Among other features peculiar to itself, Oldchester possesses a quadrangular building with an inner cloister, commonly called College Quad. It is in the immediate neighbourhood of the cathedral, and is divided into small tenements inhabited by clergy forming part of the cathedral body. At the back of the houses on the south side of the quadrangle, pleasant gardens slope down towards the river Wend. The cloister is a very beautiful piece of Gothic work, with fretted roof and springing pillars. Peace and quiet reign within it. In summer there comes a sleepy sound of rooks from the Bishop's garden close at hand; and, towards sunrise and sunset, the chirp of innumerable sparrows mingled with the richer notes of thrush, blackbird, and nightingale in their season. At certain times of the day, too, the stillness is broken by the thrilling freshness of children's voices, as the scholars of the ancient Grammar School scatter themselves over the Cathedral Green, shouting and calling in the shrill silvery treble of boyhood. But these sounds are softened and subdued by distance and thick masonry before they penetrate within the precincts of College Quad. In autumn and winter there is a chill dampness on the greenish-gray paving-stones of the cloister, and the rain drips heavily from carven capitals into the resounding court. The very order and cleanliness of the place--its decorous, clerical, smooth-shaven air--seem sometimes under a watery sky, and when the winds are moaning and complaining, or thrumming like ghostly fingers on the fine resonant Gothic fret-work, to fill the mind with melancholy. A rich contrasting note is seldom wanting:--firelight and the glimpse of a crimson curtain seen through lozenge-shaped window-panes; or an open door sending out a gush of warmth and spicy smells from the kitchen, and the sound of friendly voices. Yet even within doors there seems to be a haunting sense of the old, old times when hands long crumbled into dust built up that dainty cloister, and when patient monkish feet, long stilled for ever, paced its stones. It is not a wholly sad feeling. It may even give zest to the glance of living eyes, and the warm pressure of dear hands. But it has a peculiar pathos:--a pathos which, perhaps, is felt peculiarly by northern people, as the sad-sweet twilight belongs to northern climates, and which many of those, to the manner born, would not exchange for the unbroken garishness of golden-blue days and silver-blue nights.