Ave, Maria; Ave, Maria; Ave, Maria.
We then undress, perform our ablutions, redress, praying at each holy garment we put on; finally we lie down, making the sign of the cross, and saying, “I will lay me down in peace,” etc. The “peace” is a query. It was more often “I will lay me down in sorrow,” worn out in mind and body, and thus closes the peaceful, perfect, sublime, happy, holy day!
In summer the rule differs a little, and is not quite so strict. But during the season of Lent it is much stricter, and we only have the 9 o’clock pittance, and one meal at 5 o’clock, and we actually rise in the morning at 1.45, and do not rest any more till night. On Ash Wednesday we had nothing to eat or drink until six o’clock in the evening; we stayed in church practically the whole of the day. The floor of the church is strewn with ashes and cinders from the grates, and we sit on the ground in the ashes instead of in our stalls.[16] The 6 o’clock meal is scarcely touched, as every one is feeling too cold and ill to eat. After compline we have to lash ourselves with the “Discipline,” and then we have to go to bed unwashed, as a penance for our sins. We are not even allowed to shake the ashes out of our serge habits before retiring for the night; to do so would be to break solemn silence, so we actually sit in ashes all day, and sleep in them all night. On Good Friday we go through a somewhat similar day, but the ashes are dispensed with. Every day, over and above the divine office and prayer, continual supplication for the conversion of sinners, and for the dead, are offered, each person taking an hour’s watch before the reserved Sacrament, so that the church is not left from 5 a.m. till 10 or 11 p.m.
CHAPTER XI.
ILL-TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.
I recollect how a poor orphan boy at Llanthony monastery was almost always in disgrace, and had to endure the “Discipline.” The lads, when doing penance, were stripped, then laid on a long table, their faces downwards, and lashed for such faults as talking in silence time, slamming doors, leaving dust about.
Another little boy, of nine or ten—motherless—his father a dipsomaniac, after being at the monastery four or five years, was turned out and sent to London, to do the best he could, with only 2s. 6d. in his pocket. Father Ignatius said Bertie was a perfect little devil. But I can assure the reader that the end of all the boys was very much like this. Sooner or later they are turned out, or else they run away. The two mothers at the Llanthony convent were constantly dropping down on the boys, when Father Ignatius was away, for breaking solemn silence, and made even the youngest of them recite the Psalms aloud, after they were tired out by the long service of compline. Very little children, I know, had constantly to go without their breakfast as a penance. I remember well two dear little children, Ada and Alice ⸺. They were sent to the convent by their father, a tradesman in Hereford, who doubtless thought it a great privilege to have them there. Alice was only between three and four years of age. Mother Mary Ermenild had charge of them, and she would lash them both with the “Discipline”[17] for the most trifling offences. I often found little Alice holding her arms and crying, and would say to her (if no one was near to hear me):
“What’s the matter, darling?”