The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-05-20
SOME OLD CATHEDRAL TOWNS.

GLOUCESTER, England, April 81, 1892
From among the COtswold Hills had
for days caught enticing glimpses of the
spires and roofs of ancient Gloucester
grouped about the huge tower of its
splendid cathedral, all Struggled amid
rich verdure beside the cleaning waters
of the Severn. The old cathedral town,
far from the worn ways of travel rich in
history, legends and quaint old archi-
lecture of long ago, and still peaceful
and simple in its provincial coloring and
ways, at last won me from the mountains
through winding beech-lined roads and
blossoming hawthorn lanes.
Besides, there was personal interest
in the gray old town. All of us, title
haters that we Americans fiercely assure
the rest of the world we are, love to
know, if we are honest enough to con-
fess it, that, away back somewhere
along the blood line behind us, there
has been some one of our kin who was
somebody, who really did something,
and who was man enough, good or bad,
to have left an impress and record upon
the affairs of his time. Without pride
or envy could contemplate those of my
family and name who as the eldest sons
of eldest sons" had for nearly thous-
and years enjoyed their titles, estates
and castles over in Shropshire and
Wales.
But to know that another relative,
John Wakeman, the last abbot of
Tewkesbury, chaplain to Henry Will,
had not only been made the first bishep
of the see of Gloucester on its erection
into a diocese, the Sd of September,
1541, but had also been one of the trans
10 &c 10 hn
Revelations of st. John having been as
signed to him was something to quicken
the pace and send along the veins
pleasant thrill of fine satisfaction and
pride.
Something after the manner of the
ownership feeling of Silas Wegg in his
innocent delusion regarding "Our
House" and its "Miss ELIJAH eth, "Mas-
ter George" "Aunt jane and "Uncle
Parker" found myself basking in the
pleasant mysticisms of tolerative re-
lationship. The very wraiths of history
that haunt the valley seemed to come
closer and clearer than though my rel
alive had not been the first prelate of
this important see. The Isle of Alney,
there in the Severn, where Edmund
Ironside and Canute the Dane in 1915
decided great war by single combat,
was tinted with the interest of a remote
family incident Tewkesbury across
| the valley yonder where the house of
York crushed the house of Lancaster,
and the aisles of the old abby ran with
| blood in the butchery of the adherents
of Inflated Margaret and her murdered
| prince boy. came dreamily within the
same gorgeous setting.
, Even the mad antics of Richard Planta-
| genet, who was Duke of Gloucester
| (Gloster), and who conferred many
hOnors and benefits upon the fine city
and shire, took on q more favorable
| guise. The burning of Bishop Hooper
hard by the cathedral gates paled be-
hind the filmy veil of his troublous
times. There was personal and mourn
| full interest in the cortege which bore
the body of murdered Edward III. to its
resting place in the mighty cathedral.
And, from the later days, there was
waited a spell of personal qualification
that an archbishop OF Canterbury and a
man like Robert Raikes, founder of Sun
day schools, had grown into their great
stature of fame from out the environ
ment of this slumbrOus, messy town.
Self graduation is such a wantOn Jade
and intoxicant that tramped from the
hills into the old cathedral city in elated
exultance, almost meeting the gaze OF
honest Gloucester folk with the exuber.
ance of expectant recognition. There
must have been too easy an air of famili
arity in my aspect and manner, consider
ing that the mud of the mountain sheer
walks was still on my huge-soled shoes
1t seemed, in my pleasant frame of mind
as though the landlord of the humble
inn where came to lodge ought to have
received me. Perhaps he had never heart
of my relative, the bishop.
But he merely glanced at my trousers
and shoes. Then "boots'' showed m,
to rooms in the caves. Returning short
ly, he presented a bill, in advance, al
follows: Lodging, one and sixpence
attendance, sixpence; candle, tire,
pence: boots. three pence. Total. tMI