This bell was used only upon special occasions, the ordinary access to the abbey being through the great gates; but, if any danger menaced in the night, if any of the peasantry were taken suddenly ill after sunset, if any of the huts in the hamlet caught fire--which was by no means unusual--or any other business of importance occurred during the hours of darkness, the good people of the neighbourhood applied to the Baby of St. Clare, whose loud voice soon brought out one of the inferior sisters to inquire what was the matter. Passing on from this doorway, and leaving the path towards St. Magdalene's cell on the left, one could circle round the whole extent of the walls, which contained not less than five or six acres of ground. But no other doorway was to be seen, till the great portal was again reached. The walls themselves were of exceeding thickness, and had a walk all round them on a sort of platform at the top. It would have required cannon indeed to have effected a breach at any point; but, at the same time, their great extent rendered them indefensible against the means of escalade, by any force which the good sisters could call to their aid.
Within the great portal was a large open court, flanked on three sides by habitable buildings. To the right, was what was called the visitors' lodging, where a very considerable number of persons could be accommodated, in small rooms very tolerably furnished according to the mode of the day. There, too, a large dining-hall afforded space for the entertainment to the many guests who from time to time partook of the abbey's hospitality. The opposite side was devoted to offices for the lay sisters and servants of the abbey; and the space in front of the great gates was occupied by the chapel, into one part of which the general public was admitted, while the other, separated by a richly-wrought stone screen, was assigned to the nuns themselves. A small stone passage closed by an iron gate ran between the offices and the chapel, and extended, round the back of the former and along the north-western wall to the little doorway which I have mentioned; while, on the other hand, an open door and staircase led to the parlour, which I have mentioned in a preceding chapter, as that in which friends or relatives might converse with any of the recluses, through the grate which divided the room into two. Behind the chapel was another court, cloistered all round, and beyond that the main body of the building.
All these arrangements would seem to show, and, indeed, such was the intention, that the sisterhood were cut off from all immediate communication with the male part of the race; but yet, in truth, neither the order nor the abbey was a very strict one--so little so that, twenty or thirty years before, the sisterhood had not altogether escaped scandal. All occasion for gossiping tongues, however, had been taken away by the conduct of the existing abbess, whose rule was firm though mild; but, at the same time, she neither scrupled to indulge her nuns in all innocent liberty, such as going out once or twice in the year in parties of six or seven together, nor to use her own powers of free action in receiving, even in the interior of the building, during the day time, any of the officers of the abbey, whether lay or clerical, with whom she might wish to speak, and in going out mounted on her mule, and accompanied by several attendants, to inspect the several estates of the foundation, or visit any of the neighbouring towns. This just medium between extreme severity and improper license secured her against all evil tongues; and the abbey was in high repute at the time of which I speak.
About one o'clock, on the day after the woodman's visit, which I have described, some twenty or thirty people were gathered together on the green just before the great portal. But this was no well-dressed and splendid assemblage, no meeting of the high, the rich, and the lordly. It was a very motley band, in which rags and tatters greatly predominated. The most aristocratic of the crowd was probably an itinerant piper, who, with an odd-shaped cap on his head, somewhat like the foot of an old stocking, but spreading out at the edges in the fashion of a basin, had a good coarse brown cloth coat on his back, and hosen on his legs, which, though not new, were not in holes. He kept his bag tight under his arm, not venturing to regale the devout ears of the nuns with the sounds of his merry minstrelsy; but he promised himself and his fellows to cheer their hearts with a tune after their daily dole had been distributed, to receive which was the object of their coming.
They were not kept long waiting, indeed; for one of the elder sisters soon appeared, followed by two stout serving women, dressed in grey gowns, with white hoods and wimples, each carrying an enormous basket filled with large hunches of bread and fragments of broken meat. The contents of these panniers were distributed with great equity, and savoured with a few words, sometimes of ghostly advice, sometimes of reproach, and sometimes of consolation.
Thus it was, "There Hodge, take that, and do not grumble another time as thou didst yesterday. A contented heart makes food wholesome; and you, Margery Dobson, I do wonder that you do not think it shame to live upon the abbey dole, with those good stout hands of yours."
"Ah, dear mother," replied the person she addressed, in a whining tone; "that is always the way. Everything goes by seeming. I vow I am dropsical all over; and then folks say it is all fat. I could no more do a day's work like another, than I could take up the abbey tower and carry it off."
The good sister shook her head, and went on to another, saying--
"Ah! Jackson, if you would but quit your vile drunken ways, you need never come here for the dole. Two hours' work each day would furnish you with as much food as you get here in a week. Ah, Janet Martin, my poor thing," she continued, addressing a woman, who had contrived to add some little scraps of black to the old gown which she wore, "there were no need to give you any of the dole, for the lady abbess will send down to you by and by; but here, as there is plenty for all to-day, take this for yourself and the babes. I dare say they'll eat it."
The woman made a melancholy gesture with her head, replying merely--