CHAPTER XI.

_ILL-TREATMENT OF CHILDREN._

I recollect how a poor orphan boy at Llanthony monastery was almost always in disgrace, and had to endure the “Discipline.” The lads, when doing penance, were stripped, then laid on a long table, their faces downwards, and lashed for such faults as talking in silence time, slamming doors, leaving dust about.

Another little boy, of nine or ten—motherless—his father a dipsomaniac, after being at the monastery four or five years, was turned out and sent to London, to do the best he could, with only 2_s._ 6_d._ in his pocket. Father Ignatius said Bertie was a perfect little devil. But I can assure the reader that the end of all the boys was very much like this. Sooner or later they are turned out, or else they run away. The two mothers at the Llanthony convent were constantly dropping down on the boys, when Father Ignatius was away, for breaking solemn silence, and made even the youngest of them recite the Psalms aloud, after they were tired out by the long service of compline. Very little children, I know, had constantly to go without their breakfast as a penance. I remember well two dear little children, Ada and Alice ⸺. They were sent to the convent by their father, a tradesman in Hereford, who doubtless thought it a great privilege to have them there. Alice was only between three and four years of age. Mother Mary Ermenild had charge of them, and she would lash them both with the “Discipline”[17] for the most trifling offences. I often found little Alice holding her arms and crying, and would say to her (if no one was near to hear me):

“What’s the matter, darling?”

She would hold up her little red arms, and sob:

“Mother Ermenild gave me the ’splin” (she could not say “Discipline”).

Little Ada, too, would constantly be carried to her cell, which was next to mine, and there laid on the bed, and lashed on her bare flesh by Mother Ermenild. When the child cried, she would say:

“If you don’t stop that noise, I will give it to you harder.”

Then another lash would come, and then another scream, after which she would say:

“Are you going to make any more noise? because I will give it to you again, if you are!”

The child would say:

“No, Mother,” and would try to smother her sobs in the bed-clothes.

Once, being in my cell, I heard this Mother scolding Ada dreadfully, as a naughty, wicked, disobedient little girl, for touching the ink and spilling a little (poor child! she had been trying to write a letter to her father, whom she worshipped). The Mother then made this dear child lie down, and she gave her seven lashes with the “Discipline” on her bare flesh, in all forty-nine cuts. Later in the day I went to look at the table expecting to find it spoilt, but there was only one spot of ink on it, about the size of a pea. On another occasion I heard her lashing this poor child, who shrieked so loud that I could not endure it, and I ran to her, calling out:

“Oh, you—oh, you⸺”

I felt so angry that I did not know what to call her; but I was reported to the Lady Prioress, and sent for, and severely reprimanded for daring to interfere, and take a child’s part, and call Mother Ermenild names for punishing and penancing the child. I was forbidden ever to speak to the children again on any pretence whatever. This was a great trial to me, for I loved the children dearly.

Now, when Mother Ermenild first came to the convent, she was a sweet and gentle girl, but she was first crushed by the life she led, and then, when power was given her, she became as hard and tyrannical as the Novice-mistress and the Dame Mary Wereburgh.