Later I was led down into that north-west transept, once known as the
Martyrdom, where St Thomas laid down his life; and left alone there, I
remember I tried in all that dumbness and silence to recollect myself,
to pray, at least to recall, something of that great sacrifice which
had so moved Christendom that for centuries men flocked here to
worship--where now no man kneels any more for ever.

I remember very well how it came to me in that tingling and icy silence
that St Thomas died for the liberty of the Church, that here in England
she might not become the king's chattel or anyway at all the creature
of the civil power. I was too young to smile when I remembered that in
the very place where St Thomas laid down his life in that cause, there
sits to-day in his usurped place one who eagerly acknowledges the king
as the "Supreme Governor of the Church within these realms." Yet in my
heart I heard again those tremendous words, "Were all the swords of
England hanging over my head you could not terrify me from my obedience
to God and my Lord the Pope." They who slew him fled away, and their
title, shouted in the winter darkness that filled the church, was heard
above the thunder and has echoed down the ages since: Reaux! Reaux!
King's men! King's men! Is it not they who now sit in Becket's place?

But to-day I am content with a judgment less bitter and less logical.
Who may know what is in the heart of God? Perhaps after all, after this
age of ice, Canterbury will rise again and my little son even may hear
them singing in the streets, gay once more and alive with endless
processions that noble old song:

Laureata novo Thoma,
Sicut suo Petro Roma,
Gaude Cantuaria!