Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/48

Rh later than usual. When he comes in, he sits a little while, until a nun goes into the adjoining nuns' sick-room, to see if all is ready, and returns to admit him. After prescribing for the patient he goes no further, but returns by the way he enters; and these are the only rooms into which he is admitted.

4. The nuns' sick-room adjoins the little sitting-room on the east, and has four windows towards the north, with beds ranged in two rows from end to end, and a few more between them, near the opposite extremity. The door to the sitting-room swings to the left, and behind it is a table, while a glass case contains a wax figure of the infant Saviour, with several sheep. Near the north-eastern corner are two doors, one of which opens into a narrow passage, leading to the head of the great staircase that conducts to the cross street. By this passage the physician sometimes finds his way to the sick-room, when he comes late. He rings the bell at the gate, which I was told had a concealed pull, known only to him and the priests, proceeds upstairs and through the passage, rapping three times at the door of the sick-room, which is opened by a nun in attendance, after she had given one rap in reply. He returns by the same way.

5. Next, beyond the sick-room, is a large unoccupied apartment, half divided by two partitions, which leave an open space in the middle. Here some of the old nuns meet in the day time.

6. A door from this apartment opens into another, not appropriated to any particular use, hut containing a table, where medicines are sometimes prepared by an old nun. Passing through this room you enter a passage, with doors on its four sides: that on the left, which is kept fastened on the inside, leads to the staircase and gate; and that in the front to private sick-rooms.

7. That on the right leads to another, appropriated to nuns suffering with the most loathsome disease. There were usually a number of straw mattresses in