The river on the right was at high tide, and up from the
water's edge came the cries of the boatmen, pleasant and invigorating.
The sense of unreality was deeper than ever on Marjorie's mind. One
incredible thing after another, known to her only in the past by rumour
and description, and imagined in a frame of glory, was taking shape
before her eyes.... She was in London; she had slept in Cheapside; she
had talked with Father Campion; he was with her now; this was the Tower
of London that lay before her, a monstrous huddle of grey towers and
battlemented walls along which passed the scarlet of a livery and the
gleam of arms.
All the way that they had walked, her eyes had been about her
everywhere--the eyes of a startled child, through which looked the soul
of a woman. She had seen the folks go past like actors in a
drama--London merchants, apprentices, a party of soldiers, a group on
horseback: she had seen a congregation pour out of the doors of some
church whose name she had asked and had forgotten again; the cobbled
patches of street had been a marvel to her; the endless roofs, the white
and black walls, the leaning windows, the galleries where heads moved;
the vast wharfs; the crowding masts, resembling a stripped forest; the
rolling-gaited sailors; and, above all, the steady murmur of voices and
footsteps, never ceasing, beyond which the crowing of cocks and the
barking of dogs sounded far off and apart--these things combined to make
a kind of miracle that all at once delighted, oppressed and bewildered
her.
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