Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Monks -- Fiction; Portugal -- History -- 1826-1853 -- Fiction; Wine and wine making -- Fiction
"Second," he continued. "The Saint's boyhood. The book he is
reading, in the shadow of the wayside shrine, is the 'Little Hours of
the Blessed Virgin.' The scroll reads, _Zelus domus tuae comedit
me_: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.' The games the other
boys are playing are played in Portuguese villages to-day. The
bullock-carts are unchanged also. Notice the two cats--lanky cats
with long clever heads; they are Portuguese cats all over."
The third picture was pierced by the doorway which gave access to the
cloisters; and the designers of the azulejos had made bold use of
what might have been a disfigurement. The picture showed a small
monastery. The gables, the dormer windows, the round arches, and the
stumpy belfry of this little monastery were depicted in blue, on the
tiles; but where there ought to have been a blue-painted doorway one
saw the solid jamb and lintel of the doorway through which young
Crowberry and the others had entered the chapel. The figure of the
Saint was nowhere to be seen; but all the men and women in the
picture were crowding hurriedly towards the doorway as if they would
see the last of somebody who had passed into the cloister. Above the
solid lintel chubby blue boys were painted lying on their chests and
trying to look down into the building.
"The Saint," Antonio explained, "has entered a religious house. And
as that religious house was this very abbey, you see the point of the
doorway. On the scroll, _Magister adest et vocat te_: 'The Master is
here and calleth thee.'"
Antonio successively pointed out the pictures of the Saint's first
Mass, with blue angels helping to uphold the Chalice, and of the
Saint's first miracle, with Oporto in the distance. This ended the
series on the north wall. At the marble balustrade of the gilded
sanctuary, he explained the stalls, the retablo, and the
boldly-ribbed Gothic vaulting, at least a century older than the
nave. Then he worked back along the south wall, making short
comments on the Saint's shipwreck and second miracle, his preaching
to prisoners, his landing in England, and his visit to the Abbey of
Westminster, once Benedictine.
"Your Westminster Abbey looks strange," said Antonio. "It is before
the alterations of Wren; but I admit the faults of the picture. The
next one is better. It is the Saint's death at--I think you
pronounce it Tyburn. The horses and most of the faces are quite
English. The hurdle on which he has been drawn is broken. Notice
the one-eyed man with the butcher's knife. On the scroll are the
Saint's last words, the same as Saint Stephen's, _Domine ne statuas
illis hoc peccatum_: 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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