An arched oaken door, with long iron hinges, admitted us
into a school-room about twenty feet square, paved with brick tiles, blue
and red. Adjoining this there is a larger school-room which we did not
enter, but peeped at, through one of the inner windows, from the
cloistered walk. In the room which we entered, there were seven
scholars' desks, and an immense arched fireplace, with seats on each
side, under the chimney, on a stone slab resting on a brick pedestal.
The opening of the fireplace was at least twelve feet in width. On one
side of the room were pegs for fifty-two boys' hats and clothes, and
there was a boy's coat, of peculiar cut, hanging on a peg, with the
number "50" in brass upon it. The coat looked ragged and shabby. An old
school-book was lying on one of the desks, much tattered, and without a
title; but it seemed to treat wholly of Saints' days and festivals of the
Church. A flight of stairs, with a heavy balustrade of carved oak,
ascended to a gallery, about eight or nine feet from the lower floor,
which runs along two sides of the room, looking down upon it. The room
is without a ceiling, and rises into a peaked gable, about twenty feet
high. There is a large clock in it, and it is lighted by two windows,
each about ten feet wide,--one in the gallery, and the other beneath it.
Two benches or settles, with backs, stood one on each side of the
fireplace. An old woman in black passed through the room while I was
making my observations, and looked at me, but said nothing.
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