CANTERBURY CHIMES.

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INTRODUCTION.

I.

HOW WE RODE TO CANTERBURY, AND WHO THE

PILGRIMS WERE.

IN springtime, when the sweet April showers have sunk into the ground parched and hardened by the keen east winds of March, and every plant drinks the rich juices that in summer will turn to flower and fruit; when the balmy west wind blows over hill and dale and stirs the green blades in the furrows; when the sun gleams bright between the showers, and the small birds, who never close an eye the whole night long, feel the stirrings of the time and make the woods to ring,-then, in the merry springtime, men's blood runs quicker in their veins and they too long to be up and doing. Some cross the seas to visit foreign shrines, but more take their way to Canterbury. There from every shire and. parish of England they flock to pay, at the tomb

B