This Was His
Daily Occupation, Varied Only When He Exchanged The Work Of Knitting
Either For Spinning Cotton, Or Carving Wooden Spoons From The Arbutus:
These He Manufactured In Great Numbers As Return Presents To Those Poor
People Who Brought Little Offerings From The Low Country.
Never having
mixed with the world, the old man was very original and primitive in his
ideas, which were limited to the monastery duties and to the extreme
trouble occasioned by the numerous goats which trespassed upon the
unfenced gardens, and inflicted serious damage.
The chapel, which was
under his control, was of the usual kind, and at the same time rough and
exceedingly gaudy, the pulpit being gilded throughout its surface, and
the reredos glittering with gold and tawdry pictures of the lowest style
of art, representing the various saints, including a very fat St. George
and the meekest possible dragon. Our old friend had never seen a British
sovereign with the St. George, and was vastly pleased when he discovered
that his saint and ours were the same person, only differing in symmetry
of figures and in ferocity of dragons.
There was one very extraordinary effigy in bas-relief upon silver-gilt
about two feet six inches high, of the Virgin Mary, to which peculiar
miraculous properties were attributed. The possession of this relic
formed the principal attraction of the monastery. About a quarter of a
mile above the present establishment there is a small cave concealed
among the ragged masses of rock that crust the mountain side; this has
been formed by one rock which, leans across another, and each end has
been walled up artificially, so as to form a stone chamber of about
twelve feet in length by seven in width, with a small entrance.
According to the account given by the old monk, this cave was the origin
of the present monastery through the following accident.
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