The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874

by Various

The Veil Withdrawn.

Translated, By Permission, From The French Of Madame Craven, Author Of “A Sister's Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.

VII.

Lorenzo, Duca di Valenzano, belonged to one of the noblest families of upper Italy; but his mother was a native of Sicily, and it was from her he inherited his title as well as the fortune already in his possession, which would be considerably increased if an important lawsuit (the usual accompaniment of a Sicilian inheritance), which brought a great part of it into litigation, should terminate successfully. His object in coming to see my father was to place this business in his hands; and, after his first visit, he usually came once or twice a week. At first he merely bowed to me as he passed, or, at most, addressed me a few words on leaving the room. The remainder of the time was spent in looking over voluminous documents with my father. Nevertheless, these visits soon became a little incident in my monotonous life, and I began to look forward to them with a certain impatience.

The duke, at this time, was scarcely more than thirty years of age; but he by no means seemed young in my eyes. A few premature wrinkles and an observant, thoughtful look imparted a gravity to his face which was not, however, its prevailing expression; for it was frequently ironical and sarcastic to the last degree, and so mobile that it was not always easy to decide on the impression it left. His general appearance, however, was noble and striking, as well as the tone of his voice, which involuntarily commanded attention to all he said.

Several weeks elapsed without any other variety than the few moments, more or less prolonged, which he passed at my table at the end of each visit. He generally made some unimportant remarks respecting my lessons, my bird, or my flowers, which he noticed I cultivated with a care somewhat unusual in our clime. In fact, he only spoke to me as he would to a child. I replied in a corresponding tone, and, very soon, not only without embarrassment, but with a pleasure I made no attempt to conceal. I had begun to be devoured by ennui in so inactive and solitary a life, and I eagerly welcomed any diversion that came in my way. My father, at such times, remained silent and grave, and seemed somewhat impatient when these brief conversations were prolonged a little more than usual.

One day, when the duke approached my table as usual, I had a large atlas open before me, and he noticed that I was examining the map of Asia. I was studying without any effort, and yet with a certain interest resulting from curiosity which, added to an excellent memory, made me an unusually good scholar. The duke looked at the map a moment, and, after some observations that excited my interest, he pointed to a place near [pg 455] the Himalaya mountains, and remarked: “One year ago to-day I was there.” I knew his extensive travels had rendered him celebrated, as well as his success as a sculptor, doubly surprising in a man of his rank and so enterprising an explorer. I had acquired this information from conversations respecting the duke since his arrival at Messina, where his presence had caused a sensation.

On this occasion, seeing my interest strongly excited, he seemed to take pleasure in giving an account of that remote region, which I sometimes interrupted by questions that appeared to surprise him. The facility with which I was endowed made me really superior in many respects to most girls of my age; and as for information, I might have been considered a phenomenon in my own country.

The conversation that day might have been indefinitely prolonged had not my father found a pretext for abridging it by suddenly proposing to take the duke to the further end of the garden, in order to examine some ruins and a Greek portico on a height from which there was an admirable view. The duke looked at me, as if he wished I could join in the walk; but my father not seconding this mute suggestion, he was forced to accompany him, not, however, without giving me, as he left the room, a look that seemed to express compassion, interest, and respect.

As soon as I was alone, I abruptly closed my atlas, rose from my seat, and abandoned myself to a violent fit of irritation and grief, as I hurried with long steps through the extensive gallery, exclaiming aloud against the undue sternness and severity of my father.... He did not see that he was thus rendering the seclusion he had imposed upon me beyond my strength to bear—a seclusion that would have been transformed by one word of affection, sympathy, or even kindness. Instead of this, did he not even appear to be annoyed that I should receive any from this stranger?

It was impossible for me to resume my studies. I had an hour to wait before Ottavia would come, as she did every day, to accompany me to the garden—as if I were a mere child, instead of being allowed to wander at my own pleasure till sunset. Hitherto I had endured everything humbly; but my patience was now exhausted, and I felt a disposition to revolt which I only repressed with difficulty. Was this merely against a régime of such excessive severity, or was it the result of a slight return of confidence in myself inspired by the interest, and almost deference, which this stranger had just manifested? It was doubtless both; and the consequence was, I felt an agitation I could not subdue, and an irrepressible longing for any change whatever in a mode of life that had become insupportable. Tired of walking up and down, I at last took a seat by the window, where I could, at a distance, see my father and his client. I watched them with an attention that soon diverted my thoughts and ended by wholly absorbing me.

I at once noticed that, instead of proceeding to the end of the garden to see the ruin my father had spoken of, they had stopped in a broad alley leading from the house to a white marble basin, in the form of a vase, which stood in the centre. This alley, bordered with a clipped hedge of box, extended beyond the basin to a small grove of olive-trees leading to the hill it was necessary [pg 456] to ascend in order to see the ruin. They seemed to have wholly lost sight of the proposed object of their walk; for when I first saw them, they had scarcely reached the basin, and were now slowly returning towards the house. The duke appeared to be listening to my father, every now and then striking the hedge they were passing with a stick he held in his hand. All at once he stopped, and, passing his arm through my father's, he led him to a bench, on which they both sat down. I could see them distinctly, and, without hearing what they said, could distinguish the sound of their voices. It was the duke's I now heard. At first he spoke with his head bent down, as if with some hesitation, but by degrees with more animation and fire, and finally with clasped hands, as if pleading some cause or asking some favor.... Once he raised his eyes towards the window where I was, though he could not see me. Was he speaking of me?... Had he ventured to intercede in my behalf?... I looked at my father anxiously. His face expressed the greatest surprise as well as extreme dissatisfaction, but it gradually changed. He became very attentive; and when at last the duke extended his hand, he took it in his, and seemed to be making some promise. Then they rose and resumed the way to the house, but by a shady path where my eyes could no longer follow them.

That day our dinner was less gloomy than usual. My father conversed with Mario as he had not done for a long time, and the latter, with satisfaction, attributed to himself this change (which, to do him justice, had been the object of persevering effort). But Livia, who had more penetration, saw there was some other reason; for she speedily observed that this change was especially evident towards me. In fact, for the first time since the fatal day that seemed like a dividing line in my young life, I once more saw in my father's eyes the fond look I was formerly accustomed to; and this paternal and almost forgotten expression gave me new life and a sensation of joy and happiness that made me raise my head as a flower beaten down by the storm looks up at the first return of the sun.

The explanation was not long delayed. The next day my father sent for me at an earlier hour than I generally went to him, and after a preamble which I scarcely comprehended, and which by no means served to prepare me for what I was about to hear, he informed me that the Duca di Valenzano had asked for my hand. I remained stupefied with astonishment, and my father continued: “It was impossible to expect a proposal like this for one of my daughters; but however brilliant it may be, I should unhesitatingly decline it were not the duke personally worthy of love and esteem. As to this I am satisfied from all I hear respecting him. But it is for you to decide about accepting his hand. I will not impose my will on you. Consider the subject, Ginevra. The Duca di Valenzano will come this evening to receive your reply.”

My father might have said much more without my thinking of interrupting him. I was in such a state of utter amazement that I could hardly realize what he said, and the perspective thus suddenly opened before me conveyed no definite idea to my mind. It was easier to believe he was jesting with me than to suppose such a [pg 457] man as the duke would propose for me to become his wife!...

I returned to my chamber extremely agitated, and this feeling was not diminished by witnessing my sister's emotion and Ottavia's noisy demonstrations of joy when I told them of the proposal that had just been communicated to me. The Duca di Valenzano was not only a person of high rank, but he was thought to possess every accomplishment, and it was evident that every one looked upon my consent as a matter of course.

Un homme accompli! Before going any further, I cannot help stopping to remark here to what a degree the world, generally so severe, shows itself indulgent in certain cases; and how often this indulgence is shared even by those who try to think they are not influenced by external circumstances! Assuredly neither my father, nor my sister, nor the simple Ottavia attributed the favorable impression produced on their minds to the brilliant position of this unexpected suitor, or the special merit he had acquired in their eyes, to the mere fact of his having thought of sharing his lot with me.

It would have been difficult for me to express my own feelings, for I hardly understood their nature. I was flattered; I was touched; I was even very grateful, for it was evident that the duke had begun by pleading my cause with my father, and hitherto he had been by no means unpleasing to me. Why, then, could I not think of him now without a kind of repugnance, fear, and aversion? And why did I feel as if I should prefer never to see him again? I asked myself these questions, at first silently, and then aloud, as was often my habit when with Livia and Ottavia, who, though so different from each other, were nevertheless so alike in their affection for me.

“That is quite natural, carina,” replied Livia. “You scarcely know the Duca di Valenzano, and the very word marriage is one of serious import, and even fearful, when it falls for the first time on the ears of a young girl. But this will pass away.”

“Do you think so?”

“Oh! yes. I am sure of it. When you know him better, and especially when he, in his turn, comprehends the qualities of your mind, and heart, and soul, he will conceive such an affection for my dear Ginevra that she will soon love him in return, and not a little, I imagine.”

“I think so, too,” said Ottavia, laughing. “They say he is very captivating, to say nothing of his being one of the greatest and wealthiest noblemen of Italy. Ah! ah! what a different tone those wicked people will assume who say....”

Livia looked at Ottavia, who stopped short.

“Livia! do not stop her,” I exclaimed. “Go on, Ottavia; I insist upon it. I wish to know what wicked people you refer to, and what they say.”

Ottavia once more regretted her precipitation, and would rather have remained silent; but I continued to question her till she acknowledged some people had taken the liberty of saying I should never marry on account of “what had taken place.”

“What a vague, cruel way of speaking!” exclaimed Livia indignantly. “Everybody knows now there was nothing, absolutely nothing at all, in that gossip; that it was all a mere falsehood.”

“Everybody?” ... I said with [pg 458] sudden emotion. “But has not my father continued to treat me as if I were culpable?” Then after a moment's silence, I added: “Do you think these falsehoods have come to the ears of the Duca di Valenzano?”

“How can I tell?” replied Livia. “And of what consequence is it? His proposal shows that he is sure, as well as we, that you have nothing at all to reproach yourself for.”

I made no reply. A new thought struck me, and I felt the necessity of being alone, in order to reflect on what had been suggested by her words. I therefore left my two companions abruptly, and took a seat at the end of the terrace on a little parapet that looked on the sea, and there I remained nearly an hour.

That night, when the Duca di Valenzano returned, my father, at my solicitation, told him that, before coming to any decision, I wished to have some private conversation with him. It was not without difficulty I induced my father to convey this message; but the duke immediately assented, and with so much eagerness that it might have been supposed my request had only anticipated a wish of his own.

VIII.

I was in my usual place in the gallery, and alone, when the duke entered at the appointed hour. I rose, and extended my hand. He was astonished, I think, to find me so calm, and perhaps so grave, and looked at me a moment in silence, as if he would divine what I was going to say to him. Seeing that I remained silent, he at length said:

“Donna Ginevra, I thought myself skilled in reading the expression of your eyes; but in looking at you now, I cannot tell whether the word that is about to fall from your lips is yes or no.”

I found it difficult to reply; but overcoming my embarrassment at last, I succeeded in saying:

“Yes or no?.... If I only had that to say, M. le Duc, I could have charged my father with it.... But before speaking of the reply I am to make, I must make one request. You must tell me sincerely what you think of me, and I will afterwards tell you with the utmost frankness wherein you are mistaken.”

He looked at me with an attentive air, and then smiled, as he said:

“Tell you what I think of you?... That might lead me to say more than I have yet the right to say. But I will tell you, Donna Ginevra, what I do not think, and, in so doing, I shall, I imagine, comply with your request. Let me fully assure you I attach no importance whatever to the words of a coxcomb; and I would call any one a liar, and treat him as such, who would dare to repeat them!...”

He saw, by the expression of joy that flashed from my eyes, that he had guessed aright.

“Poor child! ... poor angel!” he continued, “it would be strange indeed if I took any other attitude than this before you.” And he was about to kneel at my feet, when I eagerly prevented him.

“Do not do that, I beg of you!” I exclaimed. “And say, if you like, that I am a child, but do not call me an angel.... Oh! no, never say anything so far from the truth! Listen to me, for I requested [pg 459] this interview only that you might know all—what is true as well as what is false.”

“What is true?” he said in a slight tone of surprise.

“Yes. Listen to me. I thank you for not having believed what ... what was said concerning me, for that, indeed, was false. I am, however, culpable, and it is right you should know it. Perhaps you will then change your mind, and think no more about me.”

He looked at me again, as if he would read the depths of my soul.

“Is it with this design,” he said, “that you speak so frankly?”

I knew not what reply to make, for I no longer knew what I wished. I found a charm in the mingled tenderness and respect of which I so suddenly felt myself the object. Besides, I had suffered greatly from my long seclusion, and my heart involuntarily turned towards him who was trying to deliver me from it.... My fear and repugnance vanished beneath his sympathetic look.

“No,” I said at last, “it is not for that reason.”

“Then speak frankly,” he said, “and let me hear this important revelation, whatever it may be.”

“And will you promise solemnly never to reveal my secret?”

“Yes, I solemnly promise.”

In spite of the solemnity of his words, I saw it was with difficulty he repressed a smile. But when he saw the agitation produced by the recollections thus awakened, his expression became serious. For a moment a cloud came over his face; but in proportion as I entered into the details of that last night of my mother's life—my thoughtlessness, my shock, and, finally, my despair and repentance—he became affected, and listened with so much emotion that his look inspired me with confidence, and I finished without fear the account I had begun with a trembling voice.

As has been seen, I thought myself more guilty than I should have been had there been any truth in the vague, unmerited reproaches I had endured; for the slight fault I had really committed seemed indissolubly connected with the fearful calamity that followed!... That was why I thought myself unpardonable, and why I preferred to endure the most unfounded suspicions concerning me rather than reveal the truth to any one in the world—above all, to my father. But it seemed to me I ought not, for the same reason, to conceal it from him who had so generously offered me his hand, whatever might be the result. I therefore continued, and he listened without interrupting me. When I had ended, he spoke in his turn, and what he said decided the fate of my life.

