Brother Copas

st duck and searching for some flesh on it, "is not a duck at all,

ently speak; and on the newel-post of this staircase stands one of the curiosities of St. Hospital-a pelican carved in oak, vulning

hat I understand 'em, or want to. 'Tis enough, I suppose, that the Master preache

ons; and you had it by heart at least as long ago as the day before yesterday, when I happened to overhear you pitc

haven't your damned book-learning, nor half your damned cleverness, maybe you've not turned either to such account in life as to make

he Ancren Riwle. Ancren, brother, means 'anchoresses,' recluses, women separated, and living apart from the world pretty much as by rights we men should be living in St. Hospital; and riwle is 'rule,' or an instruction of daily conduct. It is a sound old book, written in the thirteenth century by a certain good Bishop Poore (exce

on, to-day," growle

g sorry, she moans, smites her own breast with the same murderous beak, and so draws blood, with which (says the Bishop) 'she then quickeneth her slain birds.' But I, being no believer in mi

knife and fork, looked up sha

act of petty spite, we turn, not on him, but on one another. You, already more angry with yourself than with Biscoe, suddenly take offence with me because I didn't join you in standing between a good man and his dinner; while I, with a spoilt meal of my own for a grievance, choo

t nine-tenths of th

r's dinner?" he asked anxiously, w

sured him. "Look at the old boy, how

meant,

ners. She has no savoir-faire." Here Brother Copas, relapsing, let the cloud of speculation drift between him and Brother Warboise's remorse. "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus-I reverence the pluck of a man who can cu

s happy as any that can fall to the lot of an indolent, unambitious man, who loves his fellows and takes a delight in their gratitude. St. Hospital exactly suited him. He knew its history. His affection, like an ivy, clung about its old walls and incorporated its

uty to observe the behaviour of the Brethren at meals. In his sixth year of office Master Blanchminster had sent for masons to block this window up. The act of espial had alw

father and Master they should have put this public affront on him and appealed straight away to the Bishop? To be sure, the Statutes provided that the Bishop of Merchester, as Visitor, had power to inquire into the administration of St. Hospital and to remedy abuses. But everyone knew that within living memory, and for a hundred years before, this

ot help feeling just a reflex touch of vexation with Mr. Colt. The Chaplain no doubt was a stalwart soldier, fighting the Church's battle; but her battle was not to

missed the launching of the Great Idea, which was to trouble h

was Mr. B

pas later; "ideas, good and bad, are the

oat. Adaptable in most things, in feeding and in the conduct of a napkin he could never subdue old habit to our English cust

r swore by our English patron saint. "Sla

s," but I resign at the outset any attem

ng taking place to-day in Merchester, England'

so far out of his thought

e capital of England before Lo

as takes an interest in such. Dead-and-alive you may call us; but, as I've told

ties attract visit

ber, as I've told the C

n't they at

end of antikities, it was in a manner of speaking. There's the Cathedral, of course, and the old Palace-or what's lef

id down the spoon in his soup and hurriedly caught at the ri

tching at his spoon and again fixing his eye on

wha

advertise the dear old place and bring grist to our mills. I

ting as a croupier at Ostend and pushing on to the post of Directeur des Fêtes Périodiques to the municipality of that watering-place, had made a sudden name for himself by stage-managing a Hall of Odalisques at the last Paris Exposition, and, crossing to London, had accumulated laurels by directing popular entertainments at Olympia (Kensingt

d he

we're looking o

the way of presenting it in the

t of stupidity, opined that t

h, Master?-these old pensioners of yours-in a

e, made guarded answer that such an exhibition migh

ctly for Merchester. But-you'll excuse me, I must ride a notion when I get astride of one-St. Hospital would be no more than what we call an episode. We'd start with Alfred

Chairman of the Unionist Committee for Merchester; in fact he, more than any man, was responsible for Mr. Bamberger's representing Merchester in Parliament, and sometimes wondered how it had all come about. He answer

e Whig and to your pure Whig p

u don't ask me to dress up and

concerned him, aside with a tolerant smile, which encour

cunning, at length encountered the eye of Mr. Colt, who at th

r name and maybe you're socially no great shakes; a chaplain by

ted hi

Merchester, history cannot get away from the Church. It's her history that any pageant of Mercheste

th his brother Isidore, "that did it, though I say it who shouldn't

ime, pronounced by the Chaplain- bowed to the Brethren and followed the Master upstairs to the littl

ocket, and laughing amicably as he dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee, "what

ry face flushed

answered nervously. "I must

in St. Hospital, and still reckoned an important one. 'Made me feel like an image in a nich

d and opinionated, rathe

Shall we glance over hi

To tell the truth, I am curious to be

paper from his pocket adjusted h

her in God, Walter, Lo

ospital's College of Noble Poverty by Merton, respectfully desire your lordship's attention to certa

omish doctrine of purgatory inter alia to be a fond thing vainly invented, etc., and repugnant to the Word of God, yet pray

on expressly cleared to repudiate several practices not consonant with it, certain of these have been observed of late in our Chapel,

shop p

her Warboise of yours can

e never wrote that

ter passed a hand

who had drawn close and, unpermitted, was star

affronted by this offence against good manners; bu

the page,

the impulse of surprise, M

the signatures! 'J. Copas,'