EVERY proper pilgrimage should be foretold in the measured terms of prophecy, but the words which forecast my journey to Canterbury held a certain bluntness not found in the prognostications of the ancients. Tightlipped Cassandra would have been shocked by their forceful and unequivocal message. They came to me nine years ago when, as one of the deck officers on a small naval vessel, I found myself on the bridge with a British pilot who had been detailed to take us through the Downs on our way up to London. For three hours he paced the bridge in frigid silence, a silence broken only by an occasional 'Pawt!' or 'Stawb'd!' and tugged at the right end of his moustache with his left hand as, with quick, sure calculation of buoys, lighthouses, and other channel marks, he kept us on our course. His was the rolling gait of a seafaring man, yet it was marked by a peculiar hitch which prepared me for a cockney accent when at last he spoke. Pointing vaguely at the shore, he suddenly wheeled and blurted: 'Gawblimey, sir, Cawnterb'ry, Cawnterb'ry, Cawnterb'ry! Damme, y'll see Cawnterb'ry, I dare say every snivelin' Yonkee tourist troops there directly he lands! Cawnterb'ry, gawblimey, sir-I say

"Stawb'd!"

--

Having been grouped so irrevocably with those who tour and snivel, it was only natural that I should carry out his prediction six years later when a business trip took me to London. By rare good fortune I was not alone, for

at the last moment before sailing the entire Mogul Club had decided to go. Now the Mogul Club is the most exclusive club in the world, for it is limited to three men: the Ferial Founder, the Carousing Custodian, and the Member. There is also, it must be admitted, the Permanent Novice, a stripling undergraduate whose status is that of a mere burden bearer, a fetcher of lighted fagots for our pipes, a parrier of our Jovian thrusts when stouter or more dexterous foils are withheld from us and him we encountered in Piccadilly on the morning of our arrival, wandering lonely as a cloud. We straightway invited him to lunch with us at Simpson's. Notwithstanding this relaxation of our tense club discipline, it must not be supposed that we extended our indulgence beyond steak pie, ale, and propinquity. One of the tenets of the Mogul Club - the one, in fact, to which we most stubbornly cling-is that, though a Permanent Novice may talk, only an officer or a member will be heard. Upheld by this clean-cut dogma, we need not admit the existence of post-adolescent opinions, nor are we called upon to give consideration to callow suggestions and immature plans. We preserve a homogeneity most unusual and refreshing in an adult body. We observe youth, but decline its

restrictions.

Luncheon concluded, we dispatched the Permanent Novice up the Strand in search of some palatable cigarettes, and fell to making plans.

'We might go to Canterbury,' said the Ferial Founder. 'I-'

Like a flash there came to my mind the picture of a British pilot, pacing, pacing. . . . 'Gawblimey, sir, Cawnterb'ry, Cawnterb'ry,' I mumbled.

'What's that, Member?' roared our Founder, for I had interrupted him. (I can withhold it no longer-I am the Member.)

'You speak of it too lightly,' I responded meekly enough. 'One does n't just "go to Canterbury"-it should be a pilgrimage; and, if I am correctly informed, one snivels.' I related the refreshing episode of the taciturn navigator.

'Ah!' exclaimed the Ferial Founder. 'Extraordinary!' Then he added, with a touch of that clear logic for which he is so deeply revered, 'Obviously you should make all the arrangements. Sunday, then!'

When it thus became apparent that I must play the part of courier, I lost no time in shouldering the burdens of my rôle. Surely a movement of such significance for when, in history, had a Mogul Club visited Canterbury en masse? could not be undertaken in any casual vein. There must be color, a dash of the picturesque. To go by train would be monstrous what pageantry does a railroad afford? Besides, cinders and smoke have no place in a pilgrimage.

Like many other men, faced with a project which was to jar the very superstructure of history, I sought counsel. In short, I took the matter up with the hall porter at my hotel. He was impressively brief. 'Motor!' he said. "Ere's a card as gives the nyme -"'Arry Muggs, Motors f'r h'all occysions," h'it says. Number twelve, Eddington Mews, sir. Just over the wye, sir!'

