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In the quadrangle he passed a group of men in evening dress returned like himself from the ball. They were talking loudly, and reading something which was being passed from hand to hand. As he approached, there was a sudden dead silence. But in his abstraction and excitement he noticed nothing.

The monastery is built against the sheer side of the mountain, perched on a cornice, like a huge eagle's nest. The buildings have no pretense to architectural beauty, and consist of barrack-like houses built around a quadrangle. The chapel is at the farther end, and is, of course, the centre of interest.

Sed transeat cum caeteris erroribus. The small quadrangle, or Close, if we may presume still to give it that appropriate, though antiquated title, which at Lichfield, Salisbury, and elsewhere, is properly applied to designate the enclosure adjacent to a cathedral, already evinced tokens of the fatal scene which was that day to be acted.

There were one hundred and sixty-two of these beautiful columns. Within this quadrangle was an inner wall, seventy feet in height, inclosing the inner court, around which, in the interior, was another still more splendid portico, entered by brazen gates adorned with gold. These doors, or gates, were fifty-two and a half feet high and twenty-six and a quarter wide.

Near the entrance of the refectory, which occupies the whole south side of the quadrangle, stand a band of halberdiers, whose torches cast a ruddy glare on the opposite tower and buttresses of the convent church, revealing the statues not yet plucked from their niches, the crosses on the pinnacles, and the gilt image of Saint Gregory de Northbury, still holding its place over the porch.

There is a mill by the Neckar-side, to which many people resort for coffee, according to the fashion which is almost national in Germany. The river turns the mill-wheel with a plenteous gushing sound; the out-buildings and the dwelling-house of the miller form a well-kept dusty quadrangle.

Then, in the suddenly steadied glance fixed upon nothing from under a thoughtful frown, appeared the man. After landing from his swim Nostromo had scrambled up, all dripping, into the main quadrangle of the old fort; and there, amongst ruined bits of walls and rotting remnants of roofs and sheds, he had slept the day through.

There was a quadrangle, and from three sides latticed windows looked on greensward; on the fourth there was an open corridor, with arches to imitate a cloister. All was strong and barren, and only about the varnished staircase was there any sign of comfort.

The remains of the old quadrangle were a treasure to local antiquaries, and the whole place was full of charm for an imaginative boy. Mr. Champernowne, the owner, was an intimate friend of the Archdeacon, to whom he left the guardianship of his children, so that the Froudes were as much at home in their squire's house as in the parsonage itself.

It was all dead quiet, silent like some deserted graveyard. The sailors and the priests and their converts, remembering that Heaven helps those who help themselves, had sallied out and were reprovisioning themselves and making good their losses. Indeed, the only men we could find were some converts engaged in stacking up silver shoes, or sycee, in a secluded quadrangle.