It had no grand entrance, but in a narrow back street you came suddenly upon its ancient gateway, through which you passed into a mediaeval world.

The clock tower and clock, with an upright sundial affixed below it, marked the first court, whence, through a passage which, as is usual in colleges, had the hall on one hand and the buttery on the other, you entered the second court, round three sides of which ran cloisters of very ugly, very plain, but very ancient architecture.

In a corner of these cloisters was the door of the Lodge--the master's private dwelling.
Private it could hardly be called; for, like all these lodges of colleges, it had an atmosphere most anti-home like, which at first struck you as extremely painful.

Its ancientness, both of rooms and furniture, added to this feeling.

When you passed through the small entrance hall, up the stone staircase, and into a long, narrow, mysterious gallery, looking as it must have looked for two centuries at least, you felt an involuntary shiver, as of warm, human, daily life brought suddenly into contact with the pale ghosts of the past.