669

Number twelve, Eddington Mews, proved to be an abandoned stable, and

looming within the dark, cavernou interior I descried a gigantic, not t say formidable, outline. I rang the bel Mr. Muggs, a little robin of a man wit the air of one who had never in hi heart of hearts given up his devotion to the stable, listened politely while explained my errand. 'We wish t drive to Canterbury,' I said.

His eyes shone. 'Ah, then, y'll b tykin' 'Iggins, sir,' he affirmed, hoarsely earnest.. "E mykes a prawper 'obby of Cawnterb'ry, sir; knows every blinkin' bishop, 'n can rattle orf th reekin' s'ynts loike they wos 'is aown mother, sir!' Triumphantly he sur veyed me.

I was, I am sure, visibly moved 'And the car?' I suggested.

Drawing back the door so that full light might strike it, he indicated a vast motor car of ancient mien and rich antiquity. Painted a royal crimson, every exposed metal part burnished to a positive heat, it was a chariot before which a Muggs might well stand silently and point. Such Gargantuan, gorgeous bulk overwhelmed mere speech.

Frankly, I gloated. Here were the trappings of mediævalism; here flaming color, glittering steel and brasses, splendor and pomp! But one thing was lacking. As though reading my thoughts, the solicitous Mr. Muggs pressed the horn bulb, and a clear, sweet fanfare awoke the echoes as did the trumpets of Henry's court afield. My cup was full. I accepted the chariot, the as yet unseen 'Iggins, on the spot, without thought of the Ferial Founder's approval. Had not arrogant Wolsey once cried, 'Ego et rex meus'? What, then, if I did conclude arrangements with a high hand? Untroubled of heart, I repaired to my hotel.

Sunday dawned clear and warm. Breakfast dispatched, we barely had time to draw on our coats and look at our watches before a silvery note

floated into the lounge through the open window. 'It's here!' I cried. The Carousing Custodian was the first to the door. Never at his best before ten-thirty in the morning, he glanced at our equipage and exclaimed pettishly: 'I won't help carry a religious float through London! In Italy, yes; in Spain, perhaps; but in England, never! I thought we were going to Canterbury.' Calming him as best I might, I thrust him into a seat and turned to acknowledge a respectful greeting from the sapient 'Iggins. He was a tall, slender young man in a white linen coat, and there was something just a bit disquieting in his hard, restless eye.

Getting under way, we found that, although the car was perhaps only slightly older than London Tower, it could, to use a pungent phrase, 'go like hell.' Somewhere within its deep, murky interior there dwelt power as constant as polar magnetism, as inexorable as the cycles of planets. Our chauffeur, who exhibited signs of restiveness, a plaintive eagerness in the metropolitan area, upon reaching open country cast discretion to the winds, forsook his staid Anglican ancestry, and thrust the accelerator to the floor. With a great rush of winds, and the whine of protesting tires, we attacked the clear, clean highroad. I looked up to see the Ferial Founder (a staunch Unitarian) crossing himself. Villages flashed by like the sickening whirl of vertigo. The grand old Juggernaut settled into her real pace - anywhere from sixty-five to eighty miles an hour -and the immaculate 'Iggins, free at last from town restrictions, turned his head to call back to us cordially, 'On our wye now, sir!'

As we reached the summit of Wrotham Hill the chauffeur drew over to the side of the road and shut off the motor. Kent in June! Is there any

other place on the face of the earth so beautiful? The deep valley at our feet, smooth-shouldered hills rubbing the horizon, gently modulating fields of indescribable green splashed with the flame of millions of red poppies! The smell of growing things an incense; the warm golden haze a benediction. God save the King? Ah yes, and God save England!

With a roar we were again on our way. 'Takes your breath away,' I murmured, as I turned for one last look. An inarticulate noise beside me indicated I had been heard.

