In my wanderings, which were purely casual and haphazard, I finally came upon the cathedral which loomed up suddenly through a curving street under a leaden sky. It was like a lovely song, rendered with great pathos. Over a Gothic gate of exquisite workmanship and endless labor, it soared--two black stone towers rising shapely and ornate into the gray air. I looked up to some lattices which gave into what might have been the belfry, and saw birds perched just as they should have been. The walls, originally gray, had been turned by time and weather into a soft spongy black which somehow fitted in exquisitely with the haze of the landscape. I had a curious sensation of darker and lighter shades of gray--lurking pools of darkness here and there, and brightness in spots that became almost silver. The cathedral grounds were charmingly enclosed in vine-covered walls that were nevertheless worked out in harmonious detail of stone. An ancient walk of some kind, overhung with broken arches that had fallen into decay, led away into a green court which, by a devious process of other courts and covered arches, gave into the cloister proper. I saw an old deacon, or canon, of the church walking here in stately meditation; and a typical English yeoman, his trousers fastened about the knee by the useless but immemorial strap, came by, wheeling a few bricks in a barrow. There were endless courts, it seemed to me, surrounded by two-story buildings, all quaint in design, and housing Heaven-knows-what subsidiary factors of the archiepiscopal life. They seemed very simple habitations to me. Children played here on the walks and grass, gardeners worked at vines and fences, and occasional workmen appeared--men who, I supposed, were connected with the architectural repairs which were being made to the façade. As I stood in the courtyard of the archbishop’s house, which was in front and to the left of the cathedral as you faced it, a large blue-gray touring-car suddenly appeared, and a striking-looking ecclesiastic in a shovel hat stepped out. I had the wish and the fancy that I was looking at the archbishop himself--a sound, stern, intellectual-looking person--but I did not ask. He gave me a sharp, inquiring look, and I withdrew beyond these sacred precincts and into the cathedral itself, where a tinny-voiced bell was beginning to ring for afternoon service. I am sure I shall never forget the interior of Canterbury. It was the first really old, great cathedral that I had seen--for I had not prized very highly either St. Paul’s or St. Alban’s. I had never quite realized how significant these structures must have been in an age when they were far and away the most important buildings of the time. No king’s palace could ever have had the importance of Canterbury, and the cry from the common peasant to the Archiepiscopal see must have been immense. Here really ruled the primate of all England, and here Becket was murdered.