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Updated: May 1, 2025
In the old churchyard of the ruined monastery of Saints Island in the Shannon, there is an ancient black marble flagstone called the "Cremave" or "swearing stone." The saints are said to have made it a revealer of truth. Any one suspected of falsehood is brought here, and if the accused swears falsely the stone has the power to set a mark upon him and his family for several generations.
It is not difficult to imagine what Vannozza's house was, for the Roman dwelling of the Renaissance did not greatly differ from the ordinary house of the present day, which generally is gloomy and dark. Massive steps of cement led to the dwelling proper, which consisted of a principal salon and adjoining rooms with bare flagstone floors, and ceilings of beams and painted wooden paneling.
The flagstone floor was swept of dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost stratum of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon.
Nor did the occasion lack the heightening glamour and dramatic contrast of historical association, for in this very hall just a century and a half before, if tradition is to be credited, the unfortunate Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, was crowned before setting out with his young brother on the fatal journey which was to terminate under a forgotten flagstone in the Tower of London.
Whatever, therefore, shall be ascertained with regard to our whin-stone, may be so far generalized or extended to the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Germany. The whin-stone of Scotland is also the same with the toad-stone of Derbyshire, which is of the amygdaloides species; it is also the same with the flagstone of the south of Staffordshire, which is a simple whin-stone, or perfect trap.
As he contemplated the flagstone, he forgot about the Cathedral, and remembered only his Uncle Matthew.
"Ventre de biche!" murmured Chicot, sitting down in the middle of his room, after he had removed the flagstone, and with the small piece of board by his side, and his treasure under his eyes, "ventre de biche! that excellent young man is a most invaluable neighbor, for he has made others respect my money, and has himself respected it too; in sober truth, such an action is wonderful in such times as the present.
The Nubian produced a rusty crowbar from some nook where he had evidently concealed it in the past, thrusting the point beneath the bowlder; then he exerted a strong, steady pressure upon the crowbar and the great rock slowly moved aside, disclosing a circular opening in the midst of which was a square flagstone bearing in its centre an iron ring.
On the 20th of December, he was interred in Westminster Abbey, under a blue flagstone, which bears this inscription. Samuel Johnson, LLD. Obiit XIII. die Decembris, Anno Domini MDCCLXXXIV. Aetatis suae LXXV.
Every flagstone has its grooves worn by footsteps going royally to the wooing and the fighting. Every house has a princely heartbreak; each doorway its untold tale of gallant promise and slow decay. By night the Rue Chartres is now but a murky fissure, from which the groping wayfarer sees, flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of Moorish iron balconies.
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