1 8 EASY-CHAIR MEMORIES 



the old ruins, and that was the portion of the 

 abbey which first attracted our attention. Tea 

 and bread-and-butter; you know, we were 

 rather hungry after our long drive through the 

 finest and purest mountain air in the world, 

 and we were quite ready for a modest repast. 

 The bread was home-made^ just, I am. sure, 

 the same as was baked by the monks of old 

 in the capacious ovens of the old abbey, 1 and 

 the butter and milk and cream from cows 

 descended from the cows with crumpled horns 

 in the olden time. Such loaves, half a yard in 

 circumference and such butter ! The tea was 

 modern and commonplace. Talk of peace and 

 quiet here we have it ! It seems to be the very 

 spot for those who prefer a monastic life : 



" 1 envy them, those monks of old, 

 Their books they read, and their beads they told ; 

 To human softness dead and cold, 

 And all life's vanity." 



It is surrounded by streams said to abound 

 in fish, as is the case with all old abbeys and 



1 This bread was whitey-brown, stone-ground such 

 as I remember in the days of my youth not the in- 

 digestible teeth-destroying pure white stuff we have been 

 fed upon in these latter days, and^ which Sir Oswald 

 Mosley has so vividly condemned. 



