The next day the party was borne away from shady Oxford, where one would indeed like to tarry long in the midsummer days, to the old city of Bristol, famous in the Roman conquest of Britain. In the journey the gay poppy-fields and the picturesque cottage scenes, which give a charm to the English landscape, often flitted into and out of view, reminding the boys of George Howe's letter. Glastonbury Abbey is indeed an interesting ruin. It stands apart from the popular lines of travel, and so it figures little in the narratives of those who make short tours abroad. Think of the ruins of a church at least fourteen hundred years old! A church that Joseph of Arimathæa, who provided the tomb for Jesus, is reputed in the old monkish legends to have founded, and where St. Patrick and St. Augustine probably did preach, and where in the Middle Ages the remains of good King Arthur were disenterred! [Illustration: ST. AUGUSTINE'S APPEAL TO ETHELBERT.] Of the great church and its five chapels there yet remain parts of the broken wall, and the three large crypts where the early kings of England and founders of the English Church were buried. A little westward from the ruin stands the beautiful Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathæa. "I do not wonder," said Wyllys Wynn, "that the old English people liked to believe that their church sprang from the mission of so amiable a saint as St. Joseph." "Christianity," said Master Lewis, "was really first established in Great Britain in 596 by St. Augustine and forty missionaries who came with St. Augustine from Rome to preach to the Anglo-Saxons. These missionaries were kindly received by King Ethelbert, whose wife was already a Christian. It is related that one of the Saxon priests, to see if indeed his gods would be angry, went forth on horse-back, and smote the images the people had been worshipping. To the astonishment of the Saxons no judgment followed. The king was baptized, and the missionaries baptized ten thousand converts in a single day in the river Swale. The Christian religion had been preached in Britain before, but not generally accepted." [Illustration: THE SAXON PRIEST STRIKING THE IMAGES.] "I like the association of St. Joseph's name with this old ruin so well," said Wyllys, "that I wish to see the staff that you say is believed to bloom at Christmas." On the south side of Glastonbury is Weary-all Hill. It owes its name to a very poetic legend. It is said that St. Joseph and his companions, _all_ of them _weary_ in one of their missionary journeys, here sat down to rest, and the Saint planted his staff into the earth, and left it there. From it, we are told, springs the famous Glastonbury Thorn which blossoms every Christmas, and whose miraculous flowers were adored in the Middle Ages. Such a shrub still remains which blooms in midwinter, and perpetuates the memory of the pretty superstition. CHAPTER XII. LONDON.