windows, but it had been so entirely eclipsed by Wykeham's
foundation that the number of priests, students, and choir-boys it
was intended to maintain, had dwindled away, so that it now
contained merely the Warden, a superannuated priest, and a couple of
big lads who acted as servants. There was an air of great quietude
and coolness about the pointed arches of its tiny cloister on that
summer's day, with the old monk dozing in his chair over the
manuscript he thought he was reading, not far from the little table
where the Warden was eagerly studying Erasmus's Praise of Folly.
But the Birkenholts were of the age at which quiet means dulness, at
least Stephen was, and the Warden had pity both on them and on
himself; and hearing joyous shouts outside, he opened a little door
in the cloister wall, and revealed a multitude of lads with their
black gowns tucked up "a playing at the ball"--these being the
scholars of St. Mary's. Beckoning to a pair of elder ones, who were
walking up and down more quietly, he consigned the strangers to
their care, sweetening the introduction by an invitation to supper,
for which he would gain permission from their Warden.

One of the young Wykehamists was shy and churlish, and sheered off
from the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of
becoming scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister where
the studies took place in all weathers, showed them the hall, the
chapel, and the chambers, and expatiated on the chances of attaining
to New College. Being moreover a scholarly fellow, he and Ambrose
fell into a discussion over the passage of Virgil, copied out on a
bit of paper, which he was learning by heart. Some other scholars
having finished their game, and become aware of the presence of a
strange dog and two strange boys, proceeded to mob Stephen and
Spring, whereupon the shy boy stood forth and declared that the