And our readers must imagine how the Glastonbury boys were excited by such stories as that of the four hundred London apprentices, who went out as volunteers to the garrison of Calais, and kept all the neighbouring districts of France in terror, until they were overwhelmed by _six_ times their number, and died fighting with careless desperation to the last. So, even in the calm atmosphere of a monastery school, the world intruded. As for their book-lore, they learned Latin practically, for they were forced to use it during a great part of the day in conversation, while they read daily in the Fathers and classical authors. Fabyan’s Chronicles and other old English historians supplied their history, and they were fairly instructed in the rudiments of mathematics. Altogether it was a sound education which the monastic school supplied. We will now proceed with our story, after a digression which may be easily omitted by those who dislike to understand what they read. * * * * * The reader has, we doubt not, already identified the hero of the midnight adventure in the church porch, with the babe of our prologue. Honest old Giles Hodge had told the whole story to the Abbot, within whose jurisdiction the babe was found, and with whom he sought an early interview. Strict search had been made after the surviving parent, if perchance there was one upon whom that epithet could be bestowed. But no trace was found; only the delicate apparel of the lady, and the fine linen in which the child was wrapped, led to the conclusion that they were members of some “gentle house.” Upon the linen there were marks: a crest which had been picked out, and two initials yet remaining, “C. R.” “The poor little foundling shall be our care,” said the good Abbot, “but here alack, we have no nursery, and your good wife, who has so recently lost her own babe, must be his foster mother if she be willing. I will provide for his maintenance hereafter, whether in the cloister or the world, unless his friends claim him.” “And what name shall we give him, your reverence?” “Let me see, C must be his Christian name; let us call him Cuthbert, better patron than S. Cuthbert he could not have; the R must yet be a mystery--he will not need two names yet.” So the years rolled by; Cuthbert grew up strong and hearty, but no one ever came to claim him. And he was still known only by _one_ name, a peculiarity little commented upon where his story was so well known. He grew up a general favourite, especially, it was supposed, with the Abbot; and yet the self-restrained austere old man showed little traces of such weakness, save to very observant eyes. He loved the young, one and all, and often visited the school. He knew every face there, and it was a great delight to him to watch them at their sports, perhaps recalling his own younger days, when Henry the Seventh was King.