rned its sunny side out to Philip just
now; and not before he needed the warmth of brotherly kindness to
cheer his shivering soul. Day after day he drifted northwards,
making but the slow progress of a feeble man, and yet this short
daily walk tired him so much that he longed for rest--for the
morning to come when he needed not to feel that in the course of an
hour or two he must be up and away.

He was toiling on with this longing at his heart when he saw that he
was drawing near a stately city, with a great old cathedral in the
centre keeping solemn guard. This place might be yet two or three
miles distant; he was on a rising ground looking down upon it. A
labouring man passing by, observed his pallid looks and his languid
attitude, and told him for his comfort, that if he turned down a
lane to the left a few steps farther on, he would find himself at
the Hospital of St Sepulchre, where bread and beer were given to all
comers, and where he might sit him down and rest awhile on the old
stone benches within the shadow of the gateway. Obeying these
directions, Philip came upon a building which dated from the time of
Henry the Fifth. Some knight who had fought in the French wars of
that time, and had survived his battles and come home to his old
halls, had been stirred up by his conscience, or by what was
equivalent in those days, his confessor, to build and endow a
hospital for twelve decayed soldiers, and a chapel wherein they were
to attend the daily masses he ordained to be said till the end of
all time (which eternity lasted rather more than a century, pretty
well for an eternity bespoken by a man), for his soul and the souls
of those whom he had slain. There was a large division of the
quadrangular building set apart for the priest who was to say these
masses; and to watch over the well-being of the bedesmen. In process
of years the origin and primary purpose of the hospital had been
forgotten by all excepting the local antiquaries; and the place
itself came to be regarded as a very pleasant quaint set of
almshouses; and the warden's office (he who should have said or sung
his daily masses was now called the warden, and read daily prayers
and preached a sermon on Sundays) an agreeable sinecure.

Another legacy of old Sir Simon Bray was that of a small croft of
land, the rent or profits of which were to go towards giving to all
who asked for it a manchet of bread and a cup of good beer. This
beer was, so Sir Simon