Rather poetical, Jack?'
Mr. Jasper, still in the same attitude, murmurs: '"Nothing half so
sweet in life," Ned!'
'Here's the parcel in my greatcoat-pocket. They must be presented
to-night, or the poetry is gone. It's against regulations for me
to call at night, but not to leave a packet. I am ready, Jack!'
Mr. Jasper dissolves his attitude, and they go out together.
CHAPTER III - THE NUNS' HOUSE
FOR sufficient reasons, which this narrative will itself unfold as
it advances, a fictitious name must be bestowed upon the old
Cathedral town. Let it stand in these pages as Cloisterham. It
was once possibly known to the Druids by another name, and
certainly to the Romans by another, and to the Saxons by another,
and to the Normans by another; and a name more or less in the
course of many centuries can be of little moment to its dusty
chronicles.
An ancient city, Cloisterham, and no meet dwelling-place for any
one with hankerings after the noisy world. A monotonous, silent
city, deriving an earthy flavour throughout from its Cathedral
crypt, and so abounding in vestiges of monastic graves, that the
Cloisterham children grow small salad in the dust of abbots and
abbesses, and make dirt-pies of nuns and friars; while every
ploughman in its outlying fields renders to once puissant Lord
Treasurers, Archbishops, Bishops, and such-like, the attention
which the Ogre in the story-book desired to render to his unbidden
visitor, and grinds their bones to make his bread.
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