A little farther on, but close at hand,
is a cloister with beautiful marble columns and tombs, and a
colossal wood-carved Calvary, and beside that a small and very
rich chapel; indeed, so full is the little town of the undisturbed
past, that to walk in it is like opening a missal of the Middle
Ages, all emblazoned and illuminated with saints and warriors, and
it is so clean, and so still, and so noble, by reason of its
monuments and its historic color, that I marvel much no one has
ever cared to sing its praises. The old pious, heroic life of an
age at once more restful and more brave than ours still leaves its
spirit there, and then there is the girdle of the mountains all
around, and that alone means strength, peace, majesty.
In this little town a few years ago August Strehla lived with his
people in the stone-paved, irregular square where the grand church
stands.
He was a small boy of nine years at that time,--a chubby-faced
little man with rosy cheeks, big hazel eyes, and clusters of curls
the brown of ripe nuts. His mother was dead, his father was poor,
and there were many mouths at home to feed. In this country the
winters are long and very cold; the whole land lies wrapped in
snow for many months; and this night that he was trotting home,
with a jug of beer in his numb red hands, was terribly cold and
dreary.
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