The wrongs, of which the older monks of Llanthony so justly complained, are thus told by their own pious chronicler:--When the storm subsided, and peace was restored, then did the sons of Llanthony tear up the bounds of their Mother-Church, and refuse to serve God, as their duty required, in the old Sanctuary. For great is the difference, said they, between the rich city of Gloucester, and the wild rocks of the Hatterill--between the fertile vale of Severn, and the craggy banks of the Honddy; between the wealth and civilization of England, and the barren hills and beggarly natives of Wales; between a land of smiling meadows and fertile orchards, and a region of trackless mountains and roaring cataracts; in fine--to justify their desertion--between a home amongst smiling gardens, and a grave in the howling wilderness! Some of the renegade brethren declared that they wished every stone of the old foundation were a fleet hare and the hounds after it, that not a vestige might be left. Alas, says the ‘Jeremiad,’ they of Gloucester have usurped and lavished all the revenues of the Mother-Church: for their new abode, they have built stately offices; and the old they have left to moulder into ruins. But to avoid the open scandal of deserting their Mother, they send hither, as to a dependent cell, their old and decrepit members to be cherished in that very bosom--fostered in those very arms--which they have insulted by ingratitude, and weakened by wrong and robbery. So great was the poverty to which the few inmates were reduced, that they were actually without surplices, and at times so destitute of raiment that they could not with proper decency appear at divine service. Sometimes the allowance of bread for one day had to serve for two; whilst in the offshoot at Gloucester there was not only enough, but abundance and superfluity. When entreated to return to their Mother, these heartless brethren, who had tasted the sweets of a new residence, and been corrupted by unwonted luxury, only derided their appeal. “What!” they replied, “would you have us return to sing _Miserere_ to the wolves? Do the whelps of wolves delight in choral harmony?” And when any one was sent to Old Llanthony, whether for health or discipline, they would exclaim--“Why, what has he done? what fault has he committed? what law has he broken, that he should be sent into banishment, shut up in such a prison?”--for it was thus that they spoke of the Mother-abbey--calling it a dungeon, a prison-house, fit only for the punishment of great criminals.