Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 268: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. 255 realizing by the next cruise sufficient to afford him a competency for the rest of his life. We found that the light proceeded from a small farm-house, the occupants of which were an elderly couple, with three sons and two daughters. The moment the door was opened, the wretched plight in which we made our appearance—the water dripping from our clothes—no hats or caps on our heads—and our saturated hair all in wildest disorder—at once led to the impression that we had been shipwrecked. This we stated to have been the case; and all the members of the family displayed the most cordial zeal to render us such succour aS was in their power. Clean linen was furnished us, and the wardrobes of the three sons supplied us each With a suit. While our toilets were being performed, the daughters superintended the preparations for a good meal; and this, to- gether with some wine and spirits, helped still more to comfort us. Durazzo represented that his vessel was a Greek trader, to which he gave some name very different indeed from that of either the Athene or the Otho. "We were conducted to bed- chambers, and there we reposed for a few hours. In the morning, before breakfast, we descended to the shore on which we had been cast; and we found it strcwn with the fragments of the wreck. By a singular accident a piece of the stern—the very piece on which the name cf “THE OTHO” had been painted—was amongst these relics of the Athene. Durazzo at once dug a hole and buried it: for if he cast it back into the water, it might have been thrown up again. But it was not merely with remnants of the ship that the shore was strown: no less than five dead bodies, swollen and bloated, lay there; and amongst them was that of Notaras, No articles of any value— no chests—no clothes—had been thrown upon the strand; and there was not so much asa single spar standing on the spot where the Athene had struck the hidden rocks. With folded arms, Con- stantine Durazzo gloomily surveyed the scene: I saw that he was profoundly moved—though his fea- tures were rigid and no tear moistened his cheek. We dragged the corpses all to one place, where we ranged them in a row; and we covered them with a sail which had been washed ashore along with the spar to which it pertained. As we re- traced our way towards the hospitable dwelling of the worthy Corsican farmer, Durazzo said ina low melancholy voice, ““We must tarry here long enough to see the obsequies performed for those poor fellows. And then me But he stopped short, as if in utter ignorance of what his own proceedings would subsequently be. I delicately hinted to him that I had ample funds at a banker’s in Florence,—any portion of which should be cheerfully placed at his disposal. “A thousand thanks, my dear Wilmot,” he re- sponded: “but I am far from being in need of such succour. Fortunately at the instant the ac- cident occurred I had in my pocket a purse well filled with gold: but all my other treasure has gone down with the Athene. It is not on account of my immediate purposes that I am at all embar- rassed; but candidly, Wilmot, for the future You know what I mean!”—and he wrung my hand with a sudden convulsive violence; for his heart was evidently full of anxious thought on account of his Leonora. “Tt is not for Constantine Durazzo,” I said, “ to be depressed !” “ No—you are right, Wilmot!” he exclaimed : “it is cowardly to give way to despondency in such circumstances. I must carve out some new fortune for myself!’ I may here pause for a few minutes to observe that the part of the island on which we had been thrown, had a singularly barren and desert appear- ance—save in respect to perhaps about a hundred acres in the vicinage of the farm-house; and this tract of land bore evidences of a very tolerable agriculture, so far as I could judge, and consider- ing the season of the year. About a mile distant, there was a little hamlet, consisting of not more than a dozen of straggling and detached huts or cottages, with the spire of a church peeping up in the midst. In another direction — about three- quarters of a mile from the farm—there was a somewhat vast pile of ruins—the building hav- ing once been a monastic institution, and of which I shall soon have more particularly to speak. There were very few trees within the range of our vision; and those which we did see, were chiefly upon the farm. On arriving at the farm-house we found an ex- cellent breakfast prepared for us; and when the repast was over, Durazzo conferred with our hospitable host relative to the burial of the corpses left upon the strand. The farmer at once sent off to the village to solicit the attendance of the priest . holding the little curacy; and the reverend man promptly complied with the summons. No coffins were provided for the dead,—Durazzo merely wished to have them interred in consecrated ground; and this in the course of the day was accomplished,—the corsair-chief, myself, and the youthful page attending the obsequies, or CHAPTER CXXXI, THE MONASTERY OF sT. BARTHOLOMEW. It was the evening; and we were seated with the farmer’s family in their comfortable parlour,— when the conversation turned upon the ruins to which I have already alluded. “It was once the largest monastic establishment in this island,” said the farmer. ‘Indeed, the monastery of St. Bartholomew was not merely celebrated in Corsica—but it had an European fame, for the richness of its endowments and the hospitality which all way-farers experienced within its walls. If you were to stand upon the highest point of land near those ruins, and to glance all around, the whole tract of territory which the eye would thus embrace once belonged to the monks of St. Batholomew. The Lord Abbot was a feudal peer as well as a high church dignitary; and as some centuries ago Corsica was frequently invaded by bands from Italy or France, and even Spain, the Lord Abbot maintained a considerable military force for the defence of his estates. Tradition moreover tells us that there was many a Lord Abbot who in time of emergency put off the mitre and threw down the crozier, to don the helmet and grasp the sword. In the times of the crusades, the monastery of St. Bartholomew sent to the Sa TS 5 SN I a TC Eloo cS (E()