He winked at me. I did not return his wink.
I suppose I ought really to have raised my hat to him. Pre-eminently,
he was one of those who have made England what it is. But they are the
very men whom one does not care to meet just after long truancy in
preferable lands. He was the backbone of the nation. But ought
backbones to be exposed?
Though I would rather not have seen him then and there, I did realise,
nevertheless, the overwhelming interest of him. I knew him to be a
stranger sight, a more memorable and instructive, than any of the fair
sights I had been seeing. He made them all seem nebulous and unreal to
me. Beside me lay my despatch-box. I unlocked it, drew from it all the
notes and all the photographs I had brought back with me. These, one
by one, methodically, I tore up, throwing their fragments out of the
window, not grudging them to the wind.
`THE RAGGED REGIMENT'
--`commonly called "Longshanks" on account of his great height he was
the first king crowned in the Abbey as it now appears and was interred
with great pomp on St. Simon's and St. Jude's Day October 28th 1307 in
1774 the tomb was opened when the king's body was found almost entire
in the right hand was a richly embossed sceptre and in the left'--
So much I gather as I pass one of the tombs on my way to the Chapel of
Abbot Islip.
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