ER ABBEY BY NIGHT

It was past eleven o'clock and I was just going to bed. But this
friend of mine was as reliable as he was eccentric, and so there was
not a doubt in my mind that his "expedition" had merit in it. I put
on my coat and boots again, and we drove away.

"Where is it? Where are we going?"

"Don't worry. You'll see."

He was not inclined to talk. So I thought this must be a weighty
matter. My curiosity grew with the minutes, but I kept it manfully
under the surface. I watched the lamps, the signs, the numbers as
we thundered down the long street. I am always lost in London, day
or night. It was very chilly, almost bleak. People leaned against
the gusty blasts as if it were the dead of winter. The crowds grew
thinner and thinner, and the noises waxed faint and seemed far away.
The sky was overcast and threatening. We drove on, and still on,
till I wondered if we were ever going to stop. At last we passed by
a spacious bridge and a vast building, and presently entered a
gateway, passed through a sort of tunnel, and stopped in a court
surrounded by the black outlines of a great edifice. Then we
alighted, walked a dozen steps or so, and waited. In a little while
footsteps were heard, a man emerged from the darkness, and we
dropped into his wake without saying anything. He led us under an
archway of masonry, and from that into a roomy tunnel, through a
tall iron gate, which he locked behind us. We followed him down
this tunnel, guided more by his footsteps on the stone flagging than
by anything we could very distinctly see. At the end of it we came
to another iron gate, and our conductor stopped there and lit a
bull's-eye lantern. Then he unlocked the gate; and I wished he had
oiled it first, it grated so dismally. The gate swung open and we
stood on the threshold of what seemed a limitless domed and pillared
cavern, carved out of the solid darkness. The conductor and my
friend took off their hats reverently, and I did likewise. For the
moment that we stood thus there was not a sound, and the stillness
seemed to add to the solemnity of the gloom. I looked my inquiry!

"It is the tomb of the great dead of England-Westminster Abbey."...

We were among the tombs; on every hand dull shapes of men, sitting,
standing, or stooping, inspected us curiously out of the darknes