I already felt relieved by the complete revelation of a secret I had hitherto kept with an obstinacy that was perhaps a little childish. And in listening to the soft accents of his sonorous, penetrating voice, my heart was more and more comforted, and soon allowed itself to be persuaded into what it was sweet and consoling to believe—that, as he said, I exaggerated the consequence of my thoughtlessness; that if I had afflicted my mother, I had time to ask and obtain her forgiveness; that I was ignorant of her dangerous condition, and, when I became aware of it, I supposed I had been the cause; ... but all this was unreasonable.... And as to the flower.... Here he stopped, and his brow darkened for a moment. “Answer [pg 460] me frankly,” he said slowly; “if Flavio Aldini were still alive, if he were here under this window to-day, and implored you to give him that little sprig of jasmine I see in your belt....”

He had not time to finish.

“Is it possible,” I exclaimed, “you, who say you understand me, who pretend to have read my heart, can mention a name that has become so odious to me?...”

Then I continued, I imagine to his great surprise:

“You are the first to whom I have acknowledged the fault he made me commit, for I do not consider the ear of the priest to whom I confessed it as that of man. There I experienced the indulgence of heaven, and was forgiven by God as well as my mother.... But would you know what cost me the most that day? Not, certainly, my sorrow for the past; not my firm resolutions as to the future; nor even the humble acceptation of all the humiliations that have been inflicted on me.... No, what cost me the most was to promise to overcome my resentment, to subdue the bitterness awakened by the very name of Flavio, and to utter it every day in prayer for the repose of his soul!...”

I was, in speaking thus, very remote from the regions familiar to Lorenzo. While I was uttering these words, my face was lit up with an expression very different from any he had ever seen there. He gazed at me without seeming to hear what I said, and at length replied with evident emotion:

“I thank you for telling me this, though one look at you is sufficient to efface all doubt, as darkness vanishes before the approach of day.”

After a moment's silence, he resumed: “And now, Ginevra, I implore you to delay no longer the reply I have come to receive.”

The recollections of the past had made me forget for a few moments the present; but these words recalled it, and I looked at him as if confounded. There was a moment's silence. My heart beat loudly. At length I silently took from my belt the little sprig of jasmine he had just spoken of, and gave it to him.

He understood the reply, and his eyes lit up with gratitude and joy. I felt happier than I had anticipated. Was not this, in fact, what I had dreamed of, what I had longed for—to be loved? And would it not be easy to love in return such a man as this?

As these thoughts were crossing my mind, and I lowered my eyes before his, he suddenly said:

“Do you know how beautiful you are, Ginevra?”

At these words I frowned, and a blush rose to my forehead which once might have been caused by gratified vanity, but now was only occasioned by sincere, heart-felt displeasure. “Never speak to me of my face, I beg of you,” I said to him, “unless you wish to annoy or displease me.”

He looked at me with the greatest astonishment, though he felt no doubt as to my perfect sincerity, and, taking my hand in his, said:

“You are a being apart, Ginevra, and resemble no one else in any respect. It will be difficult sometimes to obey your request, but I will do so.”

Had I been able to read Lorenzo's heart, I should, in my turn, have been astonished, and perhaps frightened, at the motives that had [pg 461] induced him to link so suddenly his life with mine.

The beauty of which I was no longer vain; the talents I possessed without being aware of it; the strangeness of finding me in a kind of captivity, and the somewhat romantic satisfaction of delivering me from it and changing my condition by a stroke of a wand—such were the elements of the attraction to which he yielded; and if it had occurred to any one to remind him that the girl who was about to become his wife had a soul, he would very probably have replied by a glance of surprise, a sarcastic smile, or a slight shrug of his shoulders, as if to say: “Perhaps so, but it does not concern me.”

It happened in this case, as often happens in many other circumstances, that a word, a look, or the tone of a voice impresses, persuades, and influences, and yet (perhaps for the happiness of the human race) does not reveal the inner secrets of the soul.

My engagement was announced the next day, and the last of May appointed for the marriage. There was a month before the time—a month the remembrance of which still stands out in my life like a season of enchantment. The restored confidence of my father, joined to the thought of our approaching separation, had revived all the fondness of his former affection. Lorenzo had succeeded in making him regret the excess of his severity towards me. Indebted to him, therefore, for the return of my father's love as well as the gift of his own, he seemed like some beneficent genie who had dispersed every cloud, and restored to my youth the warm, golden light of the sun. I thanked him for this without any circumlocution, and sometimes in so warm a manner that he must have been the most unpresuming of men to suppose me indifferent to the sentiments he so often expressed, though not so ardently as to disturb me. He respected the request I made the first day. He suffered me to remain the child I still was, in spite of having experienced such varied emotions. Perhaps the strong contrast he thus found in me formed a study not devoid of interest to a man blasé by all he had seen and encountered in the world.

The preparations for so brilliant a marriage completely filled up the time of the busy Ottavia, who was charged by my father to omit nothing in the way of dress requisite for the fiancée of the Duca di Valenzano. Mario, prouder than he was willing to acknowledge of an alliance that reflected lustre on the whole family, showed himself friendly and satisfied. Besides, the transformation that had taken place in my whole appearance within a few months, as well as in my way of life, had softened his manner towards me; and the more because he attributed the merit of it to himself, and often repeated that, had it not been for him, my father would not have had the courage to persevere in a severity that had had so salutary a result. He loved me, however, as I have had occasion in the course of my life to know; but as there are people in the world who are kind, and yet are not sympathetic, so there are also many who on certain occasions manifest some feeling, and yet are not kind. Mario was of the latter class. At certain times, on great occasions, he seemed to have a heart capable of affection and devotedness; but, as a general thing, it was rather evil than good he discovered in [pg 462] everything and everybody, without excepting even those with whom he was most intimately connected, and perhaps in them above all.

Livia alone, after the first few days, seemed to have a shade of thoughtfulness and anxiety mingled with her joy, and Mario, who observed it, unhesitatingly declared it was caused by the prospect of remaining an old maid, doubly vexatious now her younger sister was about to ascend before her very eyes to the pinnacle of rank and fortune. But I knew Livia better than he, and, though unable to read all that was passing in her soul at that time, I was sure that no comparison of that kind, or any dissatisfied consideration of herself, had ever crossed her mind.

But I did not suspect that her pure, transparent nature, as well as the instinct of clear-sighted affection, enabled her to see some threatening signs in the heavens above me that seemed to every one else so brilliant with its sun and cloudless azure. But the die was cast, and it would have been useless to warn as well as dangerous to disturb me. She therefore confined herself to reminding me of all my mother's pious counsels. She made me promise never to forget them, and she, too, promised to pray for me. But when I told her she must continue to aid me with her advice, and remain true to her rôle of my guardian angel, she shook her head, and remained silent.

One day, when I spoke in this way, she replied: “Do not be under any illusion, Ginevra. Marriage is like death. One may prepare for it, one may be aided by the counsels, the prayers, and the encouragement of friends till the last moment; but once the line is crossed, as the soul after death finds itself alone in the presence of its God, its heavenly bridegroom, to be eternally blessed by his love or cursed by its privation, so the wife finds herself alone in the world with her husband. There is no happiness for her but in their mutual affection. If this exists, she possesses the greatest happiness this world can afford. If deprived of it, she lacks everything. The world will be only a void, and she may still consider herself fortunate, if this void is filled by sorrow, and not by sin!...”

“What you say is frightful.”

“Yes, it is frightful; therefore I have never been able to covet so terrible a bondage. O my dear Gina! may God watch over you....”

“You terrify me, Livia. I assure you I should never have regarded marriage under so serious an aspect, from the way in which people around us enter into it.”

Livia blushed, and her eyes, generally so soft, assumed an expression of thoughtfulness and severity.

“I am nearly twenty-six years old,” she said, “and am therefore no longer a girl, as you still are. But in a few days you will assume the duties of womanhood. You will place your hand in Lorenzo's, and pronounce the most fearful vow there is in the world. Let me therefore say one thing to you, which I am sure is the faithful echo of your mother's sentiments, and what she would certainly tell you likewise. Ginevra, rather than imitate any of those to whom you refer, rather than seek away from your own fireside a happiness similar to theirs, it would be better for God to call you to himself this very hour. Yes,” she continued with unwonted energy, “sooner than [pg 463] behold this, I would rather—I who love you so much—I would far rather see those beautiful eyes, now looking at me with so much surprise, close this very instant never to open again!”

I was, indeed, surprised. For were not these words, or at least the idea they conveyed, what I had found written in the little book Livia had never read, and was it not my mother herself who actually spoke to me now through the voice of my sister?...

IX.

This conversation left a profound and painful impression on me, but it was counteracted by the increasing attachment Lorenzo inspired. During this phase of my life I only perceived his charming, noble qualities, the unusual variety of his tastes, his mental endowments, and, above all, his love for me, which it seemed impossible to return too fully. It would have required a degree of penetration not to be expected of one of my age to lift the brilliant veil and look beyond. Therefore the natural liveliness of my disposition, which had been prematurely extinguished by successive trials of too great a severity, gradually revived. It was no unusual thing now to hear me laugh and sing as I used to. The influence of this new cheerful life counteracted the effects of the factitious life I had led the previous year. Under Lorenzo's protection, and escorted by Mario, I was allowed to take long rides on horseback, which restored freshness to my cheeks, and inspired that youthful feeling which may be called the pleasure of living—a feeling that till now I had been a stranger to. My mind was developed by intercourse with one so superior to myself, and who endeavored to interest and instruct me. In a word, my whole nature developed and expanded in every way, and for awhile I believed in the realization here below of perfectly unclouded happiness.

A sad accident, however, occurred, which cast a shadow over the brief duration of those delightful days. It was now the last day but one before our marriage, and for the last time we were to make an excursion on horseback, which was also to be an adieu to the mountains, the sea, and the beautiful shore that had been familiar to me from my infancy. For, immediately after, we were to leave Messina; and though it was to go to Naples, I thought more of what I was about to leave than what I was to find, and the melancholy of approaching separation seemed diffused over all nature around me. Our horses were waiting at a gate at the end of the garden, which, on that side, opened into the country. Mario and Lorenzo had gone before, and I was walking slowly along to join them, holding my skirt up with one hand, and leaning with the other on Livia, who was going to see our cavalcade set off.

Mario had already mounted his horse, but Lorenzo, on foot beside Prima, my pretty pony, was waiting to help me mount. He held out his hand. I placed my foot on it, and sprang gaily up. As soon as I was seated, he stepped back to mount his own horse, while Livia remained beside me to arrange the folds of my long habit. Just then the wind blew off her light straw hat, to which was attached a long, blue veil, and both passing suddenly [pg 464] across my horse's eyes before I had fairly gathered up the bridle, he took fright. I was unable to check him. He sprang madly away, bearing me along the narrow alley leading from the garden to the highway. I heard the screams of those who remained motionless behind, but nothing afterwards except a hum in my ears. A flash seemed to pass before my eyes, but I retained my consciousness. I realized that I was lost. The alley, like that in the garden, was bordered with a thick hedge of box extending to the road, which was here at an immense height along a cliff overlooking the sea and protected by a low parapet. My ungovernable horse was evidently about to leap over it and precipitate me below.... I recommended myself to God, dropped the bridle, gathered up the folds of my habit with both hands, and, murmuring the words, Madonna santa, aiutate mi![99] I allowed myself to fall on the hedge which bordered the alley. I might have been killed in this way no less surely than the other; but I escaped. The thick, elastic box yielded to my weight without breaking, which prevented me from receiving any harm from the fall. I remained stunned and motionless, but did not lose my senses. I know not how many seconds elapsed before I heard Lorenzo's voice. I opened my eyes, and smiled as I met his gaze. I shall never forget the passionate expression of love and joy that flashed from his pale, terrified face, which was bending over me! He raised me from the verdant couch where I lay, and pressed me in his arms with mute transport. I, too, was happy. I felt an infinite joy that I had been saved and was still alive. I leaned my head against his shoulder, and closed my eyes. My hat had been thrown off, and my hair, completely loosened, fell almost to the ground. In this way he carried me back amid cries of joy from those who had followed us. Nothing was heard but exclamations of thanksgiving to God and the Virgin when, escorted by a crowd swelled by all on the road or in the neighboring fields, who had perceived the accident, we arrived at the principal entrance to the house. There they made me sit down, and in a few moments I was sufficiently restored to realize completely all that had happened.

Lorenzo continued to support me, and poured forth his joy in tender, incoherent words. My father embraced me. Ottavia wept, as she kissed my hands. Mario himself was affected. In the first moment of confusion I did not notice that my sister alone was wanting. But this absence soon struck me, and I eagerly asked for her, calling her by name as I looked around me. There was a moment's hesitation, and I saw two of the servants near me making the odious sign of which I have already explained the signification. And—must it be said?—Lorenzo's hand that held mine contracted also, and I saw that he, likewise, was so absurd as to wish to protect me in this way. I rose.... I no longer felt the effects of the fall I had just had. I pushed them all aside, and him the first. The circle around me opened, and I saw my sister, pale and motionless, leaning against one of the pillars of the vestibule! I forgot everything that had occurred. I thought of nothing but her, and threw myself on her neck.

“Do not be alarmed, my dear [pg 465] Livia,” I said loud enough for every one to hear. “I assure you I have received no injury. I thought you were more courageous. It does not seem like you to be so frightened. The Madonna, you see, has protected me. I know you said a fervent Ave Maria for me when you saw me so swiftly carried away, and your prayer was heard....”

Livia pressed me in her arms without speaking, and tears began to flow from her eyes. Leaning on her arm, and refusing assistance from any one else, I started to go to my chamber. But just as I was leaving the porch a thought occurred.

“And my poor Prima,” I said. “What has become of her?”

The reply to this question made me shudder. The poor animal had sprung over the parapet, and fallen down the precipice into the sea!... Our delightful excursions had ended in a sinister manner, and more than one painful feeling mingled with my joy at having escaped so great a peril. My heart felt heavy and oppressed, and my first act on entering my chamber with Livia was to fall on my knees before a statue of the Madonna, which, in honor of the month of May, was brilliant with lights and flowers.... Livia knelt beside me, but her prayer was longer than mine, and I saw that she continued to weep as she prayed.

“Come, Livia,” I said to her at last, not wishing her to suppose I thought her sadness could have any other cause than my accident, “your distress concerning me is unreasonable. You weep as if I had been carried by my poor Prima to the bottom of the sea, instead of being here alive with you.”

