R Austin Freeman

Felo de Se R Austin Freeman

THERE IS SOMETHING ALMOST uncanny in the transformation which falls upon the City of London when all the offices are closed and their denizens have departed to their suburban homes. Throughout the working hours of the working days, the streets resound with the roar of traffic and the pavements are packed with a seething, hurrying multitude. But when the evening closes in, a strange quiet descends upon the streets, and the silent, deserted by-ways take on the semblance of thoroughfares in some city of the dead. The mention of by-ways reminds me of another characteristic of this part of London. Modern, commonplace, and dull as is the aspect of the main streets, in the areas behind and between them are hidden innumerable quaint and curious survivals from the past; antique taverns lurking in queer, crooked alleys and little scraps of ancient churchyards, green with the grass that sprang up afresh amidst the ashes of the Great Fire. With one of these curious "hinterlands"-an area bounded by Cornhill, Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street, and Birchin Lane, and intersected by a maze of courts and alleys-I became intimately acquainted, since I usually crossed it at least twice a day going to and from the branch of Perkins's Bank at which I was employed as a cashier. For the sake of change and interest, I varied my route from day to day-all the alleys communicated and one served as well as another-but the one that I favoured most was the very unfrequented passage which took me through the tiny churchyard of St. Michael's. I think the place appealed to me specially because somewhere under the turf reposes old Thomas Stow, grandfather of the famous John, laid here in the year 1527 according to his wish "to be buried in the litell Grene Churchyard of the Parysshe Church of Seynt Myghel in Cornehyll, betwene the Crosse and the Church Wall, nigh the wall as may be." Many a time, as I passed along the paved walk, had I tried to locate his grave; but the Great Fire must have made an end of both Cross and wall.