He would visit among them to solace and nurse the sick, and give absolution to the dying, which his and their religion so beautifully promises, but he would never break bread within their hospitable doors; preferring, and insisting, always, upon a crust and a cup of cold water outside.
Nor would he sleep upon the soft woolen colchons which even the poorest of New-Mexican homes afford, but, absorbed by devout thoughts, wrapped himself in his single coarse blanket and laid himself on the bare ground; or, if it was stormy, in some outhouse with the sheep and goats. This, of course, was part of his self-imposed penance, from which he never deviated, rigorous as it was.
One day, after his familiar and beloved face had been missed for more than a week by his devotees, a sorrowful party went out to seek him. They found him dead on the rugged trail to his lonely home; his beads enfolded in his delicately shaped fingers, and his countenance wearing a saint-like expression. A poisoned dagger in his heart, by the hand of an assassin, had accomplished the foul deed which for a whole lifetime, during every moment of the unhappy man's active and dreaming hours, was a continually disturbing fear.
Thus passed away, as he had predicted in his youth, the eccentric but holy Matteo Boccalini, "Hermit Priest" of the old "Santa Fé Trail," and the "El Solitario" of the New Mexico mountains. A man of sorrow and grief, yet with as much repentance, and as many penances as sins; one of those ethereal beings who might become physically unclean, but never spiritually impure.
For years after his departure from Council Grove, the "hermit priest's" cave was an object of much interest. Until within a very short period, when the quarrymen tore down its last vestige, upon its time-worn walls could be traced, rudely carved, his name, "Matteo Boccalini," a cross, "Jesu Maria," and "Capri"—all so dear to the lonely and sad man's heart.
MEDICINE BLUFF.