Livia rose, wiped her eyes, and smiled.

“You are right, Gina,” she said in a calm tone. “I ought to profit by the few moments we have together, for we shall not be left alone long. I have something to tell you, dear child—something that will surprise you, perhaps—not about you, but myself.”

I looked up in astonishment.

“Let me first put up your long, thick hair, and take off your habit, so soiled and torn. Then you shall sit quietly down there, and I will tell you what I have to say.”

I allowed her to do as she wished, and obeyed her without reply or question. She appeared thoughtful and agitated, and I saw there was something extraordinary on her mind.

When I had, according to her injunction, taken the only arm-chair there was in my chamber, Livia seated herself on a stool near me.

“Listen to me, Gina,” she said. “It will not take long for what I have to say. Do not interrupt me. You are really here before me,” continued she, passing her hand over my hair in a caressing manner, and looking at me affectionately. “God has protected you, and I bless him a thousand times for it. But say if, instead of this, the horror of seeing you disappear for ever had been reserved for me an hour ago—me who love you more than my own life—do you know to what the witnesses of this catastrophe would have attributed it? Do you know what, perhaps, they think now?...”

I blushed in spite of myself, but made a negative sign, as if I did not comprehend her.

“You shake your head, but you know very well what Lorenzo and Mario would have thought, and who knows but my father himself, [pg 466] and everybody else?... Was I not beside you this time also? Did I not bring you ill-luck?... Did not every one around you just now have this idea in their minds, and were they not ready to exclaim, ‘Jettatrice’—‘Jettatrice,’ ” repeated she in a stifled voice—“a name harder to bear than an injury, more difficult to defy than calumny, it is really on her to whom it is applied, and not those she approaches, this fatal influence falls!”

“Livia!” I exclaimed, turning red once more, but trying to laugh, “is it really you, my pious, reasonable sister, who uses such language? The folly to which you allude has more than once vexed me to tears, and I must confess I cannot now bear that you should seriously speak to me in such a way.”

Livia smiled, as she embraced me, and I saw it pleased her to hear me reply in this manner. But she soon resumed more gravely:

“You know very well, Ginevra, what I think of this myself. Therefore for a long time I despised this folly, and endeavored to overcome the cruel impression it left upon me; for,” continued she, her voice trembling with emotion in spite of herself, “it is a peculiarly hard trial, you may suppose, to feel your heart full of tenderness, sympathy, and pity for others, and yet seemingly to bring them danger and misfortune.... For instance, to extend your arms to a child and see its mother hesitate to allow you to take it, or even to look at it. But let us change the subject. I have never alluded to this trial, and, if I speak of it now, it is not to excite your sympathy, but, on the contrary, to tell you I am no longer to be pitied. The hour that has just passed was horrible, it is true, but it put an end to my hesitation and doubt. I see my way clearly now, and peace has returned to my soul.”

Her eyes, though still full of tears, wore an expression of celestial joy. I looked at her with astonishment, but did not try to interrupt her. She continued:

“Gina, my darling sister, you have found your sphere, and I have found mine. May God grant you all the happiness, yes, all the joy, to be found in this world! But it will not equal mine. Pity me no longer, I repeat. It is to me he has given the better part.”

Her voice, her accent, and her looks expressed more than her words. I understood her, and was seized with strange emotion. Yes, very strange! and a feeling very different from what might have been supposed.

I loved Livia, and my approaching separation from her filled me with so much sorrow as to dim my happiness. Now I felt that a barrier even more insurmountable than distance was to come between us. It was not, however, affliction on my part, or pity for her, that I experienced. It was—shall I say it?—an inexplicable feeling of respect and envy—a vague, unreasonable wish to follow her; a mysterious aspiration for something higher, nobler, and more perfect than wealth, position, rank, and the éclat so soon to surround me, and more precious than the love itself that had fallen to my lot!

I remained a long time incapable of making my sister any reply, my eyes, like hers, fastened on the far-off horizon, now tinged with the softest evening hues.

O my God! a ray of the same light fell on us both at that moment; but for her it was the pure, calm [pg 467] light of the dawn; for me it was like a flash of lightning which gives one glimpse of the shore, but does not diminish the darkness of the coming night or the danger of the threatening storm.

To Be Continued.

Anglican Orders.[100] I.

Canon Estcourt's book is, in all respects, a most remarkable one, and can hardly fail to make an era in the controversy. It is a monument, not merely of successful research, but of that intimate acquaintance with a very complicated and difficult subject which nothing but the assiduous labor of years can give. It is perfectly calm and judicial both in its tone and in its conclusions; for learning, like charity, is long-suffering. It does not contain, we believe all parties will admit, a single instance of overstrained or ad captandum argument, whilst moving with measured pace to its unassailable conclusions. So studiously gentle has Canon Estcourt been throughout in his language, and so scrupulous in his choice of weapons, that we can hardly wonder if some of his Catholic readers are startled as though the trumpet had given an uncertain sound, and if Anglicans, like the executioner's victim in the story, hardly know at first that the fatal blow has been struck.

The scope which Canon Estcourt proposes to himself (p. 3) is to ascertain the value of Anglican pretensions to orders as judged by the standard of Catholic theology. Anglicans have professed themselves anxious that the Holy See should reconsider their case. They insist that the practice of ordaining converts from the Anglican ministry who aspire to the priesthood is, upon Catholic principles, inconsistent with any real knowledge of the history of Anglican ordinations.

Few things, we suppose, would surprise a Catholic more than to find that the authorities of the church had been pursuing a course in regard to Anglican orders which, though morally justified by a host of suspicious circumstances, yet was not in accordance with the real facts of the case. Still, such a misfortune, however improbable, is not inconceivable. There is nothing incompatible with the principles of the Catholic faith in the supposition that the Holy See may have been practically misled in a matter of historical evidence, where such misleading could involve no misrepresentation of truth and no fatal mischief. It would have been otherwise had a formal decision been given upon any point of doctrine, as, for instance, the validity of this or that form; or, again, if the decision, though merely practical in its form, yet, like the admission of Greek orders at Florence, had held an integral portion of church life dependent upon its correctness.

We think Canon Estcourt has proved that Anglican orders, regarded in the light of the latest research into their documentary history, are thoroughly untrustworthy; and that any reconsideration of their case by the authorities of the church could only result in a confirmation of the ancient practice. He shows, 1st, that the consecration, under any form, of Parker's consecrator, Barlow, is doubtful, and that it is exceedingly doubtful if the assistance of Bishop Hodgkin at Parker's consecration would make up for the inefficiency of the consecrator. 2d. That, although certain deficiencies in the Anglican form for the priesthood, upon which various Catholic controversialists have laid stress, are not in se invalidating, yet that, regard being had to the genesis and context of the form, and to the theology of those who framed and first used it, it cannot be regarded as an implicit signification of the Catholic doctrines of the priesthood and the sacrifice—such as a form consisting of the same words might be, amongst Greeks or Abyssinians—but as an implicit denial of the same. Thus the Anglican form is substantially different from any form which the church has accounted as even probable, and is quite inappropriate for conferring the “potentiam ordinis.”

Before proceeding to examine Canon Estcourt's treatment of the two main points of the question, the status of Parker's consecrator, and the value of the Edwardine form, it will be well to consider an objection that may be brought against him from the Catholic side. It may be urged that, in his anxiety to do justice to his opponents, he has allowed them to assume a better position than they have any right to occupy. Anglicans owe the assumed assistance of a duly consecrated bishop at Parker's consecration, and the assumed use of a form as Catholic as the Edwardine, to the assumed correctness of the Lambeth Register. This document records that on the 17th of December, 1559, Parker was consecrated at Lambeth, according to the rite of Edward VI., by Barlow, Coverdale, Scory, and Hodgkin. Of these, Coverdale and Scory had been consecrated by undoubted bishops, using the Edwardine rite; Hodgkin by an undoubted bishop, using the Catholic rite. This Register was first produced by Francis Mason in 1616; and even Canon Estcourt, whilst granting the truth of its main statements, denies that it can be accepted as “an authentic and contemporaneous account of the facts as they occurred.” On the other hand, there is a time-honored account which has long passed current amongst Catholics, and which still finds able and zealous defenders amongst their number.[101] According to this account, at a meeting held at the Nag's Head inn in Chepeside, Scory alone performed the ceremony upon Parker and sundry other ordinandi, by laying the Bible upon their head or shoulders, and saying, “Take thou authority to preach the word of God.” Here, whatever may be said of the consecrator, the form is confessedly insufficient.

Canon Estcourt, following Lingard and Tiernay, simply rejects the Nag's Head account as controversially worthless, and accepts that given by the Lambeth Register as substantially correct. We think that he is amply justified in so doing. Of course, however, each account must stand upon its own basis, and the rejection of the one does not involve the admission of the other.

The Nag's Head Story.

As Canon Estcourt, in his enumeration of sources of evidence (p. 11), remarks, “A story that has passed from person to person merely by verbal tradition, even if names are quoted as authority, but without written testimony, cannot be accepted as evidence, nor allowed to have weight as an argument, even it considered probable as an historical fact.” Now, it is notorious that the Nag's Head story depends merely upon hearsay testimony, without a particle of documentary evidence. Whatever vague rumors may have been current, there is no proof that the story ever assumed a “questionable shape” until F. Holiwood (Sacrobosco) published it in 1604. Stapleton, one of our most learned and vigorous controversialists, in a work published only five years after the date assigned to the Nag's Head consecration, does not mention it; and, moreover, says in so many words that the Anglican bishops were consecrated according to the rite of Edward VI. Neither has Saunders a word of it among all his well-merited vituperation of the “Parliament bishops,” in his Clavis Davidica; nor Rischton, the continuator of his De Schismate. These writers certainly lacked neither information nor courage. It is true that when once the Nag's Head story was brought out, controversialists on either side were apt to interpret the expressions of the earlier Catholic writers as referring to this particular charge; but when we turn to them, we find nothing more than the general charge of invalidity.[102]

Dr. Champneys, who wrote in 1616, relates the story upon the authority of F. Bluett, a prisoner in Wisbech Castle, who said he had it from Mr. Neale, the eye-witness. This last-named person, being at the time Bishop Bonner's chaplain, was sent by him, so the story runs, to inhibit Kitchen of Llandaff from consecrating, and thus witnessed the whole irregular proceeding. All the threads of tradition—with one exception, which we shall notice further on—appear to centre in F. Bluett. He told Dr. Champneys; he told, so says Dr. Champneys, F. Holiwood, who printed the story, in a condensed form, in 1604. Dr. Kenrick thought he had discovered from Pitts[103] another mouth-piece of Neale's in Neale's friend, Mr. Orton; but it is not so. Pitts, in his biographical notice of Neale, after stating that various particulars, which he gives, are upon the authority of Orton, proceeds to say of Neale: “This was the very same man who was sent by Bonner,” etc., emphatically marking off the Nag's Head story as not being one of the things he had heard from Orton, though otherwise sufficiently notorious.

Of Bluett nothing is known, except that he was for a long while prisoner for the faith, which of course speaks volumes for his honesty. But a lengthened imprisonment is not unfavorable for delusions, especially of a religious character. When we come to consider the character of the reputed first-hand in the line of tradition, Mr. Thomas Neale, we find ourselves upon very different ground. If F. Bluett's lengthy imprisonment is deservedly reckoned in his favor, what shall we say of a man who was able, on the accession of Elizabeth, after having been Bishop Bonner's chaplain, to take a public professorship in Oxford, and who, on his giving this up, was in a position to build [pg 470] himself a house opposite Hertford College, long known by the name of Neale's Buildings? These facts, admitted on all hands, sufficiently bear out Anthony à Wood's account of him: that his religion “was more Catholic than Protestant,” that he dreaded being called in question “for his seldom frequenting the church and receiving the sacrament.” À Wood is certainly not writing with a controversial purpose, and this is hardly the line that a Protestant depreciation of a hostile witness would take. The defenders of the Nag's Head story have had to meet the objection that Bonner dared not, whilst a prisoner, have taken the bold step ascribed to him, by an appeal to his notorious fearlessness. On the other hand, every one admits that Neale was an arrant coward; “of a timorous nature,” says à Wood; “of a nature marvellously fearful,” says Pitts. Now, if Bonner showed his courage by inhibiting, what must have been the courage of the man who ventured into the lion's den to execute the inhibition, and stood doggedly by to see how far it was obeyed? Surely we should have reason to be surprised if, after such an exhibition of courage, Neale had been afraid to put the matter on paper, or to breathe a word of it except to F. Bluett.

It has been attempted to establish the Nag's Head story upon another line of tradition, independent, not only of Bluett, but of Neale. Mr. Ward, in his Nullity of the Protestant Clergy, when mentioning the well-known examination of the Lambeth Register, in 1614, by certain Catholic priests then in confinement, at the request of Archbishop Abbot, continues: “But Mr. Plowden, yet living, does depose that he had it from F. Faircloth's own mouth, with whom he lived many years an intimate friend, this ensuing answer of F. Faircloth's to Abbot: My lord, said he, my father was a Protestant, and kept a shop in Chepeside, and assured me that himself was present at Parker's and the four Protestant bishops' consecration at the Nag's Head in Chepeside,” etc. This is mere hearsay, but we confess that we see no grounds for doubting that F. Faircloth made just the answer attributed to him. He was doubtless a firm believer in the Nag's Head story as related by Bluett, and his father, who had been a shopkeeper in Chepeside, was able to tell him that the Nag's Head Inn was no myth; nay, that there had been a meeting of bishops there; that he, Faircloth senior, had seen them. Who does not know how often and how honestly ocular evidence for an unimportant item is accepted as evidence of the whole? If old Faircloth had been able to give any real confirmation of the story, surely more would have been made of him.

Even if it be admitted that a consecration of some sort did take place at the Nag's Head, there is an important discrepancy in the versions given by Holiwood and Champneys of the Neale and Bluett story, which is fatal to it as an accurate account of what took place. Holiwood says that Scory “caused John Jewell to rise up Bishop of Salisbury, and him that was Robert Horn before to rise up Bishop of Winchester, and so forth with all the rest.” If this is to be taken as an exact account of what took place, no specific form at all was used; and F. Fitzsimon follows to precisely the same effect: “Scory orders them all to kneel down; then, taking the hand of Parker, says, ‘Rise, Lord Bishop of Canterbury’; in like manner to Grindal, ‘Rise, Lord Bishop of London,’ ” etc. But, according to Dr. Champneys, “Having the Bible in his hand, they all kneeling [pg 471] before him, he laid it upon every one of their heads or shoulders, saying, ‘Take thou authority to preach the word of God sincerely’ ”—a very distinct form indeed, however invalid.

