according to all English
precedent, an ancient charitable fund is certain to be held directly for
the behoof of those who administer it, and perhaps incidentally, in a
moderate way, for the nominal beneficiaries; and, in the case before us,
the brethren being so comfortably provided for, the Master is likely to
be at least as comfortable as all the twelve together. Yet I ought not,
even in a distant land, to fling an idle gibe against a gentleman of
whom I really know nothing, except that the people under his charge bear
all possible tokens of being tended and cared for as sedulously as if
each of them sat by a warm fireside of his own, with a daughter bustling
round the hearth to make ready his porridge and his titbits. It is
delightful to think of the good life which a suitable man, in the
Master's position, has an opportunity to lead,--linked to time-honored
customs, welded in with an ancient system, never dreaming of radical
change, and bringing all the mellowness and richness of the past down
into these railway-days, which do not compel him or his community
to move a whit quicker than of yore. Everybody can appreciate the
advantages of going ahead; it might be well, sometimes, to think whether
there is not a word or two to be said in favor of standing still, or
going to sleep.

From the garden we went into the kitchen, where the fire was burning
hospitably, and diffused a genial warmth far and wide, together with the
fragrance of some old English roast-beef, which, I think must at that
moment have been nearly to a turn. The kitchen is a lofty, spacious,
and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace by a sort of
semicircular oaken screen, or, rather, an arrangement of heavy and
high-backed settles, with an ever open entrance between them, on either
side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff,
three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and
unctuous kitchen-smoke. The ponderous mantel-piece, likewise of carved
oak, towers high towards the dusky ceiling, and extends its mighty
breadth to take in a vast area of hearth, the arch of the fireplace
being positively so immense that I could compare it to nothing but the
city-gateway. Above its cavernous opening were crossed two ancient
halberds, the weapons, possibly, of soldiers who had fought under
Leicester in the Low Countries; and elsewhere on the walls were
displayed several muskets, which some of the present inmate