ell-fire!" he said.

The Prior took with him a very youthful though devoted
companion--Hyacinthus, the pet of the community. They laughed
admiringly at the rebellious masses of his black hair, with blue in the
depths of it, like the wings of the swallow, which refused to conform
to the monkish pattern. It only grew twofold, crown upon crown, after
the half-yearly shaving. And he was as neat and serviceable as he was
delightful to be with. Prior Saint-Jean, then, and the boy started
before daybreak for the long journey; onwards, till darkness, a soft
twilight rather, was around them again. How unlike a winter night it
seemed, the further they went through the endless, lonely, turf-grown
tracts, and along the edge of a valley, at length--vallis monachorum,
monksvale--taken aback by its sudden steepness and depth, as of an
immense oval cup sunken in the grassy upland, over which a golden moon
now shone broadly. Ah! there it was at last, the white Grange, the
white gable of the chapel apart amid a few scattered white gravestones,
the white flocks crouched about on the hoar-frost, [148] like the white
clouds, packed somewhat heavily on the horizon, and nacres as the
clouds of June, with their own light and heat in them, in their
hollows, you might fancy.

From the very first, the atmosphere, the light, the influence of
things, seemed different from what they knew; and how distant already
the dark buildings of their home! Was there the breath of surviving
summer blossom on the air? Now and then came a gentle, comfortable
bleating from the folds, and themselves slept soundly at last in the
great open upper chamber of the Grange; were awakened by the sound of
thunder. Strange, in the late November night! It had parted, however,
with its torrid fierceness; modulated by distance, seemed to break away
into musical notes. And the lightning lingered along with it, but
glancing softly; was in truth an aurora, such as persisted month after
month on the northern sky as they sojourned here. Like Prospero's
enchanted island, the whole place was "full of noises." The wind it
might have been, passing over metallic strings, but that they were
audible even when the night was breathless.

So like veritable music, however, were they on that first night that,
upon reflexion, the Prior climbed softly the winding stair down which
they appeared to flow, to the great solar among the beams of the roof,
where the farm produce lay store