The bells
are going for daily vesper service, and he must needs attend it,
one would say, from his haste to reach the open Cathedral door.
The choir are getting on their sullied white robes, in a hurry,
when he arrives among them, gets on his own robe, and falls into
the procession filing in to service. Then, the Sacristan locks the
iron-barred gates that divide the sanctuary from the chancel, and
all of the procession having scuttled into their places, hide their
faces; and then the intoned words, 'WHEN THE WICKED MAN--' rise
among groins of arches and beams of roof, awakening muttered
thunder.
CHAPTER II--A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO
Whosoever has observed that sedate and clerical bird, the rook, may
perhaps have noticed that when he wings his way homeward towards
nightfall, in a sedate and clerical company, two rooks will
suddenly detach themselves from the rest, will retrace their flight
for some distance, and will there poise and linger; conveying to
mere men the fancy that it is of some occult importance to the body
politic, that this artful couple should pretend to have renounced
connection with it.
Similarly, service being over in the old Cathedral with the square
tower, and the choir scuffling out again, and divers venerable
persons of rook-like aspect dispersing, two of these latter retrace
their steps, and walk together in the echoing Close.
Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun is fiery and
yet cold behind the monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on the
Cathedral wall has showered half its deep-red leaves down on the
pavement. There has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder
goes among the little pools on the cracked, uneven flag-stones, and
through the giant elm-trees as they shed a gust of tears. Their
fallen leaves lie strewn thickly about. Some of these leaves, in a
timid rush, seek sanctuary within the low arched Cathedral door;
but two men coming out resist them, and cast them forth again with
their feet; this done, one of the two locks the door with a goodly
key, and the other flits away with a folio music-book.
'Mr. Jasper was that, Tope?'
'Yes, Mr. Dean.'
'He has stayed late.'
'Yes, Mr. Dean. I have stayed for him, your Reverence. He has
been took a little poorly.'
'Say "taken," Tope--to the Dean,' the younger rook interposes in a
low tone with this touch of correction, as who should say: 'You
may offer bad grammar to the laity, or the humbler clergy, not to
the Dean.'
Mr. Tope, Chief Verger and Showman, and accustomed to be high with
excursion parties, declines with a silent loftiness to perceive
that any suggestion has been tendered to him.
'And when and how has Mr. Jasper been taken--for, as Mr. Crisparkle
has remarked, it is better to say taken--taken--' repeats the Dean;
'when and how has Mr. Jasper been Taken--'
'Taken, sir,' Tope deferentially murmurs.
'--Poorly, Tope?'
'Why, sir, Mr. Jasper was that breathed--'
'I wouldn't say "That breathed," Tope,' Mr. Crisparkle interposes
with the same touch as before. 'Not English--to the Dean.'
'Breathed to that extent,' the Dean (not unflattered by this
indirect homage) condescendingly remarks, 'would be preferable.'
'Mr. Jasper's breathing was so remarkably short'--thus discreetly
does Mr. Tope work his way round the sunken rock--'when he came in,
that it distressed him mightily to get his notes out: which was
perhaps the cause of his having a kind of fit on him after a
little. His memory grew DAZED.' Mr.
