LIFE IN AN ISLAND. 113 



altar go away again, having apparently relieved their 

 minds and made their necessities known. But the 

 old men sit still on chance benches, with their faces 

 towards the altar, some glancing up with dim eyes 

 as the strangers enter, but most keeping quite still. 

 What can they be doing here day after day and hour 

 after hour 1 Perhaps only taking shelter from the hot 

 sun, and resting their weary old limbs on the conve- 

 nient benches ; but there are numberless seats outside, 

 where there is something going on, and people to see. 

 and speak to. Here the dim old twilight souls say 

 nothing to each other. They carry no rosaries or 

 other implements of devotion, but sit in a kind of mild 

 torpor, with their faces to the altar, perhaps going 

 over and over the long lives which are now so near 

 the ending, possibly making a feeble darkling attempt 

 to trace God's guidance in them, and offering a mute 

 thankfulness or a mute complaint to the sole eye which 

 sees ; but anyhow, there is something in the spectacle 

 of tins pale old age finding peaceful refuge unmolested 

 in the open church, which is very toiiching to look at. 

 In England, and above all in Scotland, the chances 

 are that somebody would try to teach those torpid old 

 souls, and disturb the unspeakable musings in which 

 they spend their feeble remnants of life ; but here 

 they are left to themselves, and take what share they 

 please, or, if they please, no share at all, in the ser- 

 vices going on at the altar. And the Ave Maria 

 shrills out from the corner chapel at the present 

 VOL. vi. H 



