Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/238

Rh resist with violence. For it is to be remembered that unspeakable practices were sometimes resorted to, at the will of the priests or bishops, countenanced by the Superior; and sometimes, as I have stated in my first volume, required on the authority of the Pope.

Jane Ray sometimes appeared as a loud and violent opposer of what were considered the established rules of the Convent. She would break out in denunciations of the priests, and berate them in a style which it would be difficult to imitate, if it were worth while. Other nuns would sometimes exclaim, "Are you not ashamed to show so little respect for the holy fathers?" "Why are they not ashamed" she would reply, "to show no respect for the holy sisters?"

Some of the best opportunities I ever had for conversing with Jane, were at night; for during a considerable time she had her bed opposite mine, and by watching for a moment, when she could do it without being seen by the night watch, she would slip over to me, and get into my bed. Thus we have often spent hours together, and she found such occasions very convenient for communicating to me such plans as she devised for amusement or revenge. I sometimes lent an ear to her proposals, quite against my will; for I commonly concluded with a solemn confession of the wickedness, as I supposed it, in which she thus induced, and sometimes almost compelled me to engage. Indeed, it often happened that I had nothing to do in the morning, as it were, but to beg pardon; and when I was asked why I had so much of that business to do, I commonly laid it to Jane Ray. She, however, appeared to take much pleasure in the stolen interviews we thus had; and when we were obliged to lie at a distance from each other, she told me that it caused her to weep more than she had ever done in her life.

I naturally felt much curiosity to learn something of the history of Jane Ray, and repeatedly asked her