ABOUT A YOUNG ENGLISH MUSICIAN, AND HOW HE CAME TO SPEND THE WINTER AT
MOUNT CARMEL.

A great many turtle-doves lived about Mount Carmel, and there were
orange-trees and cypresses there, and among these the doves lived all
the winter. They had broods early in the year, and towards the end of
March, or the beginning of April, they set off like great gentlefolks,
to spend "the season" near London. All last winter a young English
musician, who was very pale and thin, lived with the monks in the
monastery on Mount Carmel. He went to Syria because when a child he had
loved so to hear his mother read in the Bible about Elijah and Elisha on
Mount Carmel. And he used to think then that if ever he was rich, he
would go and see all the wonderful places mentioned in the Bible.

But he never was rich, and yet he came here. He was very pale, and had
large and beautiful but sorrowful eyes. He took a violin with him to
Mount Carmel; it was the greatest treasure he had on earth, and he
played the most wonderful things on this violin that ever were heard,
and everybody who heard it said that he was a great musician. In the
winters he suffered very much from the cold and the fogs of England;
so, last summer he saved a little money, and set off with his violin for
Syria, and all last winter he lived in the monastery of Mount Carmel,
among the grave old monks.

There was one little old monk, a very old man, who soon grew very fond
of him; he too had been a musician, but he was now almost childish, and
had forgotten how to play; and the brother monks had taken from him his
old violin, because they said he made such a noise with it. He cried to
part with it, like a child, poor old man!