Chapter 14 14.The Abbot's Kitchen

Anthony stayed for a while at the house of his aunt Hanach in Wales, who took him to Gladstonebury to see the ruins of the old priory before he went home.Never was there such a lovely place, especially for a little boy to play in - the walls, the arches, the ornate stone pillars, some intact, some broken, many covered with moss and there are little steps leading down to little rooms and little suites, who knows what they are for?There are still some small holes there, so you can go up and look around with hope, and take a look inside where no one knows. Everywhere you go there are large expanses of turf, thick, slippery, and lovely green. If you stand on it all the time, you will have a desire to run on it.But Anthony was unable to run with Aunt Hanach's hand.In her other hand the aunt held a little book with things that Anthony didn't want to know.But my aunt didn't care about that, she let Anthony walk beside her in a decent manner, and explained to him what was in the book, saying that they were in St. Joseph's Church, and that they were in Edgar's Chapel , I said for a while that it must be the holy well, and the spring was discovered in 1825.Anthony, on the other hand, kept wanting to run, east and west, everywhere, especially down those rickety stairs to the darkest places.But Aunt Hanach held him tightly and said:

"Don't go down, Anthony. You don't pull me, dear. We'll see these places, and I'll show you the Abbess' kitchen, where you'll have your tea." "Shall we have tea with the Abbess in his kitchen?" Anthony asked. "No, of course not. There's no abbot here now. And no one has cooked in that kitchen for hundreds of years." Anthony tried to comfort himself not to be too disappointed, but he couldn't help wondering, what's the use of a kitchen without someone cooking in it?Aunt Hanach led him out of the ruins of the monastery and along a road to a field where the abbot's kitchen stood alone.It was a queer kitchen, Anthony thought, looking more like a beehive, with windows protruding from the walls, and a cone-like roof topped by a small bell tower.The kitchen was locked up and they couldn't get in, but there was a notice there telling you to go to some house on such-and-such a street to get the key.

"My God, my God, what a nuisance!" said Aunt Hanach. "We don't have time to do this. I'll just read you what it says in the book. Next we'll go to town and find A place for tea." Anthony had to swallow more disappointment. Hearing Aunt Hanach tell him which monastery abbot built this kitchen, no one can tell now, it may be Huading, or it may be Bob. Leighton, or Churnock; this kitchen has four fires, each big enough to roast a whole bull, and that bell-tower has a bell, and the ringing of that bell will call many poor people. "What are you here for?"

"Let them eat some leftovers, I suppose," said Aunt Hanach. "Well, now that you've seen everything in there, it's time for tea." Aunt Hanah turned around and walked away. Anthony reluctantly took small steps and fell behind slightly, turning his head three times a step, casting curious glances at the kitchen behind.His legs, never very strong, were beginning to tire.The doctor used to come to see him a lot, and every time he looked at him he would say, "Oh, oh, look how small your legs are! You should eat more pudding, Anthony, to make your legs firmer." After that, whenever his mother asked him to have another pudding, which he didn't like very much, Anthony always asked, "Is this pudding with long legs, mother?" and his mother replied, "Yes, It's pudding with long legs!" At this point, his dad winked at him, and Anthony immediately handed him his plate and asked for another pudding.Because he really wanted his legs to be as strong as Berti Davis's.But now that he was following Aunt Hanach, his legs seemed to feel that there had been no pudding in it for a long time.

Soon they were crossing a street that happened to have the same name as the place where the kitchen key was found on the notice.But Aunt Hanach paid no attention at all and continued on her way.Anthony fell even further behind.A little further on, they came to a shop that sold cream and honey, and Aunt Hanach said, "Looks like we can take home a bottle of honey, dear!" Walked into the store, and didn't look behind her.As soon as she was in, Anthony turned and ran, and came back to the street where the kitchen key was. From one house came out a small group, led by a small man in black, with a large key in his hand.Anthony waited for them to come up to him, then walked forward with them.No one noticed him.Those people didn't know each other, they just gathered in the house where the kitchen key was kept, and when the short man thought there were enough people, he took them to the kitchen.They didn't talk to each other, they didn't look at each other, and even if a woman glanced at Anthony occasionally, she thought he was some other woman's child and didn't bother at all.So he went back to the abbot's kitchen, and no one questioned him, and the little man opened the door with the big key, and they all went in.Anthony Anthony had never seen such a queer kitchen before, a large, empty, dimly lit octagonal room with a vaulted roof and another small The rubber-shelled roof, and the many narrow overhanging windows in the kitchen, are all so high that it is impossible to see the scenery outside the windows.There were four huge open fires with chimney caps, and those fires were like not-so-small rooms.

