For
months and months he labored without intermission at his task;
still, always doing good, and rendering help and kindness and
true charity to any whom he could serve. He walked many a weary
mile, toiled through many a hard day's work, humbled himself even
to beg of others, to get wood enough to restore a single cross.
No one ever heard him complain, ever saw him impatient, ever
detected him in faltering at his task. The shelter in an
outhouse, the crust of bread and drink of water, which he could
always get from the peasantry, seemed to suffice him. Among the
people who watched his perseverance, a belief began to gain
ground that his life would be miraculously prolonged until he had
completed his undertaking from one end of Brittany to the other.
But this was not to be.
He was seen one cold autumn evening, silently and steadily at
work as usual, setting up a new cross on the site of one which
had been shattered to splinters in the troubled times. In the
morning he was found lying dead beneath the sacred symbol which
his own hands had completed and erected in its place during the
night. They buried him where he lay; and the priest who
consecrated the ground allowed Gabriel to engrave his father's
epitaph in the wood of the cross. It was simply the initial
letters of the dead man's name, followed by this inscription:
"Pray for the repose of his soul: he died penitent, and the doer
of good works.
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