John and Betty's History Visit. Margaret Williamson
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.”
The Chapter House has been restored now, and the windows are of modern stained-glass. In the cases are preserved some valuable documents, the oldest being a grant of land, made by King Offa, in 785.
To reach the Jerusalem Chamber, it is necessary to go through a part of the cloisters, and into the court of the Deanery. On one side is the old abbot’s refectory, or dining-hall, where the Westminster school-boys now dine. John went boldly up the steps and entered. After a few minutes, he came running out again, exclaiming:
“Nobody stopped me, so I went right in, and looked around. A maid was setting the tables, and I noticed that she stared at me, but she didn’t say anything, so I stayed. The hall is great! It isn’t very large, but is paneled and hung with portraits. The old tables, a notice says, are made from wood taken from one of the vessels of the Spanish Armada. Wonder how they found it and brought it here! I was just going to ask the maid, when a savage-looking man appeared and said I had no business there. So I came away. I don’t care; I saw it, anyway!” he added, as they approached the entrance of the Jerusalem Chamber.
All three sides of this little court were the abbot’s lodgings, and are now the deanery. The Jerusalem Chamber was built about 1376, as a guest-chamber for the abbot’s house.
“The name is curious, isn’t it?” remarked Mrs. Pitt. “It probably came from some tapestries which formerly hung there, representing the history of Jerusalem. It was in this room, right here in front of the fireplace, according to tradition, that Henry IV died. A strange dream had told the King that he would die in Jerusalem, and he was actually preparing for the journey there, when he was taken very ill, and they carried him into this room. When he asked where they had brought him, and the reply was, ‘To the Jerusalem Chamber,’ he died satisfied. Many bodies have lain here in state, too—among them, that of Joseph Addison, whom they afterwards buried in the Abbey. When we come again, I will show you his grave. Now, notice the bits of ancient stained-glass in the windows, and the cedar paneling; except for that, there is nothing specially noteworthy here.”
As they left the Dean’s Yard and crossed the open space in front of the great western towers of the Abbey, John and Betty agreed that if they could see nothing more in England, they were already repaid for their long journey across the ocean.
CHAPTER FOUR
PENSHURST PLACE: THE HOME OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
In Charing Cross Station one morning, Mrs. Pitt hurried up to the “booking-office,” as the English call the ticket-office, to “book” five tickets to Penshurst. While the man was getting her change, she turned and said to Philip:—
“Please ask that guard who is standing there, on which platform we shall find the 9.40 train for Penshurst.”
Philip did so, and returned with the information that they should go to Platform 8. So they all mounted the steps and walked over the foot-bridge which always runs across and above all the tracks, in an English station. There was a bench on the platform, and they sat down to await the arrival of the train. About 9.35, five minutes before the train was to start, John happened to see a train official sauntering by, and asked him if it was correct that the Penshurst train left from that platform.
The man stared. “Really, you are quite mistaken,” he drawled; “that train leaves from Platform 2. You had better hurry, you know; you haven’t much time.”
John waited for nothing more, but ran to tell the rest, and they all started for the other end of the station. Up the steep steps again ran Mrs. Pitt, with the four young people following. Along the bridge they flew till they reached Platform 2, and then they almost fell down the steps in their hurry, for the train was already there.
When they were fairly seated in a third-class carriage, John, still out of breath, exclaimed:—
“Whew! My! I never ran faster in my life, did you, Philip? How the girls kept up, I don’t know! You’re a first-class sprinter all right, Mrs. Pitt! We’d like you on our football team, at home! My, but I’m hot!”
He paused for breath, and then went on excitedly:
“There was a close call for you! We’d have lost it if I hadn’t spoken to that guard, just in fun! There we were calmly waiting, and all of a sudden, we took that wild dash across the bridge! It was great! I hope somebody caught a photograph of us! I’d like to see one! How stupid of the guard to make that mistake! They never seem to know very much, anyway. If I ever am a guard, I shall be different; I shall know things!”
They all had a good laugh over the adventure, and Mrs. Pitt assured John that when he was a guard, they would all promise to use his station.
“Don’t these trains seem different from ours, Betty?” the future guard asked of his sister. “It seems so queer to me why they want to take a perfectly good, long car, and chop it up from side to side, into little narrow rooms, like this! What’s the use of having so many doors?—one on each side of every ‘compartment’! And then, they put handles only on the outside, so you have to let down the window and lean away out to open it for yourself, if the guard doesn’t happen to do it for you! We Americans couldn’t waste so much time!”
Just then, Betty, who could contain herself no longer, burst out laughing.
“Why, what in the world’s the matter?” cried Barbara.
Betty could only point to a passing train. “It’s only the funny little freight cars!” she finally explained, rather ashamed that she had let her feelings escape in that way. “They look so silly to us! They seem about a third the size of the ones at home. Really, these remind me of a picture in my history-book, of the first train ever run in America!”
Mrs. Pitt smiled. “Yes, I can imagine just how strange they must seem to you, for I remember very well how I felt the first time I ever rode in one of your trains. To me, one of the most interesting things about visiting a foreign country, is to see the different modes of travel.”
“Oh,