We reject, then, the Nag's Head story, 1st, as lacking all but hearsay evidence, and hearsay evidence is at the command of any cause; 2d, as exhibiting various notes of intrinsic improbability; 3d, as wholly irrelevant, in the present aspect of the controversy, to the question of Anglican orders. It is irrelevant, because, whatever was or was not done at the Nag's Head, it is quite clear that the parties concerned, the government, and the bishops were no more satisfied with it than Catholics would have been, but continued to move for Parker's consecration precisely as if nothing had been done. At the same time, we protest against the notion that the Nag's Head story was a gratuitous lie. For, first, it is admitted that the bishops did meet at this identical inn for purposes convivial or otherwise, and to such meeting—viz., the confirmation dinner—both Fuller and Heylin, Strype and Collier, trace the story.[104] Secondly, the well-known disbelief in orders prevailing amongst the Protestant party; their repeatedly shrinking from the Catholic challenge to produce their proofs; their insistence, when speaking of their episcopacy, that ordination by a priest was valid, when taken together, justified Catholics in the growing suspicion that there was a terrible flaw somewhere, an irregularity which even an Elizabethan conscience stickled at. No one who reflects upon the genuine horror and contempt which the sight of the hen-pecked bishops of England, with their woman-pope, excited throughout Christendom, can regard the Nag's Head story as an extravagant or gratuitous outcome of Catholic imagination.

The principal interest of the fable lies in the fact that it fairly got through the Anglican skin, and forced the production of the Lambeth Register. All the denials of their orders by controversialists like the Jesuit Harding, all Saunders's taunts about petticoat government, affected them no whit. Orthodoxy and honesty might go to the winds, but one virtue they did set store by, and that was Christian gravity; and this tavern-story so stung them that they could keep their counsel no longer.

The Lambeth Register.

We shall now proceed, taking Canon Estcourt as our guide, to examine, in chronological order, the various documents connected with Parker's consecration.

On the 19th of July, 1559, Elizabeth issued the congé d'elire to the Chapter of Canterbury, that see having been just seven months vacant after the death of Cardinal Pole. On the 9th of August the election took place. September 9, a royal commission was issued for the confirmation and consecration of Parker, to whom letters-patent of the same date were addressed. The commission was addressed to Tonstall of Durham, Bourne of Bath and Wells, Pole of Peterborough, and Kitchen of Llandaff, being four out of the five remaining Catholic bishops, Turberville of Exeter being the only one omitted. But joined with the above four were the returned refugees, Barlow and Scory. Of the four Catholic bishops, the first three positively refused to consecrate, and were shortly after deprived. Kitchen of Llandaff, unfaithful though he was, somehow managed to get out of it; perhaps [pg 472] on the score of his weak sight—the excuse attributed to him in the Nag's Head story.

Next in order comes a paper yet remaining in the State Paper Office, which may be called the programme of the consecration. Canon Estcourt gives a fac-simile. It details the various steps to be taken for the consecration of Parker, and contains marginal notes in the handwritings of Cecil and Parker. Cecil's notes are significant. Upon the direction in the text, in accordance with a statute of Henry VIII., that application should be made for consecration to some other archbishop within the king's dominions, or, in default of him, to four other bishops, he remarks: “There is no archb. nor iiij bishopps to be had; wherefore quærendum, etc.” Upon the direction that King Edward's ordinal be used, he remarks: “This booke is not established by parlement.”

The second commission, December 6, 1559, was addressed to Kitchen, Barlow, Scory, Coverdale; Hodgkin, the Suffragan of Bedford; Salisbury, Suffragan of Thetford; and Bale, who had been Bishop of Ossory. It concludes with the following dispensing clause: “Natheless supplying by our supreme royal authority of our proper motion and assured knowledge, if there be or shall be aught wanting (in those things which, according to our aforegiven mandate, shall be done by you, or any of you, for performing the aforesaid) of what is requisite or necessary, whether according to the statutes of this our realm or the laws of the church, the quality of the times and the pressure of circumstances demanding it.” Canon Estcourt produces a fac-simile, “taken from the original draft extant in the Public Record Office, with the autograph signatures of the civilians giving their opinion that the commission ‘in the form pennyd’ may be lawfully acted on.”

The Lambeth Register testifies that, in accordance with the commission, “four of those named—viz., Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgkin—did, on the 9th of December, confirm Parker in Bow Church, the elect appearing by his proxy, Nicholas Bullingham; and that, on the 17th, the same four bishops performed the ceremony of consecration in accordance, save in one particular, with the ritual of Edward VI. We thus summarize Canon Estcourt's summary of the reasons for giving credence to the above facts recorded by the Register: 1. The official minute with Cecil's and Parker's notes. It was never used in the controversy until referred to by Lingard. It can be no forgery, for the forger would not have been such a fool as to forge Cecil's remarks as to the illegality of the proceeding. This document shows the intention of the parties concerned to proceed as the Register says they did proceed. 2. The letters-patent issuing the commission of December 6, 1559, are enrolled in Chancery on the patent-rolls, the highest official test of genuineness. The original draft of the commission is still preserved in the State Paper Office, with Cecil's writing on it, and the autograph signatures of the civilians. This paper has never been produced in the controversy, and no forger would have taken such useless trouble. 3. In the recently discovered diary of Henry Machyn, a merchant tailor in London, we find the following entries: The xxiii day of June [1559] were elected vi new Byshopes com from beyond the sea, master Parker Bysshope of Canturbere, master Gryndalle Bysshope of London, docthur Score Bysshope of Harfford, Barlow [of] Chechastur, doctur Bylle of [pg 473] Salysbere, doctor Cokes of Norwyche.”

... Upper part of page burnt away.

“Parker electyd bishope of Canterbere.”

“The xvii day of Desember was the new byshope of [Canterbury] doctur Parker, was mad ther at Lambeth.”

“The xx day of Desember afornon, was Sant Thomas evyn, my lord of Canturbere whent to Bow Chyrche, and ther wher v nuw byshopes mad.”

The genuineness of these entries is beyond all suspicion. Had they been made for a controversial purpose, they would have been used earlier in the controversy. Although the diary contains various inaccuracies—e.g., the date assigned to Parker's election, which is before the real date of his congé d'elire, and the loose use of the term “mad,” which, in regard to the bishops at Bow Church, should stand for confirmation, and in Parker's case for consecration—still, it is evidence that on the date given in the Register something was done to Parker which could be described as “being made bishop.” Bow Church was the regular place for confirmation, Lambeth for consecration. The fact that the five, or rather six, bishops were consecrated on S. Thomas's day, on the eve of which they had been confirmed, although this last was at Lambeth, and not at Bow Church, makes the confusion in their case not unnatural.

4. There is a detailed memorandum of the consecration, in a contemporary hand, preserved among the MSS. of Foxe, who died in 1587, “probably nearly of the same age as the Register itself, perhaps even older”—i.e., older than the Register in the condition in which we now possess it. This document has been but recently introduced into the controversy, and will be again appealed to when the actual condition of the Register is under consideration.

5. Stapleton's assertion that “the Bishoppes were ordered, not according to the acte 28 (25) H. VIII., but according to an acte of Edw. VI., repealed by Queen Mary, and not revived in the first year of Q. Eliz.”

6. Act 8 Eliz., cap. 1, not only lays down the law for the future, but enacts that all acts done “about a confirmation or consecration, in virtue of the queen's letters-patent, were good and perfect; and that all persons consecrated bishops according to the order of 5 and 6 Edward VI. were rightly made and consecrated.” This is equivalent to an assertion that such consecration had actually taken place.

In addition to these proofs, there are various incidental references to Parker's consecration on the 17th in contemporary works and letters, which have been carefully collected by Mr. Bailey in his Defensio, p. 19.

Altogether, there is no gainsaying the evidence for the substantial correctness of the Lambeth Register. At the same time, Canon Estcourt shows, we think, conclusively that the existing Lambeth MS., as we have it, is not the original record of what took place, but rather a glossed version thereof, in which certain important and awkward facts are, without being denied, carefully suppressed. Besides the Lambeth MS., there are two others; one in the State Paper Office, the other in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The former, to judge by its corrections, would seem to have been a rough draft, and was probably submitted to Cecil for approval before the registration. Canon Estcourt thinks that the Cambridge MS. was a transcript from [pg 474] that in the State Paper Office, inasmuch as they agree in giving the form, “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum,” in Latin, whereas that of Lambeth has it in English. Because of this and other variations, neither of these MSS. can be regarded as a transcript from that of Lambeth, or as tending to authenticate its present condition.

Canon Estcourt prints the Foxe MS., of which we have spoken, side by side with the Lambeth Register; and we see that, whilst in the former Barlow is distinctly stated to have been the consecrator, and the rite used that of Edward VI., the latter makes no distinction between Barlow and the other three, and makes no reference whatever to the ordinal of Edward VI.

Whether the Foxe MS. is a commentary upon the Register or upon the rough draft, or, as Canon Estcourt is inclined to think, is taken from the Register as it originally stood, it is, anyhow, the testimony of a contemporary ally of the parties concerned to the existence of important circumstances which the existing Register carefully suppresses.

It is difficult for us—as, indeed, it was for Catholics of the generation immediately succeeding that of Elizabeth's accession—to understand the nervous anxiety that possessed the Protestant party lest they should give their enemies the slightest legal pretext against them. The completeness of Elizabeth's triumph naturally tended to obliterate, in the minds of her victims, the precarious condition of parties in the beginning of her reign. There is, however, ample testimony that this nervousness did exist. When Horne, the Elizabethan Bishop of Winchester, tendered Bonner, a prisoner in the Marshalsea, the oath of supremacy, the latter demurred, on the ground that Horne was no bishop in the eye of the law, forasmuch as he had been consecrated according to the ordinal of Edward VI.—which had never been legalized after its proscription, 1 Mary, sess. 2, c. 2—and had also contravened the statute 25 Henry VIII., c. 20, requiring as consecrators either an archbishop and two bishops or four bishops. As it was notorious that Horne was consecrated by Parker and two other bishops, this last count was understood as tantamount to saying that Parker was not legally archbishop, on the ground that, of the bishops concerned in that ceremony, three had been deprived and the fourth deposed. This bold plea that, to use the words of one of Cecil's correspondents, quoted by Canon Estcourt, p. 119, “there was never a lawful bishop in England, so astonished a great number of the best learned that yet they knew not what to answer him; and when it was determined he should have suffered, he is remitted to the place from whence he came, and no more said unto him.”

After this we can understand the persistency with which controversialists like Jewel, who were in the secret, shirked the challenge, so frequently addressed them by Catholics, to show the steps of their succession.

It is highly probable that the Protestant party, in the anxiety caused by Bonner's onslaught, so far tampered with the Register as to gloss over the vulnerable points. It is noteworthy that this same paper of Foxe's contains a summary upon Bonner's case, showing the connection in the author's mind. It would be unreasonable to admit the mere implication of the Register, that there was no distinction of consecrator and assistants, against the explicit statement of the Foxe MS.

The one point in which Parker's [pg 475] consecration, according both to the Lambeth Register and to the Foxe MS., deflected from the Edwardine ordinal was this: that whilst the latter prescribes that the consecrator alone should hold his hands upon the elect's head during the prayer of consecration, all four bishops are said to have held their hands upon Parker's head.

But, as Canon Estcourt observes, we are not to suppose that, in acting as they did, Barlow and the others had devised something new and unknown before, and which therefore requires exceptional treatment. On the contrary, they were following the rubric of the Exeter Pontifical, which in this point agrees with the Roman rite.

Supposing, then, Barlow and his companions to stand in the relation of consecrator and assistants, would the incapacity, from want of consecration, of the consecrator be supplied by the capacity of an assistant? Mr. Haddan appeals triumphantly to Martène's dictum that “the bishops who assist are for certain not merely witnesses but co-operators.”[105] But this goes but a little way. It is admitted on all hands that the assistants are something more than mere witnesses, although they emphatically fulfil that office. They are at least co-operators by the official signification of their approval and support. Those who held up the arms of Moses did something more than witness to the marvels wrought by those up-lifted hands. The comparatively small number of theologians who maintain the necessity of three bishops for a valid consecration are the only ones who maintain that the assistants are, properly speaking, consecrators. Anyhow, the action must be regarded as taking place per modum unius, for the opus is one, not manifold; but once annihilate the principal consecrator, and the ratio by which the assistants coalesce in unum opus is gone. If we may be forgiven a homely phrase in connection with a solemn subject, Tom is doing nothing; therefore those who are merely operative in virtue of their assistance of him are merely helping him to do nothing. We do not know any theologian who has said in so many words, or whose theory requires, that the assistant should be held as compensating for the inefficiency of the consecrator. Canon Estcourt, with characteristic moderation, urges that it is at least probable that no such compensation could take place, and therefore, according to Catholic principles, the safer side would have to be taken, and the ceremony repeated.

It is, then, of vital importance to the Anglican cause that there should be no doubt whatever about Barlow's consecration. Canon Estcourt does not deny that it is probable he may have been consecrated. He does not pretend to do more than show that there are the gravest reasons for doubting the fact of his consecration. We wish to examine fairly the momenta on both sides.

Barlow's Status.

