Opposite to the door of the church and on the other side of the
road, was a cross erected on a little mound; and at its foot a Capuchin
monk in his arse brown frock, with his hood thrown back, and his eyes
turned to heaven, was always kneeling: the effigy at least of one was
doing so, for it was a painted wooden monk that was so perpetually at
his prayers.
The church itself was small, but it boasted of a pretty grey tower; and
on each side of the door of the church were two works of art, much
celebrated in the neighbourhood. On the left side, beneath the window,
a large niche was grated in with thick, rusty iron bars. It occupied the
whole extent from the portico to the corner of the church, and from the
ground to the window; and, within the bars, six monster demons--spirits
of the unrepentent dead, the forms of wretches who had died without
owning the name of their Saviour, were withering in the torments of
hell-fire; awful indeed was the appearance of these figures; they were
larger than human, and twisted into every variety of contortion which
it was conceived possible that agony could assume.
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