Read "My Merry Rockhurst" by Egerton Castle online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Ten frightened ladies, of various ages and comeliness, were gathered round the Mother Abbess in the great stone refectory of St. Helen's House. Queen Catherine's convent-removed since the subsidence of the great sickness from its original home in St. Martin's Lane-was thus far outside the track of the fire, yet the "Blue Nuns" jostled one another like so many frightened children, each in the endeavour to get the closer to the large, firm comfort of her presence. Adown the long table, between the platters of untouched food, burned the four candles in high brazen candlesticks, scantily illumining the room.
The atmosphere was oppressively close, for all the windows were shuttered and barred. And, save for the whimpering of some of the nuns, the mouthing prayerful whispers of others, there was a heavy stillness within, in contrast to the sounds that beat round the walls without: the voice of a mob in a fury.