He loved to hear them coo, and so did
the little old monk. One day early in January he saw that the
turtle-doves had built a nest just in sight; he watched the birds taking
it by turns to sit on the eggs, and his heart was full of love to them;
they turned up their gentle eyes to him, but they never flew away, for
they saw in his mild and sorrowful countenance, that he would not hurt
them.
Beautiful and melancholy music sounded for half of the day down from his
window to where the birds sat; it had a strange charm for the doves,
they thought it was some new kind of nightingale come down from heaven.
The little old monk sat in his Carmelite frock, with his hands laid
together on his knees and his head down on his breast, and listened with
his whole soul; to him too it came as a voice from heaven, and seemed to
call him away to a better land; great tears often fell from his eyes,
but they were not sorrowful tears, they were tears of love, tears which
were called forth by a feeling of some great happiness which was coming
for him, but which he could not rightly understand. He was, as you know,
a very old man, the oldest in all the monastery.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER SECOND.
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