use he likes the Story of St Alphege
and the Danes.

'Well, well,' said the lady, and she put on her hat; it was a really
sensible one--not a blob of fluffy stuff and feathers put on sideways
and stuck on with long pins, and no shade to your face, but almost as
big as ours, with a big brim and red flowers, and black strings to tie
under your chin to keep it from blowing off.

Then we went out all together to see Canterbury. Dicky and Oswald took
it in turns to carry Denny on their backs. The lady called him 'The
Wounded Comrade'.

We went first to the church. Oswald, whose quick brain was easily
aroused to suspicions, was afraid the lady might begin talking in the
church, but she did not. The church door was open. I remember mother
telling us once it was right and good for churches to be left open
all day, so that tired people could go in and be quiet, and say their
prayers, if they wanted to. But it does not seem respectful to talk out
loud in church. (See Note A.)

When we got outside the lady said, 'You can imagine how on the chancel
steps began the mad struggle in which Becket, after hurling one of his
assailants, armour and all, to the ground--'

'It would have been much cleverer,' H. O. interrupted, 'to hurl him
without his armour, and leave that standing up.'

'Go on,' said Alice and Oswald, when they had given H. O. a withering
glance. And the lady did go on. She told us all about Becket, and then
about St Alphege, who had bones thrown at him till he died, because he
wouldn't tax his poor people to please the beastly rotten Danes.

And Denny recited a piece of poetry he knows called 'The Ballad of
Canterbury'.

It begins about Danish warships snake-shaped, and ends about doing as
you'd be done by. It is long, but it has all the beef-bones in it, and
all about St Alphege.

Then the lady showed us the Danejohn, and it was like an oast-house.
And Canterbury walls that Alphege defied the Danes from looked down on
a quite common farmyard. The hospital was like a barn, and other things
were like other things, but we went all about and enjoyed it very
much. The lady was quite amusing, besides sometimes talking like a real
cathedral guide I met afterwards. (See Note B.) When at last we said we
thought Canterbury was very small considering, the lady said--

'Well, it seemed a pity to come so far and not at least hear something
about Canterbury.'

And then at once we knew the worst, and Alice said--

'What