bell began to swing: stroke after stroke, it first aroused, but was fast
lulling me, when the chimes struck in and sang all manner of incoherent
and undevout lines. The brain at last grew weary of this, when, close to
our door, a little, petulant, impatient bell commenced barking for dear
life. R. muttered and twisted in his sleep, and brushed away the sound
several times from his upper ear, while I covered mine,--but to no
purpose. The sharp, fretful jangle went through shawls and cushions, and
the fear of hearing it more distinctly prevented me from rising for
matins. Our youth, also, missed his promised blessing, and so we slept
until the sun was near five hours high,--that is, seven o'clock.

The captain promised to leave for Kexholm at eight, which left us only
an hour for a visit to the _Konkamen_, or Horse-Rock, distant a mile, in
the woods. P. engaged as guide a long-haired acolyte, who informed us
that he had formerly been a lithographer in St. Petersburg. We did not
ascertain the cause of his retirement from the world: his features were
too commonplace to suggest a romance. Through the mist, which still hung
heavy on the lake, we plunged into the fir-wood, and hurried on over its
uneven carpet of moss and dwarf whortleberries. Small gray boulders then
began to crop out, and gradually became so thick that the trees thrust
them aside as they grew. All at once the wood opened on a rye-field
belonging to the monks, and a short turn to the right brought us to a
huge rock, of irregular shape, about forty feet in diameter by twenty in
height. The crest overhung the base on all sides except one, up which a
wooden staircase led to a small square chapel perched upon the summit.

The legends attached to this rock are various, but the most authentic
seems to be, that in the ages when the Carelians were still heathen,
they were accustomed to place their cattle upon this island in summer,
as a protection against the wolves, first sacrificing a horse upon the