ll croft of
land, the rent or profits of which were to go towards giving to all
who asked for it a manchet of bread and a cup of good beer. This
beer was, so Sir Simon ordained, to be made after a certain receipt
which he left, in which ground ivy took the place of hops. But the
receipt, as well as the masses, was modernized according to the
progress of time.

Philip stood under a great broad stone archway; the back-door into
the warden's house was on the right side; a kind of buttery-hatch
was placed by the porter's door on the opposite side. After some
consideration, Philip knocked at the closed shutter, and the signal
seemed to be well understood. He heard a movement within; the hatch
was drawn aside, and his bread and beer were handed to him by a
pleasant-looking old man, who proved himself not at all disinclined
for conversation.

'You may sit down on yonder bench,' said he. 'Nay, man! sit i' the
sun, for it's a chilly place, this, and then you can look through
the grate and watch th' old fellows toddling about in th' quad.'

Philip sat down where the warm October sun slanted upon him, and
looked through the iron railing at the peaceful sight.

A great square of velvet lawn, intersected diagonally with broad
flag-paved walks, the same kind of walk going all round the
quadrangle; low two-storied brick houses, tinted gray and yellow by
age, and in many places almost covered with vines, Virginian
creepers, and monthly roses; before each house a little plot of
garden ground, bright with flowers, and evidently tended with the
utmost care; on the farther side the massive chapel; here and there
an old or infirm man sunning himself, or leisurely doing a bit of
gardening, or talking to one of his comrades--the place looked as if
care and want, and even sorrow, were locked out and excluded by the
ponderous gate through which Philip was gazing.

'It's a nice enough place, bean't it?' said the porter, interpreting
Philip's looks pretty accurately. 'Leastways, for them as likes it.
I've got a bit weary on it myself; it's so far from th' world, as a
man may say; not a decent public within a mile and a half, where one
can hear a bit o' news of an evening.'

'I think I could make myself very content here,' replied Philip.
'That's to say, if one were easy in one's mind.'

'Ay, ay, my man. That's it everywhere. Why, I don't think that I
could enjoy myself--not even at th' White Hart, where they give you
as good a glass of