In that kitchen, there were no pots and pans for cooking, no table and chairs to sit on and eat, no bowls and spoons to eat with... and even less food to eat. How did those poor abbots cook their meals, Anthony thought?There must be something in there, right?He climbed into a large stove and looked up the chimney. There were so many chirping birds that he could hear but not see.He opened his eyes and looked and looked, trying to see the birds clearly, but it was just a waste of effort.When he emerged from the dark stove, he was alone in the kitchen, and the door was closed again. At first Anthony could hardly believe it.He tried all kinds of methods, but he couldn't open the door.Then he ran to the windows, but the windows were so much higher than his head that they were not ordinary windows from which he could climb out.So he began to cry, and the thin little voice trembled as violently as his thin little legs.

"Aunt Hanach! Aunt Hanach!" Anthony cried desperately. He was locked alone in the kitchen of the abbot, but Aunt Hanach was not with the visitors at all. In any store, he couldn't hear his cry at all.Soon Anthony stopped calling Aunt Hanah, and called Mom, Mom. "Chirp, chirp, chirp!" said the birds in the chimney, and that was the only answer Anthony got.He was starting to feel very lonely.The poorly lit room was almost dark now, so he went into the fire and crouched there looking up at the light and listening to the birds singing. He didn't know how long he had been kneeling there.Then he heard a sound as if someone was moving in the kitchen.He looked around, and sure enough, he saw a bony man in a long gray robe coming out of a stove on the right.In his hand is holding a huge pot.Before Anthony could see the man clearly, another voice came from the stove on the left, and a thick figure in a brown robe came out from inside, holding a huge barbecue iron skewer in his hand.

"Why, Dean Cunnock," said the man in the brown robe to the man in the gray robe, "you got here before me this evening." "That's right, Father Brayton," said the man in the gray robe to the man in the brown robe, "and I always have, and you see I built this kitchen with my own hands, and no one can compare with me. Get here early." "This is where you got it wrong, Dean Cunnock," said the man in the brown robe, "I built this kitchen, no matter what people say, and it's better than you being a monastery." The dean was thirty years earlier."

"They can say what they want," retorted Dean Bretton sharply, "but facts are facts, as a stone is a stone. And after you've been lying under your stone for forty years, I don't know The first stone has been laid in this kitchen! This point, I swear by my pot, I must insist!" "On this, by my spit, I'll accuse you of lying!" cried the burly man in the brown robe, holding his spit high in the air as he spoke, It came to threaten the bony man in the gray robe.As for Dean Churnock, he also threatened him with a pot. "Master, Masters!" A third cry sounded at this moment. "What a disgrace! Be quiet, good Masters! If you don't keep quiet, who will?" A figure who was neither fat nor thin walked out of the stove opposite to Ni, wearing a snow-white robe.In his right hand he held a very large iron can, and in his left hand he held a huge wooden spoon.

"Welcome, Dean Huading!" said the man in the brown robe. "You are right. This is my kitchen, and I will keep it quiet." "That's true," said Dean Hua Ding. "This is your kitchen, his kitchen, and mine. No matter who builds this kitchen and warms it up, people always have to be in the kitchen later." So let's all get our hands together now and cook in our kitchens, or there won't be anything for the starving ones tonight." He said, rolling up his white sleeves.Dean Bretton rolled up his brown sleeves, Dean Cunnock his gray sleeves.The three of them each started a big fire in their own stove, and the big logs they rolled out of the shadows to make the fire.