William Barlow had been professed as an Augustinian Canon of S. Osith's Priory, in Essex. He had been early distinguished as the protégé and obsequious servant of Anne Boleyn. “In October, 1534, he was sent as ambassador into Scotland, in conjunction with Thomas Holcroft, in order to persuade King James to renounce the Pope.”[106] In the early part of the next year, he was again in Scotland, “in company with Lord William Howard, who conveyed the garter to King James”; and January [pg 476] 22, 1536, for the third time went to Scotland, “on a joint embassy, again with Lord William Howard.” He had been elected to the bishopric of S. Asaph on the 16th, six days before. He was confirmed by proxy either on the 22d or the 23d of February. He remained in Scotland during February and March, and seems to have left in the beginning of April. On the 10th of April, Barlow was elected Bishop of S. David's, and on the 21st was confirmed in person in Bow Church. “The archbishop's certificate of the confirmation is dated on the same day, but makes no mention of consecration, nor is the fact recited, as usual, in the grant of temporalities which was issued on the 26th.” On the 27th, a summons to Parliament is sent: “Reverendo in Christo Patri W. Menevensi Episcopo.” On the 1st of May, he is installed at S. David's, and before the 13th is writing a joint letter, with Lord William Howard, from Edinborough, addressed to the king and Cromwell, in which he signs himself Willmŭs Menev, the style of Bishop of S. David's. He calls himself and is called Bishop of S. David's on and after April 25, but not before. On this account, several of the defenders of his consecration have plausibly conjectured that he was consecrated on April 25, “which,” Mr. Haddan tells us, “was a Sunday, and when he was certainly in London.” Mr. Haddan himself, however, prefers to follow the order of precedence in the House of Lords and in the Upper House of Convocation, which places Barlow after the Bishops of Chichester and Norwich, who were consecrated, the latter certainly, the former probably, upon June 11, 1536. He assigns June 11 as the date of Barlow's consecration. Lord William Howard left Edinburgh for England on or before May 23, and Barlow writes to Cromwell on that same day that he “has protracted his taryaunce somewhat after my lord's departure,” “for a daye or twayne,” at the request of the Queen of Scots. From this Mr. Haddan concludes that on June 11, when a consecration was known to have taken place, he was in London. Canon Estcourt, however, has brought to light a warrant of Cromwell's to the Garter king-at-arms, who had accompanied the embassy, and did not return until June 12, on which day he presented himself to Cromwell. The warrant is dated June 12. The king-at-arms would doubtless have returned, when the embassy was at an end, with Lord William Howard, and therefore before Barlow. But we are not left to conjecture; the warrant speaks of Barlow as “the bishopp then elect of S. Asaph, now elect of S. David's.” Therefore, on the 12th, he was still unconsecrated.

Barlow's episcopal register is wanting both at S. David's, and at Bath and Wells (to which last he was translated in 1541); and at S. Asaph's no register at all exists for the period when he nominally held the see.[107] The next consecration of which we have any record—after the 12th of June, when we know Barlow was unconsecrated—took place on July 2; but on June 30, Barlow took his seat in the House of Lords, and from that time acts and is treated as though he lacked nothing of the episcopal status.

We are now in a position to collect and estimate the momenta for and against Barlow's consecration. On behalf of his consecration, it is urged, 1st, that it “must be regarded as certain until it can be disproved”;[108] for no adequate motive can be assigned for the omission of a ceremony [pg 477] which could not be omitted without incurring severe penalties, to which the archbishop who neglected to consecrate would be also subject. 2d. That he was acknowledged, both by Parliament and by his brother bishops, to be in all respects a bishop after June 30, 1530, when he took his seat in the House of Lords; and that no syllable was breathed against his consecration, either by friend or foe, from that date until Dr. Champneys first questioned it in 1614, forty-eight years after his death, and eighty from the commencement of his episcopate. 3d. The fact that his consecration is not recorded in the archiepiscopal register is not much to the purpose, since out of thirty-six consecrations, in Cranmer's time eight exclusive of Barlow's, in his predecessor, Warham's, time, six out of twenty-six are not entered.[109] 4th. His episcopal acts respecting the property of his sees would have been legally invalid in default of consecration; but although these acts were legally disputed, no one suggested the flaw of non-consecration.

On the other hand, it must be remembered that the question is really not whether Barlow's consecration can be “disproved,” but whether, in spite of what may be legitimately urged in its behalf, there are not sufficient grounds for suspecting that it never took place. 1. Neither Barlow nor Cranmer believed in consecration. In their answers to the “questions on the sacraments” which were submitted to the king, they say that, for making a bishop, “election or appointing thereto is sufficient.” Barlow, in a sermon delivered by him at S. David's, November 12, 1536, is charged with having said: “If the king's gr., being supreme head of the Church of England, did chuse, denominate, and elect any layman, being learned, to be a bishop, that he so chosen, without mention being made of any orders, should be as good a bishop as he is or the best in England.” 2. This doctrine was undoubtedly favored by the king; for in another part of this same paper on the sacraments, where the bishops are attempting to take a rather more Catholic line, we have notes in the king's handwriting to this effect. The bishops having answered, “Making of bishopes hath twoo partes, appointment and ordering,” his remark is, “Where is this distinction fonde?” and they continuing, “Appoyntament, whiche the appostels by necessyte made by common election, and sometimes by their owne several assignment, could not then be doon by Christen princes, bicause at that time they were not; and nowe at these days appertayneth to Christen princes and rulers;” the king's note is: “Now sins you confesse that the appostylles did occupate the won part, whych now you confesse belongyth to princes, how can you prove that orderyng is wonly committed to you bysshopes?”

3. Canon Estcourt (p. 69) shows that the other side has no right to assume that Barlow and Cranmer would have incurred any penalties by the mere pretermission of consecration; for the act 25 Henry VIII., cap. 20, declares: “If any archbishop shall refuse or do not confirm, invest, and consecrate, he shall incur a præmunire”; and there is no special mention of the bishop elect among the persons liable to penalties, the clause running in general words: if “any person admit or execute any censures, etc., or other process or act to the contrary or let of due execution of the act.”

The notion that the leases and other episcopal acts connected with [pg 478] diocesan property would not be legally valid in default of consecration is a gratuitous assumption. Certainly neither Mr. Haddan nor Mr. Bailey has attempted to produce any evidence. What the law really takes cognizance of in such questions is the possession of the temporalities, an indisputable right to which is given by the writ of restitution.

The recognition of Parliament, upon which so much stress has been laid, cannot be regarded as any proof of consecration, since it naturally and inevitably ensued upon the issue of this same writ. This is sufficiently proved by the fact that Parliament summoned Barlow to take his seat, and gave him his full episcopal title, when, as has been shown above, he certainly was not consecrated. Doubtless some of the more zealous of the Catholic party might have made a disturbance had they realized the omission; but, as Canon Estcourt observes (p. 78), Gardiner was absent as ambassador in Paris during the whole of 1536 and 1537.

As to Cranmer's register, it is true that it was very carelessly kept; but of the nine unrecorded consecrations, Barlow's would be the only one for which no collateral evidence whatever can be furnished. No document recites it, and every date that has been as yet conjectured for it has been exploded. Barlow's contemporary, Foxe, in his record of the Lambeth consecration, whilst specifying accurately the dates of the consecration of the other bishops engaged, is only able to say of Barlow that he was consecrated “tempore Henrici VIII.”

Canon Estcourt points out that although there was no regular register kept at S. David's—and we know that the breviaries and martyrologies which contained records of episcopal succession were burnt in the next reign as superstitious—yet that it is sufficiently odd that all the chapter books have been lost, and that the Liber Computi, still extant, has a break in it for several years before 1539.

But this is not all. Canon Estcourt has found out, on examining the original document first printed by Mason as the restitution to Barlow of the temporalities of S. David's “out of the Rolls Chapel in Chancery,” that the enrolment had really been made in the office of the exchequer, as though the matter were purely secular, instead of on the patent rolls in chancery. Then, on examining the original form—which Mason reproduced imperfectly, so as to conceal its real character—and comparing it with the normal writ of restitution, it turns out to be, no writ of restitution, but “a grant of the custody of temporalities on account of the vacancy of the see,” with the extraordinary addition of “to hold to him and his assigns during his life.” These grants of the custody of the temporalities of a diocese which had accrued during a vacancy were common enough. The peculiarity of Barlow's grant is that it is a grant of custody made to do duty for a writ of restitution. The grant of custody was ordinarily made as a preliminary to the writ of restitution. No limit was assigned to it, but it naturally and necessarily merged in the restitution, of which it was a gracious foretaste. In the case of Cranmer, indeed, as Canon Estcourt points out, the grant of custody was made after he had received the restitution of the temporalities in the usual form; but the grant is carefully limited to the profits accruing from the commencement of the vacancy to the date of restitution. Barlow's grant is for life, and, by anticipating in its completeness all that the writ of restitution could give, it [pg 479] would preclude the crown from making restitution in the proper form without a surrender of the grant of custody. Before consecration, a bishop cannot sue out a writ of restitution, as the act requires, but the king sometimes ex gratia allowed it; the form, however, of such indulgence is well known, and is very different from that of the document in question.[110]

The form actually chosen “may be supposed to have saved the necessity of obtaining either the archbishop's mandate or the archdeacon's commission”; in fact, to have made Barlow free of his see at once without any official formalities, and to “secure him in the enjoyment of the temporalities of the see, whether his character of bishop was perfected spiritually or not.”

“The effect of the grant, both in Barlow's own mind and in official quarters, may be seen from what followed. The next day a writ of summons to the House of Lords was issued, and Barlow himself immediately assumed the style and title of bishop.” “It seems highly probable that this special and novel form was deliberately adopted as suiting the views of all parties, and being highly favorable to any ulterior designs which the king might have upon the temporalities of the church at large.”

It must be remembered, too, that many of the arguments tending to show the unlikelihood of the omission, such as its unprecedented character, the want of apparent motive, or, again, the exceedingly imperfect character of the registration, tend to diminish the chances of detection. True, Barlow was not a man inclined to sacrifice much to his convictions; but he had a hearty hatred for sacerdotalism, a strong sense of humor, and, if we judge from his sermon quoted above, the impudence, if not the courage, of his opinions. A competitor for a tyrant's favor must always risk something to keep a front place, and on this point he knew how the king was minded. Altogether, he would seem to be by no means an unlikely man to have played the part assigned to him.

We conceive that these momenta do amply justify grave suspicions of Barlow's consecration, and consequently the repetition of any rites depending for their validity upon his consecration.

Grapes And Thorns. Chapter XIII.

By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”

F. Chevreuse had no time to linger in the house of mourning; for it was his duty to inform Mr. Schöninger at once of his deliverance. But that it was necessary to guard the unhappy mother from any chance of hearing the news too abruptly, even the claims of a supreme misfortune like hers could not have been allowed to take precedence of a wrong so deep as that from which he had suffered. After he was informed, silence would, of course, be impossible; for when Mr. Schöninger knew, the whole world must know.

Until the evening before, the priest had not permitted himself even to guess what might be the contents of the package entrusted to his charge. Humanly speaking, he knew nothing. Whatever he might have learned by virtue of his sacred office was hidden in the bosom of God; not even in his most secret thoughts did he suffer his mind to dwell upon it. The only action he had taken in the matter was such as might have seemed necessary to one who had no more than a faint suspicion of what was about to take place; he had requested F. O'Donovan to be with him that day, and he had made sure that Mrs. Gerald should have the only preparation possible for whatever might threaten her, in a well-made communion.

For her sake he had opened the package the evening before, in order to be able to put Honora Pembroke on her guard. He did not read the confession to her, nor did he read it himself, but glanced over the letter which Annette had enclosed to him.

“A great misfortune is about to fall upon our dear friend,” he said, “and I trust to your piety and discretion to do what you can for her. Her son will not return home. He has fled from the country, and she may never see him again. To-morrow she will know all, and the world will know all. Mr. Schöninger, who has been unjustly accused and condemned, will be released. You must be strong and watchful. See that nothing disturbs her tonight, or interferes with her making a good communion. Do not think of yourself, but of her. There is not much to do; perhaps there will be nothing to do, but simply to stand guard and see that nothing comes near to trouble her mind, and to have her at home in the morning at ten o'clock, and without visitors.”

“It will kill her!” said Honora when she could speak. “It will kill her!”

F. Chevreuse sighed. “I think it will; but there is no help for it. Justice must be done.”

It had indeed killed her, and more quickly, therefore more mercifully, than they had anticipated. And now F. Chevreuse, having been the messenger of disgrace and desolation, had to be the messenger of joy.

He wiped away resolutely the tears that started at sight of that [pg 481] pitiful victim of maternal love. “To-day, at least,” he said, “I must have no feeling. I must do my duty faithfully, and only my duty. I cannot allow myself to sympathize with the slayer and the slain in the same hour.”

It was very hard for such a man not to sympathize with a true joy or sorrow whenever it came within his ken—him to whose lips, even in moments of care or sadness, the frank laugh of a child would bring a smile, and to whose eyes, even in moments of joy, the sorrow of a stranger would call the sudden moisture. But the very excess, and, still more, the contrast, of these contending emotions enabled him to hold himself in a sort of equilibrium. Like one who walks a rough path carrying a cup filled to the brim, and looks not to right nor left, lest he should lose its contents, so F. Chevreuse carried his full heart, and would not yield to any emotion till his work was done.

When he entered the corridor leading to Mr. Schöninger's cell, he was somewhat surprised at meeting Mr. Schöninger's lawyer coming out. The surprise was mutual, but they merely saluted each other, and passed on.

“He doesn't give up yet,” remarked the turnkey confidentially. “His lawyer comes every little while, and the warden has given orders that they shall talk without a guard. He, the lawyer, is the only person who can talk alone with a convict, except the chaplain, and, of course, you, sir!”

F. Chevreuse had self-possession enough to bow his acknowledgments. “But I wish to enter the cell this morning,” he said; “I don't want to talk through the bars; and I wish to enter alone.”

The man looked embarrassed.

There was a limit even to the privileges of F. Chevreuse.

“You can lock me in with him, and go away,” the priest said, impatient of delay. “I will be responsible for you this time. I looked for the warden, but he is not about the house. Let me go in, and, as soon as the warden returns, say I wish to see him.”

The guard yielded, though unwillingly. There was something imperative in the priest's manner which he did not venture to resist. Moreover, F. Chevreuse was so well known as a man who scrupulously upheld legitimate authority, and obeyed to the letter the regulations of any establishment he might enter, that it was evident there must be some urgent reason when he would set a rule aside.

The bolts were drawn back, the door grated on its hinges, and the priest stepped into the cell. He scarcely took any notice of the prisoner, who sat looking at him something as a newly-caged lion may look when first his keeper ventures into the cage, but watched the guard while he locked the door again, and listened to the sound of his retreating steps as they echoed along the corridor.

