Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/66



By Mrs. Cunninghame Graham

many centuries ago, when monastic life was as much a life of the people as any other life, a man resolved to enter a certain monastery in a small town of Castille. He had in his time been many things. The son of a wealthy merchant, he had spent much of his youth in Flanders, where he went at his father's bidding to purchase merchandise and to sell it. Instead of devoting himself to the mysteries of trade, he learnt those of painting from the most famous masters of the Low Countries. His father dead, his father's fame as one of the greatest merchants of the day kept his credit going for some time, but at last he fell into difficulties. Menaced with ruin, he became a soldier, and fought under Ferdinand and Isabella before the walls of Granada. His bravery procured him no reward, and he retired from the wars and married. For a few years he was happy—at least he knew he had been so when he knelt for the last time beside his wife's bier. And then he bethought himself of this monastery that he had once seen casually on a summer's day. There he Rh