IV
UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS
The Hall
THE BEDESMEN
There he lies, Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting the great Examination Day.... Yonder sit some threescore old gentlemen pensioners of the hospital, listening to the prayers and the psalms. You hear them coughing feebly in the twilight,—the old reverend blackgowns.... How solemn the well-remembered prayers are, here uttered again in the place where in childhood we used to hear them! How beautiful, and decorous the rite; how noble the ancient words of the supplications which the priest utters, and to which generations of fresh children and troops of bygone seniors have cried Amen! under those arches! The service for Founder's Day is a special one; one of the psalms selected being the thirty-seventh and we hear—
23. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way—
24. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
25. I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.
W. M. Thackeray.
HIRAM'S HOSPITAL