noon
Again the unwilling Stephen had to submit . There was no feeling for the incongruous in those days , and reverence took very different directions from those in which it now shows itself , so that nobody had any objection to Spring 's pacing gravely with the others towards the Lady Chapel , where the Hours were sung , since the Choir was in the hands of workmen , and the sound of chipping stone could be heard from it , where Bishop Fox 's elaborate lace-work reredos was in course of erection . Passing the shrine of Saint Swithun , and the grand tomb of Cardinal Beaufort , where his life-coloured effigy filled the boys with wonder , they followed their leader 's example , and knelt within the Lady Chapel , while the brief Latin service for the ninth hour was sung through by the canon , clerks , and boys . It really was the Sixth , but cumulative easy - going treatment of the Breviary had made this the usual time for it , as the name of noon still testifies . The boys ' attention , it must be confessed , was chiefly expended on the wonderful miracles of the Blessed Virgin in fresco on the walls of the chapel , all tending to prove that here was hope for those who said their Ave in any extremity of fire or flood . Nones ended , Father Shoveller , with many a halt for greeting or for gossip , took the lads up the hill towards the wide fortified space where the old Castle and royal Hall of Henry of Winchester looked down on the city , and after some friendly passages with the warder at the gate , Father Shoveller explained that he was in quest of some one recently come from court , of whom the striplings in his company could make inquiry concerning a kinsman in the household of my Lord Archbishop of York . The warder scratched his head , and bethinking himself that Eastcheap Jockey was the reverend father 's man , summoned a horse-boy to call that worthy .