prevail--in fact, lower boys
were forbidden to talk; but talk they always did, and long stories,
often protracted for nights, were told; and for our part, we must
confess that we have never enjoyed any fictions more than those.

Evening prayers took place in the several houses at nine, after which
the lower boys went to bed. A junior master--there was one to each
house--always attended at prayers, which were read by a monitor.
Before prayers names were called over and every boy accounted for.

Although in the midst of brick and mortar, two large spaces,
containing several acres, were available for cricket, whilst
foot-ball--and very fierce games of it, too--was usually played in the
curious old cloisters of the Chartreuse monks which opened on "Upper
Green." The grass-plot of Upper Green was kept sacred from the feet
of under boys except in "cricket quarter," as the summer quarter was
termed. It was rolled, watered and attended to with an assiduity
such as befalls few spots of ground in the world. The roof of the
cloisters was a terrace flagged with stone, and on the occasion of
cricket-matches a gay bevy of ladies assembled here to look at the
exploits of the young Rawdon Crawleys and Pendennises of the day.
Immediately opposite the terrace, across the green, on the immensely
high blank wall, was the word "Crown" rudely painted, and above it
what was intended as a representation of that sign of sovereignty.
This had a history. It was said to have been written there originally
by "the bold and strong-minded Law," commemorated by Macaulay in his
Warren Hastings article, who became Lord Ellenborough, and the last
lord chief-justice who had the honor of a seat in the cabinet. It was
probably put up originally as a goal for boys running races, and for
nearly a century was regularly repainted as commemorative of a famous
alumnus who was so fondly attached to the place of his early education
that he desired to be buried in its chapel, and an imposing monument
to his memory may be seen on its walls. Between Upper and Under
Greens, on the slight eminence to which we have alluded, stood
"School," a large ugly edifice of brick mounted with stone, which
derived an interest in the eyes of those educated there from the fact
that the names of hundreds of old Carthusians were engraven on its
face; for it was the custom of boys leaving school to have their names
bracketed with those of friends; and when Brown took his departure his
n