Rooks and bells and the rattle of carts upon the cobbles
make a perpetual clatter here, and its atmosphere is stuffy and begrimed.
When the Cathedral chimes ring they echo from house to house, from wall to
wall, so that it seems as though the bells of a hundred Cathedrals were
ringing here. Nevertheless from the high windows of the Yard there is a
fine view of orchards and hills and distant woods--a view not to be
despised.
The house in which Canon Foster had his rooms is one of the oldest of all
the houses. The house was kept by one Mrs. Maddis, who had "run" rooms for
the clergy ever since her first marriage, when she was a pretty blushing
girl of twenty. She was now a hideous old woman of eighty, and the house
was managed by her married daughter, Mrs. Crumpleton. There were three
floors and there should have been three clergymen, but for some time the
bottom floor had been empty and the middle apartments were let to
transient tenants. They were at this moment inhabited by a retired sea-
captain.
Foster reigned on the top floor and was quite oblivious of neighbours,
landladies, tidiness, and the view--he cared, by nature, for none of these
things.
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