The prisoner's voice, deep and harsh, demanded his attention before he turned to him. “May I ask, sir, the meaning of this intrusion?”

F. Chevreuse almost started at the sound. His mind had been so occupied by sorrowful and pathetic images, and he had, moreover, so associated Mr. Schöninger with thoughts of joy and freedom, that the concentrated bitterness of those tones smote him discordantly. He had for the time forgotten that the prisoner could not even suspect that his visitor was one who brought good tidings. His surprise was so [pg 482] great, therefore, at this repelling question, that for a moment he looked at the speaker attentively without replying, and the look itself held him yet a moment longer silent.

Mr. Schöninger had changed terribly. It was as though you should take some marble statue of a superb heathen deity, and carve down the contours, sharpen the lines without changing them, carefully, with mallet and chisel, gnaw away the flesh from muscle and bone, and cut in the lines of anger, impatience, and hatred, and of an intense and corroding bitterness. Then, if the statue could be made hollow, and filled with a fire which should glow through the thin casing till it seemed at times on the point of melting it quite, and bursting out in a destroying flame, you would have some semblance of what this man had become after seven months of imprisonment.

F. Chevreuse was terrified. “Mr. Schöninger!” he exclaimed, “I have come to bring you liberty. Do not look so at me! Try to forgive the wrong that has been done you. All shall be righted. The criminal has confessed, and you are to go free as soon as the necessary steps shall be taken.”

Not a gleam of pleasure softened the prisoner's face. Only his brows darkened over the piercing eyes he fixed on his visitor. “So Mr. Benton has betrayed me!” he said in a low voice that expressed more of rage and threatening than any outcry could have done.

“I do not know anything of your lawyer, nor have any communication with him,” the priest replied. “I do not know what you mean by betrayal. I repeat, I have come to bring you good news. Do not you understand?” He began to fear that Mr. Schöninger had lost his reason. “Your innocence is established. You are known, or will at once be known, to have been greatly wronged.”

“It is a trick!” the prisoner exclaimed passionately. “Benton has either betrayed me or bungled, and you think to offer me as a gift—for which I am to be grateful, and merciful too—what I have won for myself. I will not take liberty from your hands!” He started up, and, with a gesture of the hand, seemed to fling the priest's offer from him. “Do you fancy, sir, that I have been idle here? Does a man sleep in hell? Did you fancy that I was going to wait for justice to come to me? No! I was shut into a cage; but I am not the sort of animal who can be tamed and made to play tricks for my keeper. I have been busy while the world forgot me.”

“I did not forget you,” hastily interposed the priest. “And others also have tried.”

“Tried!” echoed the prisoner scornfully. “Sir, when a clay-bank falls on a poor workman, everybody runs to the rescue. Not a minute is lost. People rush in haste to dig him out before he is dead. That you call humanity. You do not even dignify it by the name of charity. A man would be a brute to do otherwise than help in such a case. But here am I, overwhelmed with a mountain of wrong and disgrace, shut in a cage that is changing me into a madman, and people pause to consider; they are politic, they are careful not to soil their fingers or inconvenience their friends in giving me liberty. I am a Jew, and, therefore, out of the pale of your charity. But, Jew though I am, priest, I take the side of the [pg 483] Christ you pretend to adore against your accursed and hypocritical Christians. If your doctrines were true, still I am a better Christian than any of those who have believed me guilty.”

He seemed to have quite forgotten the priest's errand, or not to have understood what it meant.

“What you say may be all true,” F. Chevreuse replied calmly. “But that can be thought of another time. You have something more pleasant to dwell on now. Have you understood my errand here?”

In spite of the deep and wearing excitement under which he labored, Mr. Schöninger perceived that his visitor was trying to soothe him, and was somewhat alarmed at his violence. He controlled himself, therefore, and, as much from physical weakness as from a desire to appear self-possessed, resumed his seat, motioning his visitor to another.

“From the time when Annette Ferrier came here and begged me to fly, I have known whose place I was occupying,” he said in measured tones, his gaze fixed steadily upon the priest's face. “I sent for my lawyer the next morning, and put him on the track. I had not enough proof to prevent the fellow going away; but his every step has been followed. I know where he stopped in London and in Paris; and a despatch from Rome has come saying he is there. To-morrow morning an answer will be sent to that telegram, ordering his arrest.”

F. Chevreuse was confounded. For a moment he knew not what to say.

“I think you will perceive that I do not need your assistance, sir,” Mr. Schöninger continued haughtily. “The power is in my hands, and I shall use it as seems to me best.”

“And so,” said the priest, recovering his speech, “you are willing, from pride and a desire for revenge, to stay here weeks, perhaps months, longer, and await the result of another trial, rather than accept the tardy justice which that unhappy man offers you, not knowing that you suspected him, and rather than permit me to be the medium of his reparation! I can make great allowances for the effect which your terrible wrongs and sufferings must necessarily have produced on your mind; but I did not expect to see you show a needless acrimony. I did not think that you would wish to strike down a man, even one who had injured you, in order to take violently what he offers you with an open hand, not knowing, remember, that you have the power to compel him.”

Mr. Schöninger still looked steadfastly at his companion, but with a changed expression. He looked no longer suspicious, but uncomprehending. Indeed, his mind was so preoccupied and excited that he had only half listened to the priest's communication, and the only impression he had received was that Lawrence Gerald's friends, knowing his danger, were trying to temporize, and that, while securing his escape, they would obtain the release of his substitute by some quibble of the law. He was not sufficiently recollected to perceive, what he would at any other time have acknowledged, that F. Chevreuse was not the man to lend himself to such a plot in any case, still less in this.

“Four weeks ago,” the priest resumed, “Lawrence Gerald and his wife gave me a packet which [pg 484] was to be opened and acted on to-day. They were going away for a little journey, they said. I did not know where they were going, and I do not know, nor wish to know, where they are. I will not interfere with the course of the law, nor shield any offender from justice, especially at the cost of the innocent. But since, in this case, I have been the sufferer by that crime, I claim the right to forgive, and to wish, at least, that the criminal, whoever he may be, should be left to the stings of his own conscience. I would have said the same for you had I ever believed you guilty. That packet contains Lawrence Gerald's confession. Only two persons have been allowed to know it before you, besides the two who had to prepare them for the reception of such news. The mothers had a right prior even to yours, and I needed two assistants. Now, whatever you may do, my duty is the same. I have to place that confession in the hands of the authorities, and testify that I received it from Lawrence Gerald and his wife, and that I signed without reading it. Then my work will be done. I do not know much of the technicalities of the law, nor what delays may be necessary; but I presume your further detention will be short and merely nominal.”

He paused, but Mr. Schöninger made no reply: he only sat and listened, and looked attentively at the speaker.

“If I could rejoice at anything, I should rejoice at your release from this wretched place, and from the still more wretched charge that was laid on you,” F. Chevreuse continued; “but I have witnessed too much sorrow to be able to say more than God speed you.”

Mr. Schöninger did not appear to have heard the last words. He stood up and drew in a strong breath, and shivered all through. The thought that it was to be for him no slow fight for liberty, but that liberty was at the threshold, had at length entered his mind.

“Let me out of here!” he exclaimed, almost gasping. “I cannot breathe! Open the door. You cannot hold me any longer. Open the door, sir!” he cried to the warden, who stood outside, looking at him in astonishment.

F. Chevreuse began a hasty explanation to the officer; but the prisoner seized the bars of the door in his delirious impatience, and tried to wring them from their places.

“Seven months in a cage!” he exclaimed. “I cannot bear it another hour. Open the door, I say! Why do you stand there talking?”

“With all my heart, Mr. Schöninger!” the warden said. “But you must try to be calm. You have borne confinement patiently for seven months; try to bear it a little longer till the formalities of the law shall have been complied with. We cannot dispense with them. There shall be no delay, I assure you, sir.”

Mr. Schöninger was too proud to need a second exhortation to control himself; was, perhaps, annoyed that he should have incurred one. He immediately drew back, and seated himself. “Allow me to say, sir,” he remarked coldly, “that I have not borne imprisonment patiently. I have merely endured it because I was obliged to submit to force. And now will you please to open the door? I will not go out till I may; but set the door wide. Do not keep me any longer under lock and key.”

The warden called to his guard, who were not far away. Indeed, several of them, curious to know what was going on, had gathered in the corridor, only just out of sight of those in the cell.

“Unlock the door of Mr. Schöninger's cell,” he said in a loud voice. “He is no longer a prisoner.”

The bolts shot back, and the door clanged open against the stone casing.

“Let me be the first one to congratulate you, sir,” the officer added.

Mr. Schöninger did not see the hand offered him, though he replied to the words. He was looking past the officer, past the wondering faces of the guard who peeped in at the door, and his glance flashed along the corridor, through which a ray of sunlight shone from the guard-room, and fresh breezes blew. A slight quiver passed through his frame, and he seemed to be resisting an impulse to rush out of the prison.

It was only for one instant. The next, he became aware of the eyes that curiously observed him, and, by the exercise of that habit of self-control which had become to him a second nature, shut off from his face every ripple of emotion.

“I thank you, sir!” he said in answer to the warden's compliments. “And perhaps you will be so good as to send those men away from the corridor, and to let Mr. Benton know that I want to see him here immediately.”

The guard disappeared at once, one of them as messenger to Mr. Schöninger's lawyer; but the warden still lingered.

“You will want to change your clothes,” he said. “And after that, I shall be happy to place a room in my house at your disposal, where you may receive your friends and transact business till the time comes for you to go free.”

Mr. Schöninger glanced down with loathing on his prison uniform, remembering it for the first time since that day of horror and despair when he had waked from a half-swoon to find himself invested with it and laid on the narrow bed in his cell.

Perhaps the officer, too, remembered that day when he had said that he would rather resign his office than receive such a prisoner into his care, when he had exhausted arguments and persuasions to induce him to submit to prison rules, and how, when at last he had felt obliged to hint at the employment of force, he had seen the strong man fall powerless before him.

“These clothes would hardly fit Mr. Lawrence Gerald,” Mr. Schöninger remarked, smiling scornfully. “But perhaps there will be no question of his wearing them.”

The warden uttered an exclamation. “Is it Lawrence Gerald? It cannot be!” He had not been told the name.

“And why not, sir?” demanded the Jew haughtily.

The officer was silent, disconcerted by the question, which he did not attempt to answer.

“Poor Mrs. Gerald!” he said, looking at F. Chevreuse.

Mrs. Gerald's fondness for her son was almost a proverb in Crichton.

“Mrs. Gerald's troubles are over,” said the priest briefly.

Mr. Schöninger went to the window, and stood there looking out, his back to his companions. To his hidden tumult of passions, his [pg 486] fierce, half-formed resolutions, his swelling pride, his burning anger and impatience, this news came with as sudden a check as if he had seen the cold form of the dead woman brought into the cell and laid at his feet.

He had been thinking of the world of men, of the bigoted crowd which had condemned him unheard, of the judge who had pronounced sentence, and the jury who had found him guilty—of all the cold outside world which has to be conquered by strength, or to be submitted to; and now rose up before him another world of pitying women, whose tenderness reversed the decisions pronounced by the intellects of men, or swept over them with an imperious charity; who were ever at the side of the sufferer, even when they knew him to be the sinner, and whose silent hearts felt the rebound of every blow that was struck. He saw the priest's mother, a sacrifice to the interests of her son; the criminal's wife, as he had seen her that night in his cell, with the only half-veiled splendor of her silks and jewels mocking the pallid misery of her face; and now this last victim, more pitiful than all! A sighing wind seemed to sweep around him, far-reaching and full of mingled voices, the infinite wail of innocent and suffering hearts. How gross and demoniac in comparison were the bitter, warring voices of hate and pride and revenge! To his startled mental vision it was almost as though there appeared before him hideous and brutal forms cowering away from faces full of a pure and piercing sorrow.

He perceived that he had been taking low ground, and, with a firm will, caught himself back, setting his foot on the temptation that had been making him a companion for demons. Wronged he had been in a way that he could not help; but he could at least prevent their lowering him in mind. They should not induce him to yield to passion or to meanness.

He turned proudly toward his two companions, who still waited for him to speak. “If the arrest of Lawrence Gerald is not necessary for my release, then I hope he may escape,” he said. “It is bad enough to be shut up in this way when one has a clear conscience; but with such a conscience as he must have, imprisonment could lead only to madness or suicide.”

“Or to penitence,” added F. Chevreuse with emphasis.

Mr. Schöninger did not reply; this alternative was beyond his comprehension. But he glanced at the priest; and in doing so, his eyes were attracted to the doorway, which was quite filled by the ample figure of Mrs. Ferrier.

“I couldn't help coming, father,” she said quite humbly. “And, besides, Honora Pembroke said she thought it right that I should. I sha'n't stay long or say much. I only want to say that when Mr. Schöninger goes out of this place, my house and all in it are at his disposal.”

The scene she had witnessed had quieted her completely, and there was even a certain dignity in her submissive air. But when she turned to Mr. Schöninger, her tears burst forth again, in spite of her efforts to restrain them. “You'll have to learn to forgive and forget,” she said in a stifled voice, which she vainly strove to render calm. “I'm the only one left to make amends to you.”

Mr. Schöninger came forward instantly, and extended his hands to [pg 487] her. “I have nothing to forgive in you,” he said warmly; “and I would not wish to forget your kindness. I thank you for your offer, but I cannot give any answer to it now. If I decline, it will not be because I am ungrateful. And now let me say good-by to you till a more favorable time.”

She had had the discretion not to wait for this intimation, and had of herself made the motion to go.

“Try to forgive and forget,” she whispered hoarsely; and, pulling her veil over her tear-swollen face, hurried away.

This was Mr. Schöninger's first visitor, but not his last. Before an hour had passed, the news had overspread the whole city, producing a strange revulsion of feeling. There were, perhaps, those who were, at heart, sorry to know that the Jew was innocent. They had from the first expressed their belief in his guilt, and they had been loud in their opinion that he should be sentenced to the full extent of the law. This class were not only disappointed in their prejudices, but humbled in their own persons. They could not but feel that they had rendered themselves at once odious and ridiculous. But the majority of the people were disposed to render full justice. All the Protestant clergymen called on him, though but few of them had ever spoken to him. It was right, they said, that every man of dignity and position in the city should pay some respect to the stranger who had suffered in their midst such a cruel injustice, and the fact that he was a Jew should make them all the more anxious in doing so; for the public must see that they did not persecute any one for his religious belief. Judges, lawyers, bankers, professors, men of wealth, who were nothing but men of wealth—all came to express their regrets and to offer their hospitality.

