Brother Copas | Page 6

party of twelve that came in
motor-cars. I was jealous the cast wouldn't go round, for they all
insisted on having the dole, and a full slice, too--the gentlemen
declaring they were hungry after their drive. But," added Brother
Manby, with a glance at a card affixed by the archway and announcing
that tickets to view the hospital could be procured at sixpence a head,
"they were most appreciative, I must say."
The Master smiled, nodded, and passed on. He gathered that someone
had profited by something over and above the twelve sixpences.
But how gracious, how serenely beautiful, how eloquent of peace and
benediction, the scene that met him as he crossed the threshold of the

great quadrangle! Some thousands of times his eyes had rested on it,
yet how could it ever stale?
"In the evening there shall be light."--The sun, declining in a cloudless
west behind the roof-ridge and tall chimneys of the Brethren's houses,
cast a shadow even to the sundial that stood for centre of the wide
grass-plot. All else was softest gold--gold veiling the sky itself in a
powdery haze; gold spread full along the front of the 'Nunnery,' or row
of upper chambers on the eastern line of the quadrangle, where the
three nurses of St. Hospital have their lodgings; shafts of gold
penetrating the shaded ambulatory below; gold edging the western
coigns of the Norman chapel; gold rayed and slanting between boughs
in the park beyond the railings to the south. Only the western side of
the quadrangle lay in shadow, and in the shadow, in twos and threes,
beside their doors and tiny flower-plots (their pride), sat the Brethren,
with no anxieties, with no care but to watch the closing tranquil hour:
some with their aged wives (for the Hospital, as the Church of England
with her bishops, allows a Brother to have one wife, but ignores her
existence), some in monastic groups, withdrawn from hearing of
women's gossip.
The Master chose the path that, circumventing the grass-plot, led him
past these happy-looking groups and couples. To be sure, it was not his
nearest way to the home-park, where he intended to think out his
peroration; but he had plenty of time, and moreover he delighted to
exchange courtesies with his charges. For each he had a greeting--
--"Fine weather, fine weather, Brother Dasent! Ah, this is the time to
get rid of the rheumatics! Eh, Mrs. Dasent? I haven't seen him looking
so hale for months past."
--"A beautiful evening, Brother Clerihew--yes, beautiful indeed. . . .
You notice how the swallows are flying, both high and low, Brother
Woolcombe? . . . Yes, I think we are in for a spell of it."
--"Ah, good evening, Mrs. Royle! What wonderful ten-week stocks! I
declare I cannot grow the like of them in my garden. And what a
perfume! But it warns me that the dew is beginning to fall, and Brother

Royle ought not to be sitting out late. We must run no risks, Nurse,
after his illness?"
The Master appealed to a comfortable-looking woman who, at his
approach, had been engaged in earnest talk with Mrs. Royle--talk to
which old Brother Royle appeared to listen placidly, seated in his chair.
--And so on. He had a kindly word for all, and all answered his
salutations respectfully; the women bobbing curtseys, the old men
offering to rise from their chairs. But this he would by no means allow.
His presence seemed to carry with it a fragrance of his own, as real as
that of the mignonette and roses and sweet-Williams amid which he left
them embowered.
When he had passed out of earshot, Brother Clerihew turned to Brother
Woolcombe and said--
"The silly old '--' is beginning to show his age, seemin' to me."
"Oughtn't to," answered Brother Woolcombe. "If ever a man had a soft
job, it's him."
"Well, I reckon we don't want to lose him yet, anyhow--'specially if
Colt is to step into his old shoes."
Brother Clerihew's reference was to the Reverend Rufus Colt, Chaplain
of St. Hospital.
"They never would!" opined Brother Woolcombe, meaning by "they"
the governing body of Trustees.
"Oh, you never know--with a man on the make, like Colt. Push carries
everything in these times."
"Colt's a hustler," Brother Woolcombe conceded. "But, damn it all,
they might give us a gentleman!"
"There's not enough to go round, nowadays," grunted Brother Clerihew,
who had been a butler, and knew. "Master Blanchminster's the real

thing, of course . . ." He gazed after the retreating figure of the Master.
"Seemed gay as a goldfinch, he did. D'ye reckon Colt has told him
about Warboise?"
"I wonder. Where is Warboise, by the way?"
"Down by the river, taking a walk to cool his head. Ibbetson's wife