'Nonsense!' croaked the Carousing Custodian. It was now well past tenthirty, and his spirit was slowly catching up with his body. 'Nonsense!' he shouted as the winds of flight buffeted us. 'Could n't! None of us -have done any breathing - since London!'

For an hour speech was impossible. Our progress was that of an uncharted comet. To be sure, 'Iggins named each hamlet as we catapulted through it, but his way of turning around to do so, with one hand on the wheel while passing another car at fifty miles an hour, rather distracted the attention of the little band of pilgrims who huddled, shuddering, in the rear seat of his car. We slowed down a bit for the village of Maidstone, a queer little place with an inn called The Bear and Bulldog, and the villagers stared at us with big round eyes, little knowing that we were establishing a record run between London and Canterbury, which, like the Roman roads, would

stand undaunted for centuries. As we again slipped off into space the only phrase I can use which adequately describes the sensation we experienced as our chariot soared into full speed the Carousing Custodian fought and clawed himself into an upright position long enough to scream into my ear:

Between Maidstone and our destination but one impression survived the kaleidoscopic jumble of flickering country. The Ferial Founder insisted that we slacken our pace as we passed Leeds Castle, for the great gaunt edifice overlooking a pretty lake, half hidden by dense forest, gave life to his casual excursions into the fourteenth century. So thick was the foliage that the shadows beneath the trees were dark as bears' caves, and bright little birds fluttering about the velvet green lawn avoided them as though loath to leave the sanctuary of sunlit spaces.

We arrived at Canterbury at noon, and, valiant trenchermen all, applied ourselves to the mutton, greens, boiled potatoes, and tarts of rural England. with gusto. Then, setting out for the Cathedral on foot, 'Iggins had disappeared into an alehouse upon arrival, - we encountered the shop of one Thomas A. Becket, whereupon the Carousing Custodian insisted that he must shake hands with the proprietor. 'Read about the fellow in college, somewhere. Want to meet him.' Stimulated by our flight through space, he was in the most absurd humor imaginable, and as he emerged from the shop, a moment later, he accosted a passing policeman and asked him where an orange could be purchased.

'An orange?' queried the policeman, somewhat taken aback.

'Wolsey!' whispered our club brother succinctly. Without waiting for an answer, he turned and made for the Cathedral Arch.

Now it is well that as one approaches Canterbury one passes through this arch, for the Cathedral develops slowly, which prepares one, as it were, for the full view upon emerging. Were it otherwise, one's credulity could not

stand the strain. The color of the building is indescribable, like the gray of November clouds, and has a queer ephemeral cast which outrages reality. High, high, rise the Gothi towers, embroidered with delicately wrought stone lace. Where other churches present a stark outline against the sky, Canterbury blends with the heavens as though it were in fact a veritable link between earth and the changeless Infinite.

As we entered, the choir, at practice, was singing an anthem of Palestrina's. By what glorious chance had we come upon them as they chanted an answer to our unspoken question?

'Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
And lighten with celestial fire;
Thou the anointing Spirit art,
Who dost Thy sevenfold gifts impart.'

It was the Ferial Founder who, with a gesture which embraced the forest of pillars and staggering vastness of the interior, said humbly, 'Perhaps that is the explanation of how lowly monks, hundreds of years ago, were able to build this thing build this thing - a task which would tax our foremost modern engineers, with all their clever machinery, to the utmost!' As though confirming the validity of this concept, the organ suddenly boomed and rattled through the nave, and the choir burst forth with a great Te Deum: 'Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory!' Since the days of early childhood, when I piped away in the front row of a boy choir, I have loved, studied, collected Te Deums, but only Canterbury could bring me the real meaning of that phrase!

When the music ceased we wandered into the Cloister, and there we found the Carousing Custodian, missing these ten minutes, seated on a great stone.

'I'm so damned jealous,' he grunted, when we had come within speaking