Mr Harding's garden, by one gable end of Mr Harding's
house, and by the end of the row of buildings which formed the
residences of the bedesmen. It was flagged all round, and the centre
was stoned; small stone gutters ran from the four corners of the
square to a grating in the centre; and attached to the end of Mr
Harding's house was a conduit with four cocks covered over from the
weather, at which the old men got their water, and very generally
performed their morning toilet. It was a quiet, sombre place, shaded
over by the trees of the warden's garden. On the side towards the
river, there stood a row of stone seats, on which the old men would
sit and gaze at the little fish, as they flitted by in the running
stream. On the other side of the river was a rich, green meadow,
running up to and joining the deanery, and as little open to the
public as the garden of the dean itself. Nothing, therefore, could be
more private than the quad of the hospital; and it was there that the
archdeacon determined to convey to them his sense of their refractory
proceedings.

The servant soon brought in word that the men were assembled in the
quad, and the archdeacon, big with his purpose, rose to address them.

"Well, warden, of course you're coming," said he, seeing that Mr
Harding did not prepare to follow him.

"I wish you'd excuse me," said Mr Harding.

"For heaven's sake, don't let us have division in the camp," replied
the archdeacon: "let us have a long pull and a strong pull, but above
all a pull all together; come, warden, come; don't be afraid of your
duty."

Mr Harding was afraid; he was afraid that he was being led to do that
which was not his duty; he was not, however, strong enough to resist,
so he got up and followed his son-in-law.

The old men were assembled in groups in the quadrangle--eleven of them
at least, for poor old Johnny Bell was bed-ridden, and couldn't come;
he had, however, put his mark to the petition, as one of Handy's
earliest followers. 'Tis true he could not move from the bed where
he lay; 'tis true he had no friend on earth, but those whom the
hospital contained; and of those the warden and his daughter were
the most constant and most appreciated; 'tis true that everything was
administered to him which his failing body could require, or which his
faint appetite could enjoy; but still his dull eye had glistened for a
moment at the idea of possessing a hundred pounds a year "to his own
che