noon
Well , it is my duty , I suppose , and I must perform it . '' With the vigorous purpose of discharging his duty , even to the very rigour , he tried to while away the time with some of the pious hymns which he had learned in the convent in which he had found shelter after the death of his father -- allowing in his own mind , that , but for the change of a novice 's frock for the rich military dress which he now wore , his soldierly walk in the royal gallery of France resembled greatly those of which he had tired excessively in the cloistered seclusion of Aberbrothick . Presently , as if to convince himself he now belonged not to the cell but to the world , he chanted to himself , but in such tone as not to exceed the license given to him , some of the ancient rude ballads which the old family harper had taught him , of the defeat of the Danes at Aberlemno and Forres , the murder of King Duffus at Forfar , and other pithy sonnets and lays which appertained to the history of his distant native country , and particularly of the district to which he belonged . This wore away a considerable space of time , and it was now more than two hours past noon when Quentin was reminded by his appetite that the good fathers of Aberbrothick , however strict in demanding his attendance upon the hours of devotion , were no less punctual in summoning him to those of refection ; whereas here , in the interior of a royal palace , after a morning spent in exercise , and a noon exhausted in duty , no man seemed to consider it as a natural consequence that he must be impatient for his dinner . There are , however , charms in sweet sounds which can lull to rest even the natural feelings of impatience by which Quentin was now visited . At the opposite extremities of the long hall or gallery were two large doors , ornamented with heavy architraves , probably opening into different suites of apartments , to which the gallery served as a medium of mutual communication . As the sentinel directed his solitary walk betwixt these two entrances , which formed the boundary of his duty , he was startled by a strain of music which was suddenly waked near one of those doors , and which , at least in his imagination , was a combination of the same lute and voice by which he had been enchanted on the preceding day .