midnight
It was from the lips of such a tutor , that the child learnt her easy task . Already impressed , beyond all telling , by the silent building and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood -- majestic age surrounded by perpetual youth -- it seemed to her , when she heard these things , sacred to all goodness and virtue . It was another world , where sin and sorrow never came ; a tranquil place of rest , where nothing evil entered . When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every tomb and flat grave-stone some history of its own , he took her down into the old crypt , now a mere dull vault , and showed her how it had been lighted up in the time of the monks , and how , amid lamps depending from the roof , and swinging censers exhaling scented odours , and habits glittering with gold and silver , and pictures , and precious stuffs , and jewels all flashing and glistening through the low arches , the chaunt of aged voices had been many a time heard there , at midnight , in old days , while hooded figures knelt and prayed around , and told their rosaries of beads . Thence , he took her above ground again , and showed her , high up in the old walls , small galleries , where the nuns had been wont to glide along -- dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off -- or to pause like gloomy shadows , listening to the prayers . He showed her too , how the warriors , whose figures rested on the tombs , had worn those rotting scraps of armour up above -- how this had been a helmet , and that a shield , and that a gauntlet -- and how they had wielded the great two-handed swords , and beaten men down , with yonder iron mace . All that he told the child she treasured in her mind ; and sometimes , when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times , and rising from her bed looked out at the dark church , she almost hoped to see the windows lighted up , and hear the organ 's swell , and sound of voices , on the rushing wind .