A Cathedral Courtship - Kate Douglas Wiggin (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📗

outside. Izaak Walton and Jane Austen are buried there.


HE


WINCHESTER, _May_ 28, 1891

The White Swan.

As sure as my name is Jack Copley, I saw the prettiest girl in the world to-day,--an American, too, or I'm greatly mistaken. It was in the cathedral, where I have been sketching for several days. I was sitting in the end of a seat, at afternoon service, when two ladies entered by the side door. The ancient maiden, evidently the head of the family, settled herself devoutly, and the young one stole off by herself to one of the old carved seats back of the choir. She was worse than pretty! I took a sketch of her during service, as she sat under the dark carved-oak canopy, with this Latin inscription over her head:--

CARLTON CUM
DOLBY
LETANIA
IX SOLIDORUM
SUPER FLUMINA
CONFITEBOR TIBI
DUC PROBATI

There ought to be a law against a woman's making a picture of herself, unless she is willing to sit and be sketched.

A black and white sketch doesn't give any definite idea of this charmer's charms, but some time I'll fill it in,--hair, sweet little hat, gown, and eyes, all in golden brown, a cape of tawny sable slipping off her arm, a knot of yellow primroses in her girdle, carved-oak background, and the afternoon sun coming through a stained-glass window. Great Jove! She had a most curious effect on me, that girl! I can't explain it,--very curious, altogether new, and rather pleasant! When one of the choir boys sang, "Oh for the wings of a dove!" a tear rolled out of one of her lovely eyes and down her smooth brown cheek. I would have given a large portion of my modest monthly income for the felicity of wiping away that teardrop with one of my new handkerchiefs, marked with a tremendous "C" by my pretty sister.

An hour or two later they appeared again,--the dragon, who answers to the name of "aunt Celia," and the "nut-brown mayde," who comes when you call her "Katharine." I was sketching a ruined arch. The dragon dropped her unmistakably Boston bag. I expected to see encyclopaedias and Russian tracts fall from it, but was disappointed. The nut-brown mayde (who has been brought up rigidly) hastened to pick up the bag, for fear that I should serve her by doing it. She was punished by turning it inside out, and I was rewarded by helping her pick up the articles, which were many and ill assorted. My little romance received the first blow when I found that she reads the Duchess novels. I think, however, she has the grace to be ashamed of it, for she blushed scarlet when I handed her "A Modern Circe." I could have told her that such a blush on such a cheek would atone for reading Mrs. Southworth, but I refrained. After she had gone I discovered a slip of paper which had blown under some stones. It proved to be an itinerary. I didn't return it. I thought they must know which way they were going; and as this was precisely what I wanted to know, I kept it for my own use. She is doing the cathedral towns. I am doing the cathedral towns. Happy thought! Why shouldn't we do them together,--we and aunt Celia?

I had only ten minutes--to catch my train for Salisbury, but I concluded to run in and glance at the registers of the principal hotels. Found my nut-brown mayde at once on the pages of the Royal Garden Inn register: "Miss Celia Van Tyck, Beverly, Mass.; Miss Katharine Schuyler, New York." I concluded to stay over another train, ordered dinner, and took an altogether indefensible and inconsistent pleasure in writing "John Quincy Copley, Cambridge, Mass.," directly beneath the charmer's autograph.


SHE


SALISBURY, _June_ 1

The White Hart Inn.

We left Winchester on the 1.06 train yesterday, and here we are within sight of another superb and ancient pile of stone. I wanted so much to stop at the Highflyer Inn in Lark Lane, but aunt Celia said that if we were destitute of personal dignity, we at least owed something to our ancestors. Aunt Celia has a temperamental distrust of joy as something dangerous and ensnaring. She doesn't realize what fun it would be to date one's letters from the Highflyer Inn, Lark Lane, even if one were obliged to consort with poachers and cockneys in order to do it.

We attended service at three. The music was lovely, and there were beautiful stained-glass windows by Burne-Jones and Morris. The verger (when wound up with a shilling) talked like an electric doll. If that nice young man is making a cathedral tour, like ourselves, he isn't taking our route, for he isn't here. If he has come over for the purpose of sketching, he wouldn't stop at sketching one cathedral. Perhaps he began at the other end and worked down to Winchester. Yes, that must be it, for the Ems sailed yesterday from Southampton.

* * *

June 2.

We intended to go to Stonehenge this morning, but it rained, so we took a "growler" and went to the Earl of Pembroke's country place to see the pictures. Had a delightful morning with the magnificent antiques, curios, and portraits. The Van Dyck room is a joy forever. There were other visitors; nobody who looked especially interesting. Don't like Salisbury so well as Winchester. Don't know why. We shall drive this afternoon, if it is fair, and go to Wells to-morrow. Must read Baedeker on the bishop's palace. Oh dear! if one could only have a good time and not try to know anything!

Memoranda: _This cathedral has the highest spire_. _Remember_: _Winchester_, _longest nave_; _Salisbury_, _highest spire_.

_The Lancet style is those curved lines meeting in a rounding or a sharp point like this_

[Drawing like two very circular n's next to each other]

_and then joined together like this_:

[Drawing like ///]

_the way they used to scallop flannel petticoats_. _Gothic looks like triangles meeting together in various spots and joined with beautiful sort of ornamented knobs_. _I think I know Gothic when I see it_. _Then there is Norman_, _Early English_, _fully developed Early English_, _Early and Late Perpendicular_, _and Transition_. _Aunt Celia knows them all apart_.


HE


SALISBURY, _June_ 3

The Red Lion.

I went off on a long tramp this afternoon, and coming on a pretty river flowing through green meadows, with a fringe of trees on either side, I sat down to make a sketch. I heard feminine voices in the vicinity, but, as these are generally a part of the landscape in the tourist season, I paid no special notice. Suddenly a dainty patent-leather shoe floated towards me on the surface of the stream. It evidently had just dropped in, for it was right side up with care, and was disporting itself right merrily. "Did ever Jove's tree drop such fruit?" I quoted, as I fished it out on my stick; and just then I heard a distressed voice saying, "Oh, aunt Celia, I've lost my smart little London shoe. I was sitting in a tree, taking a pebble out of the heel, when I saw a caterpillar, and I dropped it into the river, the