“Why, it is the cow, with patches of white on her.”
And so it was, as she was obliged to acknowledge. This Mother I believe often professed to see visions, and dream supernatural dreams; and I might have thought that I saw visions, but being somewhat of an inquiring and matter-of-fact turn of mind, I preferred to be very cautious, and carefully sifted everything that had any appearance of the miraculous about it. For instance, I was once kneeling at the prayer-desk before the “altar,” supposing myself to be quite alone in the church; when I suddenly saw the curtains at the back of the “altar” gently moving for some time, and I wondered what this movement could mean. Then all was all quiet again, and I resumed my devotions, thinking that possibly I had only fancied it. Suddenly, behind the flowers and candlesticks, I beheld a face, and I began to tremble, and feared even to look up again; but at last I did so, and I beheld the reverend Mother, who was, I believe, engaged in dusting. Now if I had been half asleep, I might easily have imagined I had seen a vision of a departed saint; and I think the semi-darkness in which the sanctuary was enveloped, together with the soft rays of the ever-burning sanctuary lamp, can with little difficulty lead the devotee to imagine the supernatural, especially as we were always taught that on the “altar,” that miracle of miracles, or rather that imposture of impostures, took place in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine, into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But to return to the apparitions, an account of which I have already given, and about which I have stated shortly my opinion.
I was at Slapton, in Devonshire, at the time they took place, and therefore I only heard what the boys had told Father Ignatius.
He asked us all: “Do you believe them?”
The other nuns said, “Yes.”
Father Ignatius then said: “Do you believe them, Sister Agnes?” I replied, “No, dear Father, of course I don’t. I never believe anything the boys say.”
I had a particular dislike to the monastery boys, and I had often heard from the reverend Father what lying boys some of these very ones were, and as to ⸺ he scarcely ever spoke the truth.
Then, as to poor Sister Janet, she was certainly very eccentric and peculiar, and when any one injured her she usually threatened to “call up the ghost” of her dead father. She once thus threatened a man, and a priest, knowing of it, disguised himself, and frightened the poor man so much, that he refused to go back to the hut where he lived. Apart from this she had her good points, and was Father Ignatius’s devoted slave.