iver-meads--is like few schools in England, and none in any other
country; and is proud of its singularity. It, too, has its stream of
life, and on the whole a very gracious one, with its young, careless
voices and high spirits. It lies, as I say, south of the Close;
beyond the northward fringe of which you penetrate, under archway or
by narrow entry, to the High Street, where another and different tide
comes and goes, with mild hubbub of carts, carriages, motors--ladies
shopping, magistrates and county councillors bent on business of the
shire, farmers, traders, marketers. . . . This traffic, too, is all
very English and ruddy and orderly.

Through it all, picturesque and respected, pass and repass the
bedesmen of Saint Hospital: the Blanchminster Brethren in black gowns
with a silver cross worn at the breast, the Beauchamp Brethren in
gowns of claret colour with a silver rose. The terms of the twin
bequests are not quite the same. To be a Collegian of Christ's Poor
it is enough that you have attained the age of sixty-five, so reduced
in strength as to be incapable of work; whereas you can become a
Collegian of Noble Poverty at sixty, but with the proviso that
misfortune has reduced you from independence (that is to say, from a
moderate estate). The Beauchamp Brethren, who are the fewer, incline
to give themselves airs over the Blanchminsters on the strength of
this distinction: like Dogberry, in their time they have "had
losses." But Merchester takes, perhaps, an equal pride in the
pensioners of both orders.

Merchester takes an even fonder pride in St. Hospital itself--that
compact and exquisite group of buildings, for the most part Norman,
set in the water-meadows among the ambient streams of Mere. It lies
a mile or so southward of the town, and some distance below the
School, where the valley widens between the chalk-hills and, inland
yet, you feel a premonition that the sea is not far away.
All visitors to Merchester are directed towards St. Hospital, and
they dote over it--the American visitors especially; because nowhere
in England can one find the Middle Ages more compendiously summarised
or more charmingly illustrated. Almost it might be a toy model of
those times, with some of their quaintest customs kept going in
smooth working order. But it is better. It is the real thing,
genuinely surviving. No visitor ever finds disappointment in a
pilgrimage to St. Hospital: the inmates take care of that.