An Old Friend We now turned into a pleasant lane where the branches of great plane trees nearly met overhead, but behind them lay low houses standing rather close together.
"This is Long Acre," quoth ****; "so there must once have been a cornfield here. How curious it is that places change so, and yet keep their old names! Just look how thick the houses stand! and they are still going on building, look you!""Yes," said the old man, "but I think the cornfields must have been built over before the middle of the nineteenth century. I have heard that above here was the thickest parts of the town. But I must get down here, neighbours; I have got to call on a friend who lives in the gardens behind the Long Acre. Good-bye and good luck, Guest!"And he jumped down and strode away vigorously like a young man.
"How old should you say that neighbour will be?" said I to **** as we lost sight of him; for I saw that he was old, and yet he looked dry and sturdy like a piece of a piece of old oak; a type of old man I was not used to seeing.
"O, about ninety, I should say," said ****.
"How long-lived your people must be!" said I.
"Yes," said **** "certainly we have beaten the three-score-and-ten of the old Jewish proverb-book. But then you see that was written of Syria, a hot dry country, where people live faster than in our temperate climate. However, I don't think it matters much, so long as a man is healthy and happy while he _is_ alive. But now, guest, we are so near to my old kinsman's dwelling-place that I think you had better keep all future questions for him."I nodded a yes; and therewith we turned to the left, and went down a gentle slope through some beautiful rose-gardens, laid out on what Itook to be the site of Endell Street. We passed on, and **** drew rein an instant as we came across a long straightish road with houses scantily scattered up and down it. He waved his hand right and left, and said, "Holborn that side, Oxford Road that. this was once a very important part of the crowded city outside the ancient walls of the Roman and Mediaeval burg: many of the feudal nobles of the Middle Ages, we are told, had big houses on either side of Holborn. I daresay you remember that the Bishop of Ely's house is mentioned in Shakespeare's play of King Richard III.; and there are some remains of that still left. However, this road is not of the same importance, now that the ancient city is gone, walls and all."He drove on again, while I smiled faintly to think how the nineteenth century, of which such big words have been said, counted for nothing in the memory of this man, who read Shakespeare and had not forgotten the Middle Ages.
We crossed the road into a short narrow lane between the gardens, and came out again into a wide road, on one side of which was a great and long building, turning its gables away from the highway, which I saw at once was another public group. Opposite to it was a wide space of greenery, without any wall or fence of any kind. I looked through the trees and saw beyond them a pillared portico quite familiar to me--no less old a friend, in fact, than the British Museum. It rather took my breath away, amidst all the strange things I had seen; but I held my tongue and let **** speak. Said he:
