Excerpt from The Chronicles of the Crutch
The Brethren of the Crutch were tired of the lagging hours. Wearily to them the sun passed over the heavens. Sitting in the cool cloisters, on summer afternoons, they puffed the blue fumes of their bird"s-eye into the air; and dozed and yawned. They were each familiar with the other. Every experience of the world (still humming without, careless of their withdrawal, and still preparing new brothers for the coming years) had been told over and over again. There was not a rent in a brother"s garment upon which the feeble eyes of his comrades had not rested. No brother had a relation whose name and fortune were not familiar to the minds of the rest. In this asylum for the vanquished soldiers of the world - this "chapel of ease for all men"s wearied miseries" - there was a pervading, unbroken quiet, that befitted, it was said, the ante-room to the sepulchre. These vanquished soldiers were here gathered together - waiting for their sentence. The world gave them the needful crust and the comforting pipe - as the French lately gave caporal and wine to the captured Austrians.
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