He saw none of them, though he sent courteous messages to some. He was too much engaged in business that day to receive visitors. Only one received a decided rebuff. “As for the judge who sentenced me to be hanged,” Mr. Schöninger said, “no compliment which he can pay will ever render his presence tolerable to me.”

All the young ladies took their walk in the direction of the prison that day, and all the young gentlemen followed the young ladies; and, in passing, they lingered and looked, or cast sidelong glances, at the windows of the warden's parlor, where it was understood Mr. Schöninger was. People who did not like to be suspected of romance or of curiosity had some excuse for going in that direction, and those who had business in the prison were esteemed fortunate. Probably one-half the town took occasion that day to look at the windows of the warden's house. But it cannot be said that they were wiser for having done so, for not a glimpse did one of them get of Mr. Schöninger.

But when the soft spring evening deepened, and all the curious crowd had withdrawn, and the same full moon which Lawrence Gerald and his wife had seen the night before, flooding with its radiance the melancholy splendors of Rome, was veiling with a light scarcely less brilliant the beautiful young city of Crichton, two men emerged from the warden's house, and, taking a quiet by-street, where the trees made a delicate shadow with their budding branches, climbed the hill to South Avenue. They walked leisurely, and almost in silence, only exchanging now and then a [pg 488] quiet word; but one who watched closely the taller of the two might have perceived that his quiet signified anything but indifference to the scene around him, and that he was full of a strong though controlled excitement. He stepped as though curbed, and every moment glanced up at the sky or at the branches over his head, and drew in deep breaths of the fresh spring air. A fine delight ran bubbling through his veins. All the feverish mass of humanity, with its petty hates and still more hateful loves, its jealousies, its trivial fears and despicable hopes, was put aside, and he was entering into a new and freshly-blooming creation, where mankind, too, might partake of the nobility of nature.

They passed Mrs. Ferrier's house, with its broad front and long gardens, looking very stately in that softening light, and, after a few minutes, reached the summit of the hill, where only a single tree stood guard, and all about them the world, of which they seemed to be the centre, lay spread in tranquil beauty, its hills and dales, its towns and forests, bound with a ring of mountains that showed with a soft richness against the sky. The city lay white beneath them, and the Saranac wound like a silver ribbon across the view. Where the hills dipped, one sparkling point, audible with dashing foam, told where the Cocheco danced day and night with white and blithesome feet.

F. Chevreuse, standing one silent moment to contemplate the scene, was startled to see his companion break from his side, and, running to the tree at a little distance, catch one of its branches, and swing himself into the air by it. The priest's first glance was one of dismay; his second, a smiling one. He understood the abounding joy of which the act was an outbreak, and was pleased with the boyishness of it, and that the impulse should have been yielded to in his presence. Sad as he was, he could not help feeling glad to see another possessed by a full and unthinking happiness.

Mr. Schöninger laughed, as he returned to his companion.

“Don't be afraid,” he said; “I am not a lunatic. I am free! Do you know what a delight it is to be in a place where you can swing your arms without hitting anything? I could run here half an hour, and neither turn nor be obliged to stop; and I can stand upright without feeling as though my head were going to strike.” While speaking, he was continually making slight motions, as though trying if he had the free use of his limbs; and when he stopped, he lifted his head to its full height, and drew in a long breath.

“How delicious the air is!” he exclaimed. “How fresh and pure! It comes here from the forests and the mountains and the sea. There is no smell of lime or close dampness or human breaths in it. Pah! F. Chevreuse, when you preach again, and tell your people what they have to be thankful for, in spite of sorrow and poverty, remind them of the air they breathe, the sun that shines on them, the sky above their heads, and the power to move about as they will. If this sky were gray, and pouring down rain, I should still think it beautiful; for it is the sky, and not a stone.”

He walked away again to a little distance.

“Instead of being obliged to give a reason for being happy, I think we should be obliged to account for being unhappy,” he said, coming [pg 489] back. “How many sources of delight we have which we overlook because we are accustomed to them! Mere motion, walking, running, any natural and unconstrained motion, is a pleasure; breathing is a pleasure; the eyes have a thousand delights. It is a source of pleasure to exercise one's strength and overcome obstacles. I never went up a hill in the country or climbed any height but I felt like singing. Swimming, skating, riding, driving—how exhilarating they are! And for all these delights you do not need the companionship of man. Yourself and nature—these are enough.”

“I did not know you were so fond of nature,” F. Chevreuse said, smiling.

“I do not think I ever mentioned it to any one before,” remarked the other carelessly.

The priest was struck by this reply, and looked with astonishment on the man who for thirty years had loved nature, yet never said a word in praise of it. Could it be because of a reserved and unsocial disposition? Or was it that he had been too much isolated? The priest was almost afraid to speak, lest he should check a confidence at once so charming and so manly. He quite understood that it was the unusual and deep agitation of Mr. Schöninger's mind which had brought this feeling to light, as the sea, in its agitation, may toss up a pearl.

He said nothing, therefore, but waited for his companion to speak again, not observing him, but looking up at the illuminated dome above.

“When one is free, and has the use of one's limbs, and is happy, then one believes in a good God, who is a father to his creatures,” Mr. Schöninger resumed in a voice as gentle as he might have used when a child at his mother's knee. He had been holding his hat in his hand; but in speaking, he covered his head. At the same instant, F. Chevreuse uncovered his, and the Jew and the Christian, each after his manner, acknowledged the presence of God in that thought, which was almost like a visible presence.

“To me,” said the priest, “the acknowledgment comes more surely when I am in trouble. It seems to me that if I were in chains and torments, he would be nearer to me than ever before.”

“That is because you have been taught to believe in a suffering God,” was the calm reply. “I have been taught to see in God a being infinitely glorious and strong, a mighty, shoreless ocean of deep joy. That he could suffer pain, that his puny creatures could torment and kill him, has always been to me a thought at once absurd and blasphemous. It is probably for this reason that you see him best in sorrow, and I in joy.”

He stood a little while thinking, then added quietly, as if speaking to himself: “Yet it is a sweet and comforting thought.”

F. Chevreuse blushed red with a sudden gladness, but said nothing. It was no time for controversy; and, besides, he had the wisdom to leave souls to God sometimes. That people are to be converted by a constant pelting of argument and attack he did not believe. His experience had been that converts of any great worth were not made in that way, and that the soul that studied out its own way helped by God, and teased as little as possible by man, was by far the most steadfast in the faith.

They went slowly down the hill [pg 490] together in the direction of the priest's house, and stopped a moment to lean on Mrs. Ferrier's gate in passing. That lady had just entered her house, having been all the day and evening at Mrs. Gerald's. She would gladly have stayed all night had Honora allowed it.

The two men had, unseen or unrecognized, been near enough to hear the long sigh the good creature gave as she mounted the steps to her door, and the exclamation she made to the servant who followed her: “Little did I think last night at this time what horrible things were going to happen within twenty-four hours.” Some persons have that way of dating backward from startling events, and renewing thus the vividness of their sensations.

She did not know what kind thoughts were following her in at the door, or she might have been comforted.

They went on, and soon came in sight of what had been Mrs. Gerald's home. The blinds were all closed, and not a ray of light was visible. Under the vines and large, over-hanging trees the cottage appeared to shrink and hide itself.

“I would like to go in for one minute, if you do not object to waiting,” F. Chevreuse said. “That poor girl means to sit up all night, and she is likely to have no one else in the room. It is a gloomy watch, and she may feel better, if I speak a word to her.”

“Pray do not think of me!” Mr. Schöninger exclaimed.

F. Chevreuse stepped into the yard, and, as he held the gate open for his companion, Mr. Schöninger followed, though with some hesitation. There were many reasons why he would not be willing to enter that house. Indeed, the priest well knew that it was no time to take him there openly; but for some reason he wished him to come near enough, at least, to feel the sorrow and desolation which had fallen upon it. Perhaps he wished to soften Mr. Schöninger still more toward the unhappy man the burden of whose guilt he had borne; perhaps he wanted to remind him how entirely that burden had been removed from him by showing how cruelly it had fallen elsewhere.

The priest tried the door before ringing, and, finding it not locked, stepped quietly into the entry, which was lighted through the open doors of rooms at either side. In one of these rooms sat three or four persons. He said a few words to them, and closed the door of their room before going to the other.

Mr. Schöninger held back a moment, but could not resist longer the temptation to approach. The outer door was still open, and a soft light shone over the threshold of it from the parlor. Drawn step by step, he went to the threshold, and stood just where the light and shadow met, and the door framed a picture for him. The room seemed to be nearly all white and flowers. White draperies covered the windows, the pictures, and the cabinets and tables, the coldness changed to a tender purity by flowers and green leaves, arranged, not profusely, but with good taste. On what appeared to be a sofa covered with black lay a motionless, white-draped form lying easily, as one might sleep; but there needed not the covered face to show that it was the sleep of death. Candles burned at the head of the sofa, and a prie-dieu stood before it. All this Mr. Schöninger took in at a glance; but his eyes rested on what was to him the principal [pg 491] object in the room—Honora Pembroke, sitting near the head of the sofa, with the light of the candles shining over her. She looked up, but did not speak, as F. Chevreuse came in and knelt at the prie-dieu. Her eyes dropped again immediately to her folded hands, and she sat there motionless, an image of calm and silent grief. Her face was pale and utterly sad and languid with long weeping, her hands lay wearily in her lap, and her plain black dress, and the hair all drawn back together and fastened with a comb, showed how distant from her mind was the thought of personal adornment. Yet never had she looked more lovely or shown how little her beauty depended on ornament.

Mr. Schöninger, looking at her attentively, perceived that her face was thinner than when he had seen it last; and though the sight gave him a certain pain, it gave him, too, a certain pleasure. He would have thought her cruel had she been quite prosperous and happy while he was in torment.

F. Chevreuse rose from his knees, and Miss Pembroke looked up and waited for him to speak.

“Had you not better go to bed, and leave the others to watch?” he asked. “You will be exhausted.”

“I do not want to leave her, father,” she replied. “If she had had a long illness, it would have been different; but it is all so short, so sudden!” She stopped a moment, for her voice begun to tremble a little; but resumed: “She has no one left but me, and I want to stay by her till the last.”

“You will not be lonely?” he asked, dropping further objections.

“Oh! no. The others will sit all night in there, with the doors open between. At daybreak Mrs. Ferrier is coming down, and then I shall go to rest. I am glad you came in.”

“I was passing by with Mr. Schöninger,” he said, “and I asked him to wait for me a moment.”

Her eyes had dropped again while she spoke, seeming too heavy to be lifted; but as the priest said this, she glanced into his face; then, becoming aware that the street-door was open, looked toward it.

Mr. Schöninger stood there motionless.

A change passed over her face, her sadness becoming distress. She rose from her seat and went to him, her hands clasped.

“Mr. Schöninger,” she said, “she was the last person who would have wronged you or any one.”

Then, seeing that he had not come as an accuser, she held out her hands to him.

The night before he had been like one buried alive, and his hand had been against all the world; to-night life had crowded back upon him with its honors, its friendships, its pathos, and this last scene of sorrow and tenderness.

He bent, and kissed the hands she gave him, but did not utter a word, and they parted instantly. Honora returned to the prie-dieu, and, kneeling there, hid her face and began to weep again, and Mr. Schöninger went out to the gate without giving a backward glance.

F. Chevreuse joined him immediately.

“All these wretched doings have left Miss Pembroke very lonely,” he said. “She has really no one left who is near to her, though she has a host of friends. But what, after all, is a host of friends, as the world calls them, worth? When a [pg 492] thunderbolt falls on you, people always gather round, and a great deal of kind feeling is struck out; but, perhaps, you have needed the kindness a great deal more in the long, dry days when there was no thunder. It is the constant, daily, intimate friendship that gives happiness. But there! it is of no use to abuse the world, especially when one forms a part of it, and is thus abusing one's self. All of us feel our hearts warm towards people who are in great affliction, when we do not think of them in their ordinary trials. It is only God who is constant to all needs, who knows all. Mr. Schöninger, you are welcome.”

They had reached the house, and the priest turned on the threshold to offer his hand to the man whom he had so long courted in vain, and who had so many times refused his friendship. He knew that he had conquered when his hospitality was accepted.

He had conquered, in so much as he had won the Jew's friendship and confidence; for, having renounced his distrust, Mr. Schöninger was, in an undemonstrative way, generously confiding. Hard to win by one whose circumstances were so alien to his own, when won, there was no reserve.

F. Chevreuse's sitting-room was never a very pleasant one, except for his presence. It had too many doors, was too shut in from outside, and had also the uncomfortable air of being the first of a suite. One never feels at rest in the first room of a suite. He felt the unpleasantness of the place, without in the least knowing the cause of it, and always took his special visitors into his mother's room.

Mother Chevreuse had, woman-like, known precisely what her son's apartment lacked, and had given it a pleasant look by employing those little devices which can introduce a fragment of beauty into the most desolate place; but her mantle had not fallen on Jane, the housekeeper, and thus it chanced that the priest had, without knowing it, lost more than his mother.

Her sitting-room was cheerfully lighted when the two entered it, and the table, prepared for supper, awaited them. It was the Thursday before Palm Sunday, and F. Chevreuse had eaten nothing since taking a cup of coffee and a crust of bread in the morning; and now, the work and excitement of the day over, and nothing worse than he had anticipated having happened, he felt like resting and refreshing himself. If Mrs. Gerald had been alive and mourning, he would have been tormented by the thought of her; but she was safe in the care of God, and he left her there in perfect trust.

