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At a long wooden table in one sat a blue-bloused group drinking cider out of huge yellow mugs scene for a painter. Another, fitted up as a dairy, was hardly less of a picture. On shelves in the dark, antiquated chamber lay large, red-earthen pans full of cream for cheese-making. The brown-robed figure of a lay brother would have seemed appropriate in either place.
Although we were still in Switzerland, the people began to have that lazy, indolent look which characterizes the Italians; most of the occupations were carried on in the open air, and brown-robed, sandalled friars were going about from house to house, collecting money and provisions for their support.
Into the silence of the square broke the sound of song and the clash of flagons upon the oaken table. At last there came down the broad stair and out into the court a figure in the habit of a monk, who hurried shufflingly across the stones to the grim row of brown-robed men. He threw himself sobbing at the feet of the tall Abbot. "Rise, my son, and embrace me," said his superior.
Between their southern edge and the clustering summits a row of faded brown, low hills knelt like brown-robed, withered and weary old men, backs bent, faces hidden between outstretched arms, palms to the earth and brows touching earth within them in the East's immemorial attitude of worship.
Built by the celebrated Cardinal Pietro Capuano nearly seven hundred years ago for Cistercian monks, the monastery in the sixteenth century came into the possession of the Capuchin Friars, those brown-robed figures that with their bare feet and girdles of knotted white cord are such familiar and picturesque objects in the daily crowds of every Italian town.
I seemed to see, toiling up the peninsula, a little band of foot-sore travelers, the leathern-clad soldiers on the alert for hostile Indians, the brown-robed friars encouraging the women and children, and the sturdy colonists bringing up the rear with their flocks and herds. At last the little company come to a sparkling rivulet and stoop to drink eagerly of the cool water.
There were huge, two-storied diligences, too, drawn by six or eight black mules, crammed under their canvas roofs with white- or brown-robed Arabs, and going very fast. From Oran they might have gone on the same night, reaching the end of their journey after a few hours' spin, but Nevill explained that haste would be vain.
Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a pair of brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke with me a while. I think my sack was the great attraction; it had already beguiled the heart of poor Apollinaris, who had charged me on my life to show it to the Father Prior.
Armande for whom men made way respectfully, following the tall brown-robed figure with their eyes along the Parade and out of sight. Her exquisitely graceful form, the rounded curves sometimes revealed by a chance gust of wind, and always visible to my eyes in spite of the ample folds of stuff, revisited my young man's dreams.
A brown-robed man stood before him. The level dark eyes were looking deep into the place where Skag's soul lived. Skag was intensely conscious that he stood in a Presence. He endured the eyes. They made him feel better. The robed man spoke again: "I speak to give you assurance that those you have served will be cared for. Also, a responsibility may fall upon you.
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