When the fire was lit, Dean Cunnock began to shake his pan over the fire, and Anthony saw that the pan was full of flat loaves of bread, which he kept turning over as they were toasting. Turn over.When the oven was finished, he heaped the loaves on the stones by the hearth to keep them warm.Another toast filled the empty pan like a conjuring, and he baked it in the same way. Dean Breton set up a huge barbecue iron skewer in front of his stove, and somehow a bull appeared on it, and he roasted the whole bull.With his swarthy arms he turned and turned the spit as if he were indefatigable, and from time to time he greased the roast so that it was browned and shiny on all sides, like chestnuts fresh from Like bursting out of the shell. Then Anthony turned his attention to Dean Huading, who hung his big iron pot directly on the fire, and he was still standing there stirring and stirring in the iron pot with the wooden spoon Stir constantly.There was something in the tin can that Anthony couldn't see.But he knew it must be something that made his mouth water.A gust of hot air came out of Dean Hua Ding's tin can, and Anthony had never smelled such a good smell. Oh, who is such a delicious meal cooked for?Anthony felt his stomach was empty and could hardly stand the smell of roast beef and bread and cooking.But he still curled up in the big stove and dared not come out, because he knew that he was an outsider who came here blindly. At last Dean Bratton wiped his sweaty face with his sleeve and said, "My cow is roasted." "My bread is baked, too," said Abbot Cunnock. Dean Hua Ding also said: "My soup is ready to drink, let's ring the bell for dinner." Then Anthony saw a large round oak table set up in the center of the room, and above it a long, long rope hung from the roof.The three abbots filled the round table with many plates.After releasing, Dean Hua Ding pulled the rope.Immediately a bell rang on the high roof, and Anthony could still vaguely see the tongue dangling in the bell. "That's calling the poor to eat," Anthony thought to himself, "but it's strange, where are these poor people going to come from?" Just when he was wondering, a sound of flapping wings hit him, making him breathless.From the chimney above his head flew a large flock of birds: brown, white, gray, soft feathers blown up like soot by the wind in the chimney, and rushed towards him.The flock contained a variety of birds, including swallows, starlings, rock swallows, sparrows, and owls.Anthony shrunk himself as small as he could and sat quite still, waiting until the last bird flew to the table and sat down on the edge of the plate.There were no birds beside the four plates, each of which faced the four stoves in the kitchen. At this moment Abbot Churnock brought his great pile of bread, and broke it up on a plate before the birds.But no bird was allowed to peck at a single crust. Then Dean Brayton cut off pieces of meat and put them on the plates of Deans Cunnock and Dean Wardin, and finally filled his own plate.But none of the abbots put a morsel of meat in their mouths. At this time, Dean Huading stirred the delicious things in his tin can, looked at the empty plate facing Anthony's stove, and waited there.Anthony wanted to know whose plate it was.Because nothing happened, Dean Hua Ding scooped out a spoonful and put it on the plate. Anthony had to pinch his nose desperately so as not to smell the scent, otherwise he would run out to snatch it. Eat up, don't care whose it is.He couldn't figure out why the lucky man hadn't come yet.But just because he never came, Dean Hua Ding poured the full plate back into the tin can, and said in his benevolent voice: "Who wants another pudding?" "Is that pudding with long legs?" Dean Churnock asked like a child. "Yes, that's pudding with long legs!" Dean Bretton said and blinked.He was blinking at Anthony in the fire. Now that Anthony knew who this last plate was for, he stepped out of the fire, and Abbot Huadin filled his plate with a second serving of long-legged pudding.So they all took their places, and the birds sang a hymn of thanks, and they sat down at the table to eat their supper.Anthony ate plate after plate of delicious pudding, something he had never tasted before, and felt his legs grow stronger as he ate them.But his eyelids were also getting heavier. "Here he is!" said a voice. It was the voice of the short man with the big key.He stood beside Anthony in the fire, with Aunt Hanach beside him.There are some other people who can't see their faces clearly and are floating in the shadows.Are they the abbot of the monastery? "Anthony, you naughty little boy!" said Aunt Hanach, her voice trying to be a little majestic, but somehow it became chirping like a bird singing a supper hymn with them Same.So he stretched out his arms and let her pull him up.She led him out of the abbot's kitchen, which he was sure Aunt Hanach wanted to keep quiet.