m, but we must spare a few moments to see the only
portion of the original Norman cloister which is still standing, a dark
round arch, beneath which we pass into a modernised court called the
Little Cloister. The {134} monks' infirmary, an Early English building,
was formerly here, and a few arches of the infirmary chapel, which was
dedicated to St. Catherine, are still to be seen behind one of the
Canon's houses; a small locked door in the other corner leads into the
"College Garden," where the sick brethren used to take the air. We stop
to notice a tablet against the wall, near the choir boys' practice-room,
which is a favourite with all our parties, on account of the quaint
conceit about the man who, "through the spotted veil of the smallpox,
rendered a pure and unspotted soul to God." Returning by the dark arch
we look into Little Dean's Yard, around which are the school buildings,
but Westminster School is too vast a subject to be tackled at the end of
a long morning, so we merely point out the gateway leading to the great
schoolroom, where are carved the names of many a distinguished old
Westminster, and advise our friends to visit Ashburnham House and see
Inigo Jones's famous staircase on another occasion. The south walk is
the direct way to Dean's Yard. The wall all along the side most probably
formed part of the Norman cloister, and was utilised by Litlington for
the new one; behind it was the great refectory, to which we have referred
before. So closely connected in {135} style is the late Decorated and
early Perpendicular that it is impossible to define the exact date of
this part of the monastery, but, roughly speaking, we may attribute the
rest of the buildings which we are now about to visit to the energy of
Abbot Litlington, although some were finished after his death. The tombs
of the early Abbots against this wall were probably originally inside the
Norman church; in any case they have certainly been brought here from
elsewhere. The names we see now were cut in the eighteenth century, and
are so strangely transposed that scarcely one tomb is correctly
inscribed. A large blue stone called Long Meg was long believed to cover
the remains of twenty-eight monks stricken by the plague, but like many
another Abbey legend this is scarcely credible when we recall the busy
monastic life which went on in these cloisters, and the fact that the
cemetery was outside the Lady Chapel. Our goal at present is the