glancing at him, I perceive that his face is deadly
white. I ask him if he feels faint, and he replies,
endeavouring to smile, " I have a curious sensation
which I never had before. You must excuse
me for——" That sentence is never finished;
those words are the last that the thin lips ever
frame! He reels as he speaks, and falls heavily
into my arms. I catch him, and bear him to the
nearest room—the kitchen—where I lay him on
a long wooden dresser and summon help. A few
persons come at my call; the prior, two or three
lay brothers, and finally an old monk, who is
supposed to have some knowledge of medicine.
A death-like pallor has come over the face
of the stricken man; his lips are blue, his
mouth is set and rigid; the old monk loosens his
gown, chafes his hands and temples, gives me
one rapid and meaning look; a minute afterwards
the prediction contained in that glance is
fulfilled, and Father Lawrence is dead! An
hour since, and he was expressing his hope that
he should die amongst the boys: now, the
hum and bustle of the playground swell upon
us as, lying in the midst of us, he passes Out of
the World.

So inexpressibly shocked and horrified am I at
this event (it being my first experience of sudden
death, and indeed almost of death in any shape),
that I pass the remainder of the night in a kind
of dream, in which but one recollection is boldly
prominent, and that is my astonishment at the
apathy of all the dead man's comrades. A young
man, apparently in full health, is struck down,
and with less than five minutes' warning is
numbered with the dead, and scarcely the least
sign of sorrow, or even of surprise, is exhibited by
those among whom several years of his life have
been passed. This is perhaps the result of that
strict and desperate training, which is the
groundwork of the Cistercian system, "Frère,
il faut mourir!" "Hélas, mourir il faut!" The
repetition of these and similar sentences, the
constant expectation of the end which is looked
forward to as the release and the crowning
glory, the daily sermons on the uncertainty of
life, the half-dug grave in the churchyard always
yawning for the coming occupant,—all these
things tend doubtless to familiarise the monks
with the King of Terrors, as neither to be
wondered nor grieved at. Certain it is that within a
very short time after its occurrence this event is
to all outward seeming dismissed from their
minds, and the ordinary solemn, silent, prosaic
routine is renewed. We, who were present at
the decease, kneel round the dead body while
the prior offers up a prayer for the repose of the
departed soul; at its conclusion he and I start
off to the monastery across the dull, dank, teeming
fields through which I so lately passed with
the dead man. My companion is silent, and
I am too much occupied with my own thoughts
to wish for conversation. Try all I will, I cannot
blot out that calm, settled, rigid face, from my
memory, or shut it from my sight. It rises
before me, ever fresh and new, and its
association with the monkish garb is so vivid,
and my relations with it have been so recent
and so brief, that I cannot dissuade myself
that the events of the last hour have been
visionary, and that the form now walking by
my side is that which accompanied me to the
reformatory.

On our arrival at the monastery I am shown
to the guest chamber, and there left to my
own reflections, the naturally sombre hue of
which is increased by my solitude and by the
dead silence reigning around. For more than
an hour, I remain brooding over the embers
of a wood fire, flickering away, until I am
roused by the entrance of an old man in the
lay brothers' habit, who tells me he has been
sent by the abbot to conduct me through
the building. Still in a dream, I follow him
along cold, whitewashed, stone-paved corridors
and up gloomy stairs; in a dream I pass into
the refectory (refectory, Heaven save the mark!
where one daily meal of bread-and-water is the
sole allowance), and thence into the dormitories,
where I find many useful inventions for the
effectual prevention of sleep—such as straw
pallets, very short bedsteads, and, above all, an
overpowering closeness and odour. Thence into
the chapel, where the monks are assembling to
celebrate high mass, and where what little
glimmering of reason I have retained, leaves me at
once.

For, I am stationed in a gallery of which I
am the sole occupant, whence I look upon a
scene that assuredly does not appear to have the
slightest connexion with the nineteenth century.
Before me, is a large altar, decorated in the gayest
manner, and illuminated by enormous candlesticks,
bearing gigantic wax candles. Here stands
the abbot in his fullest robes, while in seats on
either side, similar to the prebendal stalls in our
cathedrals, are the monks in their light-brown
habits and their dark cowls and scapularies;
immediately beneath me are the dark-robed lay
brethren; throughout the building, I am the
only person in anything approaching to ordinary
modern dress. Now, worn out by the events of
the day, and entirely overcome by the strangeness
of the scene going on before my eyes, I
completely renounce my identity, disclaim any
connexion with my past or future, and become a
mere passive but interested spectator of the
proceedings; now, I gaze in dreamy wonder
on bowings and genuflexions, on the swinging to
and fro of incense-laden censers; now, I listen
to monotonous chanting of the monks, through
which I hear the iron tones of midnight clanging
from a neighbouring clock. Midnight! In the
world to-night, the signal for an outburst of extra
geniality, for hand-grasping and "merry-Christmas"
wishing!

And even here, Out of the World, the
solemn hour has its distinctive character; for, as
the last stroke vibrates through the building,
the service is ended, and the abbot, turning to
the prior who bends reverently before him, raises
him up and salutes him on the cheek with what
is called among them as the "kiss of peace."
This ceremony is repeated by the prior to the
oldest of the monks, by him to the next in