I should like to make believe that we
found traces of that simple church in the crypt of the Minster
when we went the next morning and were herded through it by the
tenderest of vergers. Most of our flock were Americans, and we
put our guide to such question in matters of imagination and
information as the patience of a less amiable shepherd would not
have borne. Many a tale, true or o'ertrue, our verger had, which
he told with unction; when he ascended with us to the body of the
church, and said that the stained glass of the gigantic windows
suffered from the depredations of the mistaken birds which pecked
holes in the joints of their panes, I felt that I had full
measure from him, pressed down and running over. I do not
remember why he said the birds should have done this, but it
seems probable that they took the mellow colors of the glass for
those of ripe fruits.
For myself, I could not get enough of those windows, in another
sort of famine which ought at this time to have been sated. I was
forever wondering at their grandeur outside and their glory
inside.
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