. “This little chapel is the quaintest, oldest thing I ever saw! The walls are so dark; that tiny window up so high, hardly lets in any light at all; and the altar, with the faded picture, is so strange! I can’t believe it is the twentieth century; the people in the Abbey now don’t seem real to me at all. They look so small and shadowy beside the huge statues of people of other days! Surely the people the statues represent belong here, and not we! Why, I feel so far back in history that I shouldn’t be in the least surprised to see Raleigh, or Chaucer, or Queen Elizabeth, walk into this chapel, right now! I should probably go up and say ‘How do you do?’” she added laughingly.

Betty did not know that any one had heard her talking, but Mrs. Pitt had been listening, and when Betty was silent, she said:

“Come, let’s go out into the sunshine of the cloisters now. I am really afraid to have Betty stay in here any longer! The first thing we know, she’ll be disappearing into the Middle Ages! She’s almost there now!”

As they went through the low door into the cloisters, she continued, “I want to explain to you children, that in connection with this Abbey, as with all, there was for centuries a great monastery; and that the buildings which we shall see, as well as the cloisters, had to do with the monks. Henry VIII dissolved all the monasteries in England, you remember.”

The ancient cloisters of Westminster Abbey are deeply interesting and impressive. They are four arcades built around the square grass-plot, which was the monks’ burial-ground. The fine tracery of the windows is now much broken, and is crumbling away with age, but its exquisite carving is still plainly seen. The original pavement yet remains; it is much worn by the feet of the monks, and is almost covered by tablets which mark the resting-places of the abbots, as well as of others. The members of our party were touched, as are all, by the pathetic simplicity of the epitaph: “Jane Lister, Dear Childe, 1688.” Those four short words suggest a sad story about which one would like to learn more.

“You must know,” said Mrs. Pitt, “that the cloisters were something besides burial-places. Here the monks spent most of their time, for this was the center of the life of the monastery. The southern cloister, over opposite, was the lavatory, and there the monks were forced to have their heads shaved,—every two weeks in summer, and every three in winter. These walls were then painted with frescoes, the floor and benches were covered with rushes or straw, the windows were partly glazed, and lamps hung from the ceiling. In one of the cloisters was held a class of novices, taught by a master, and this was the beginning of Westminster School. I believe the pupils were allowed to speak only French. How would you like that?”

Adjoining the cloisters are numerous little passageways, with low arches, which lead into tiny courts dotted with flowers and little fountains. In the houses about, live the canons of the Abbey and others connected with the church. Lovely glimpses of sunlight and the bright colors of flowers are seen at the ends of these dark, ancient passages.

Westminster School may also be reached from the cloisters. Our party stood a moment in the doorway of the schoolroom to see the splendid old hall, with its fine oaken roof. This was once the dormitory of the monks, but is now taken up with the boys’ “forms,” or desks, piled with books. The walls above the wainscoting, and the window-recesses, are covered with signatures of the scholars,—some of them famous, for the school was begun as long ago as the time of Henry VIII, who was the founder. The visitor may see the name of the poet, Dryden, on one of the desks; he was a pupil there, as were also Sir Christopher Wren, the architect; Ben Jonson; Southey, the poet; and John and Charles Wesley.

“What is that iron bar for?” questioned the curious John, pointing to a long bar which stretches from wall to wall, across the middle of the room.

“That divides the Upper and Lower Classes,” was the prompt reply of Mrs. Pitt, whose stock of knowledge seemed endless. “At one time, a curtain was hung over that bar. Don’t you know the story which is told in the ‘Spectator Papers,’ about the boy who accidentally tore a hole in this curtain? He was a timid little fellow, and was terrified at the thought of the punishment which he felt sure would be his. One of his classmates came to the rescue, saying that he would take the blame upon himself, which he did. It was years later, when the timid boy had become a great judge, that the Civil War broke out, and he and his friend took opposite sides. The kind man who had saved his friend from punishment was a Royalist, and was captured and imprisoned at Exeter, where the other man happened to come at the same time, with the Circuit Court. At the moment when nothing remained but to sentence the ‘rebels,’ the judge recognized his friend, and by making a very hurried trip to London, he was able to secure a pardon from Cromwell, and thus succeeded in saving the man’s life.”

“That was fine!” said John. “He did pay him back after all, didn’t he? I thought he wasn’t going to.”

“Now, we will just look into the Chapter House and the old Jerusalem Chamber, before we go,” said Mrs. Pitt, as they left the school.

The Chapter House is a beautiful, eight-sided room, dating from the thirteenth century. Here the business of the monastery was always conducted, and at the meetings which came every week, the monks were allowed to speak freely, and to make complaints, if they wished. Here also the monks were punished.

“They used to whip them against that central pillar, there,” the guard explained. “Here sat the abbot, opposite the door, and the monks sat on benches ranged around the room. Parliament met here for many years, too, its last session in this room being on the day that the great King Hal died.”