Yet more dreamlike were the small cloisters. In point of tone and atmosphere we might have almost been in the early ages of the world. No one had thought it worth while to interfere with this little old-world building, buried in solitude by surrounding houses. The obscurity reigning even at mid-day was never designed by its architect. No one would dream that in this little corner, unknown, unvisited, exists a gem of the first water and great antiquity; dating probably from the eleventh century.
It was a very small cloister, having only four arches on each side divided by a buttress in the centre. The arches were trefoil-headed, separated by double shafts and the capitals were richly carved. In the north wall a fine fourteenth-century doorway admitted into the church, and in the east wall of the cloister an equally fine doorway led to the fourteenth-century chapter-house. Everything was complete on a small scale.
It was solemn and imposing to the last degree; an effect of age and decay so perfect that we seemed to meet face to face with the dead past. To enter these little cloisters was to commune with ghosts and shadows. If ever they lurked anywhere on earth, here they must be found. We were infinitely charmed with their tone. In spite of surrounding houses—where dead walls were seen—a tomb-like silence reigned. We looked at the small neglected enclosure, where the hand and foot of man might not have intruded for ages, and almost expected to see rising from their graves the dead who had possibly lain there for eight centuries. The stones were stained with damp and the lapse of time; wild unsightly weeds grew amongst them; but nothing stirred.
As we looked, lost in the past, we became aware that we were not alone.
Entering the small cloister was an aged man with long white hair and a long grey beard, half-led by a small child of some eight or nine summers. He might have been one of the patriarchs come back to earth, and seemed venerable as the cloister themselves. More fitting subject for such surroundings could not exist. His movements were slow and deliberate, as though for him time's hour-glass had ceased to run. The child seemed to have learned to restrain its youthful ardour; gazed up into the old man's face with fearless affection, and appeared to watch his will and pleasure. A lovely child, with blue eyes and fair hair, who might belong to Andalusia, or possibly a northern province of Europe.
"Spring and winter," said H. C., looking at this strange advancing pair.
"Or life and death; for surely they are fitting emblems? Who can they be, and what do they want in this forsaken spot?"
The child said something to the aged man and motioned towards us. He paused a moment as though in doubt, then approached yet nearer.
"I am your humble servant, gentlemen," he said, with something of courtliness in his manner. "It is seldom any one shares with me the solitude of these cloisters."
"You are then in the habit of coming here?" returning his salutation.