Walled Townes, stored Arcenalls and Armouries, Goodly Races of
Horse, Chariots of Warre, Elephants, Ordnance, Artillery, and
the like: All this is but a Sheep in a Lion's Skin, except the
Breed and disposition be stout and warlike. Nay, Number it
selfe in Armies importeth not much where the People is of weake
courage: For (as _Virgil_ saith) It never troubles a Wolfe, how
many the sheepe be."--BACON.
For the rest of the day my father shut himself in his room, while my
uncle spent the most of it seated on the brewhouse steps in a shaded
corner of the back court, through which the monks brought in their
furniture and returned to the ship for more. The bundles they
carried were prodigious, and all the morning they worked without halt
or rest, ascending and descending the hill in single file and always
at equal distances one behind another. Watching from the terrace
down the slope of the park as they came and went, you might have
taken them for a company of ants moving camp. But my uncle never
wholly recovered from the shock of their first freight, to see man by
man cross the court with a stout coffin on his back and above each
coffin a pack of straw: nor was he content with Fra Basilio's
explanation that the brethren slept in these coffins by rule and
saved the expense of beds.
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