tall Figure a wise Editor would rather not name at this stage of
the business! Enough that the vision is true: that Saint Edmund
himself, pale and awful, seemed to rise from his Shrine, with
naked feet, and say audibly, "He, _ille,_ shall veil my feet;"
which part of the vision also proves true. Such guessing,
visioning, dim perscrutation of the momentous future: the very
clothmakers, old women, all townsfolk speak of it, 'and more than
once it is reported in St. Edmundsbury, This one is elected; and
then, This one and That other.' Who knows?


But now, sure enough, at Waltham 'on the Second Sunday of
Quadragesima,' which Dryasdust declares to mean the 22d day of
February, year 1182, Thirteen St. Edmundsbury Monks are, at last,
seen processioning towards the Winchester Manorhouse; and in
some high Presence-chamber, and Hall of State, get access to
Henry II in all his glory. What a Hall,--not imaginary in the
least, but entirely real and indisputable, though so extremely
dim to us; sunk in the deep distances of Night! The Winchester
Manorhouse has fled bodily, like a Dream of the old Night; not
Dryasdust himself can skew a wreck of it. House and people,
royal and episcopal, lords and varlets, where are they? Why
_there,_ I say, Seven Centuries off; sunk so far in the Night,
there they _are;_ peep through the blankets of the old Night,
and thou wilt seel King Henry himself is visibly there, a vivid,
noble-looking man, with grizzled beard, in glittering uncertain
costume, with earls round him, and bishops and dignitaries, in
the like. The Hall is large, and has for one thing an altar near
it,--chapel and altar adjoining it; but what gilt seats, carved
tables, carpeting of rush-cloth, what arras-hangings, and a huge