Andrew, the man-servant, sacristan, and factotum of the establishment, was lurking somewhere about when the priest entered, and came forward to make a crabbed salutation. If he ever felt in an amiable mood or was satisfied with anything, this man took good care that no one should know it; and not all the cheerfulness, patience, and amiability of F. Chevreuse could for a moment chase away the cloud that brooded over his face, or make him acknowledge that there was anything but tribulation in his life. The priest bore more patiently the constant, petty trial of such a presence about him because he believed that sorrow for the death of Mother Chevreuse had changed the old man from bad to worse, when the truth was that the lady had skilfully hidden much of their servant's [pg 493] crabbedness, or had so displayed the comical phase of it that it had ceased to be an annoyance, and was often amusing.

“Tell Jane to give us our supper right away, Andrew,” the priest said. “And bring up a bottle of wine with it.”

“Jane is gone to bed, sir,” Andrew announced, and stood stubbornly to be questioned, his whole air saying plainly that all had not been told.

“Gone to bed!” echoed F. Chevreuse. “What is the matter with her?”

“She says she is sick.” The man suffered an acrid smile to show in the corners of his mouth.

“Jane sick!” said the priest, much concerned. “Is there any one with her? Has anything been done for her?”

In speaking, he took a step toward the door.

“Oh! don't you trouble yourself, sir,” interposed Andrew quickly, finding that he must deny himself the pleasure of a long cross-examination. “She says she doesn't want anything or anybody. She'll get well when she's ready. She's got the supper, and I can manage to bring it up. All the doctors and all the nurses in the world won't make her well till she's a mind to be.”

“Well, well!” said F. Chevreuse, rather mortified at this exposition of his domestic trials. “Bring up the supper.”

Jane had, in fact, one of those convenient illnesses sometimes indulged in by some women, and now and then by men, when they are seized by a fit of ungovernable ill-humor which they dare not show in its true guise, or when they desire to appear very much abused, or to escape blame for some ill-doing. F. Chevreuse had not been home since early morning, and dinner had been prepared, had waited, and been put away—no small grievance to even a good-natured housekeeper. Secondly, about noon, when all the rest of the city knew it, Andrew above all, the great news of the day had burst upon Jane. It was too much; and when, toward evening, Andrew had come home with an order that supper should be prepared for two that night, and a little extra preparation made, and that, moreover, the priest's visitor would stay all night, the housekeeper's cup ran over. News had started from the priest's house, and made the circuit of the city, electrifying everybody, and she had been the last to hear it, and had heard it at last from Andrew! She would not have dared to hint such a thing; but she thought that F. Chevreuse should have told her before leaving the house, even if he had commanded her silence. It would have saved her the mortification of being taken entirely by surprise and displaying such utter ignorance.

While she mused, the fire burned. She would henceforth bear herself very stiffly toward F. Chevreuse. Since he thought that she was not to be trusted, that she was nothing but a servant, she would act like a servant. All those things which she had done for his comfort without being asked she would now wait to be asked to do. He should see the difference between a housekeeper, who should, according to her opinion, be in some sort a friend, and a mere hired servant. She would be very dignified, and immensely respectful and reverential; would be astonished if he should ask if anything was the matter; would do in great and anxious haste whatever he should command, [pg 494] and no more than he commanded; and she would go to F. O'Donovan for confession. In short, this woman, who knew that all the comfort of the priest's home depended on her, marked out for herself a line of conduct which would have made that home a place of penance to him, and herself a minister of torment; while at the same time she could not only hold herself guiltless of fault, but even assume an air of unwonted sanctity.

To be frankly and honestly disagreeable or wicked, one does not need to study; but a pious hatefulness requires careful preparation.

Her plan of future conduct arranged, Jane perceived that a notable pivot was needed where it should turn from her past behavior; and what so suitable as a short illness? Besides, she did not feel equal to assuming her new rôle as yet. The temptation was too strong to give way to anger. She bewailed Mrs. Gerald, therefore, with many tears; Mrs. Gerald's death, which might have happened from any other cause, being the only point in the whole story which she would recognize or hear anything about. Weeping brought on a headache, and the headache increased. At five o'clock in the afternoon Jane bound her head up in a wet linen band, and began to feel unable to stand or walk. Duty alone compelled her to keep about. What would become of the house, if she were to give up? What could a poor woman do who had no home or friends of her own, and was obliged to take care of a priest's house? She must work and watch early and late, sick or well. Nobody but herself knew what a trial it was. And here the victim began to weep over her own misfortunes.

Presently, at six o'clock, Jane began to feel a pain in her back; but nothing would induce her to rest. F. Chevreuse had sent word that he would have some one to sup and stay all night, and she must get the bed-room ready, and cook something extra. She didn't see how she could do it, but it must be done.

When her gossips had gone home, after vainly offering their assistance, Andrew came in and found the housekeeper holding on to her head with one hand, while with the other she did work which there was not the least need of doing. He had been watching with great interest the progress of her malady, and perceived that it was near the crisis.

The supper-hour had been casually mentioned in the priest's message as about seven o'clock. At half-past six Jane could not suppress an occasional moan of pain; and at ten minutes before seven she consigned the supper, which was all prepared, to the care of Andrew, and staggered into her own room, holding on by chairs and tables as she went. She would not, perhaps, have indulged in such violent symptoms had she seen the smiles with which her fellow-servant beheld her tottering progress across the room. Fully persuaded that she had vanquished his scepticism, and half convinced herself that she was suffering severely, Jane set herself to listen for the priest's coming.

Seven o'clock came, but not F. Chevreuse; half-past seven, and still he had not appeared.

Jane stole out into the kitchen, scarcely able to stand, and renewed the spoiling dishes. She did not wish to leave anything to be complained of, meaning to be herself the only one ill-used. At length she heard a foot on the door-step, [pg 495] and, making haste to shut herself into her room, with only a very little opening left, Jane became a prey to grief and pain.

All these movements Andrew had listened to with great edification; but what Andrew did not know was that the invalid, skurrying out to stand at the foot of the stairs when she heard talking in the room above, had had the pleasure of listening to the whole conversation regarding her state of health.

Ten minutes after, F. Chevreuse, without much surprise, it must be owned, saw his housekeeper coming feebly into the room where he sat at table, her face red and swollen with laborious weeping, and expressing chief among its varied emotions and sentiments a saint-like and anxious desire and determination to sacrifice herself to the utmost rather than omit the smallest possible duty.

It was an unwelcome vision. There was a point beyond which even he did not want to have his sympathies drained. He felt that he was human, and would like to rest both mind and body.

“I am afraid, F. Chevreuse,” she began, in a very sick voice, leaning against the side of the door—“I am afraid that your toast is too dry. I made it fresh three times....”

“Never mind, Jane,” he interrupted, rather impatiently. “It does very well. You need not trouble yourself.”

Jane came into the room a few tottering steps, and rested on the back of a chair.

“I don't know how Andrew brought things up,” she said, very short of breath, but not so much so but she could fire this little shot. “I suppose they are all at sixes and sevens. But I wasn't able to do any....”

“If you are not well, you had better go to bed,” said the priest quite sharply. “Andrew will do all I want done.”

Taken unawares by this unusual severity, Jane lost her discretion. “It is my place to look that things are properly done in the house, and I shall do it,” she said, half defiant, half hysterical, and took a step nearer to the table.

As she did so, her eyes fell on the pale and haggard face of their guest. At that sight she paused, transfixed with a genuine astonishment, for she had expected to see F. O'Donovan; and, after one wild glance, as if she had seen a ghost, uttered a cry and covered her face with her hands.

“Jane!” exclaimed the priest in a voice that told her he was not to be tried much further. “Have you lost your senses?”

“My heart is broken for Mrs. Gerald!” she cried, weeping loudly. “I haven't been able to stand hardly since I heard about her. Oh! such a wicked world as this is. I shall be glad when the Lord takes me out of it. To think that I shall never see her again, that....”

F. Chevreuse laid down his knife and fork, which he had made a pretence of using. “You and Mrs. Gerald were by no means such intimate friends that her death should plunge you in this great affliction,” he said. “Her nearest friends bear their sorrow with fortitude. Your agitation is therefore quite uncalled for. I have no further need of you to-night. If you want anything done for you, Andrew will go for some of your friends.”

There was no possibility of resisting this intimation, and the housekeeper retired speechless with rage and mortification.

“Mr. Schöninger,” remarked the [pg 496] priest gravely, when they were alone, “women are sometimes very troublesome.”

“F. Chevreuse,” returned his visitor with equal gravity, “men are sometimes very troublesome.”

“That is very true,” the priest made haste to admit. “I didn't mean to say anything against women.”

And yet, at the woman's first glance and cry of horror and aversion, Mr. Schöninger's face had darkened. “Was he always to have these vulgar animosities intruded on him?” he asked himself.

It was one of those annoyances which a proud and fastidious person would like to have the power to banish for ever with a gesture of the hand or a word.

The two friends talked long together that night, and Mr. Schöninger told the priest quite freely all his plans.

“I shall stay here and take up my life where I left it off, except that I must now give up all contest for that disputed inheritance,” he said. “All I had has been thrown away in the struggle. Whether there would, in any case, have been a possible success for me I do not know. It is now too late. This infernal persecution—I shall never call it anything else, sir—has destroyed my last chance, and I have only to dismiss the subject from my mind as far as possible. I received to-day a letter signed by all my former pupils, begging me to resume my instruction of them. They expressed themselves very well, and I shall consent. The Unitarian minister has invited me to play the organ in their church, but I have not decided on that yet.”

“I would like to have you play in my church,” the priest said. “Our organist is dead, and the singing is getting to be miserable. Our music would, I am sure, be more pleasing to you; but, if doctrines make any difference, you would find yourself more at home with the Unitarians. I don't see any difference between them and the reformed Jews.”

“Doctrines do not make any difference, especially as I am not obliged to listen to them,” Mr. Schöninger replied with a dignity that verged on coldness. “In music I do not find any doctrines; and it is not necessary to believe in order to give the words their proper expression. Or rather, I might say that the artist has a poetical faith, a faith of the imagination, in all things grand, noble, or beautiful, and can utter with fervor, in his art, sentiments which have no place in his daily life; or, if they have a place, it is not such as would be assigned to them by the theologian. In his mind a pagan goddess and a Christian priest may have niches side by side, and it would be hard to say which he preferred. Your Raphael painted with equal delight and success a Madonna and a Galatea. Your Mozart wrote Masses and operas, and vastly preferred to write operas. He says that he wrote church music when he could do nothing else.”

“So much the worse for them!” said F. Chevreuse rather hotly. “Raphael would have painted better Madonnas—Madonnas which would have answered their true purpose of inspiring holy thoughts—if he had devoted his gifts entirely to God; and Mozart would have written better Masses, if he had done the same. When you see a thorough Christian artist, it will be one who will never lower himself to a subject contrary to, or disconnected [pg 497] with, religion. The others have been false, and consequently have had only glimpses where they might have had visions. Some of them were great, but they might have been immeasurably greater. No, I repeat, do not imagine that you are going to feel or play our music as you might if you were a good Catholic. But excuse me!” he said, recalling himself. “I have given you rather more of a lecture than I meant to. I still want you to take our music in hand, if you will.”

“I will with pleasure, if you will be content with my interpretation of it,” Mr. Schöninger said with a smile.

He was not in the least displeased with the priest's lecture, and, on the contrary, decidedly liked it. He was stirred by anything which consecrated art as an embodiment of the divine rather than a mere expression of the human.

Surprise is but a short-lived emotion; and when Mr. Schöninger was left alone that night, with the first opportunity in many months of thinking in an unobserved solitude, he wondered more at his own calmness than at anything which had happened to him. The hideous suffering from which he had but just escaped looked far away, and so alien that he could contemplate it almost with a cold inquisitiveness, as something in which he had no part. It was scarcely more to him than the delirious dreams of a fever which had passed away. Indignation and a desire to revenge himself might rise again, would rise again; but for the present they slept. The first joy of freedom, too, was over. Nothing remained but a feeling of quiet and security. Doubtless he had, without knowing it, been soothed by the many kind and regretful words that had been addressed to him that day, and felt less disposed to dwell on his own wrongs when he knew that so many others were thinking and speaking of them.

All round the room assigned to him hung the pictures that had belonged to Mother Chevreuse—an old-fashioned portrait of her husband in the uniform of a French officer, a S. Ignatius of Loyola, a S. Antony preaching to the fishes, a print, on a gold ground, of the miraculous Lady of Perpetual Succor, and a Santa Prassede sleeping on her slab of granite.

Mr. Schöninger held his candle up to examine each of these, all but the portrait familiar to him in their originals; and as he looked, the places where he had first seen them, the stately palaces and the quiet churches, enclosed his imagination within their walls. He saw again the lines of sombre columns leading up to the glowing mosaics of the tribune, where the vision of S. John hung petrified in air; the dim lamp in the mysterious chapel of the Colonna Santa shone out again inside its grating, and the walls glittered dimly back. He saw the thickets of camellias mantled with bloom under an April sky, a little forest of white at the right hand, and a forest of rose-red at the left, and ever the fountains sparkling through.

How strange it was! He set down his candle, almost impatiently, as if a beautiful vision were being melted in the light of it, and blew it out. How strange it was! When he was in Rome, he had hated it while he admired it; but now, as the thought of it came up, his heart yearned out towards it, and grew tender and full with longing [pg 498] for it. How strange that his dearest affections should cluster where his deepest hates had pierced, and that, whenever an accusing thought arose, an excusing one immediately answered it. The city of the Ghetto was becoming to him also the city of the silvery-haired old man who had opened its gates. To remember him was like remembering a pure white star that had shone out one still evening long ago.

Mr. Schöninger put aside the curtain that hardly barred the full moonlight from the room, and leaned out into the night. Not many streets distant Honora Pembroke sat wakeful and mourning, alone with her dead. By what fatality was it that the silent woman lying there, and the weeping one beside her, should have the power to stand, with their softness and their pallor, between him and his remembrance of that gloomy mansion of hate and crime, the shadow of whose portal had but just slipped from him? The cold and trembling hands he had kissed that night had quenched for a time all anger in his heart.

He sighed, thinking of that sad household, and his gaze turned tenderly and steadily in its direction. He would have liked to call down a blessing on the head he loved had it not been so much nearer the source of all blessing than he was. She was right, no matter what she believed. All she held good was good, at least as far as she was concerned, and no blame of false doctrine could be imputed to her.

A ray of light stronger than that of the moon shining across his eyes attracted his attention. It came from F. Chevreuse's sitting-room, the one window of which was at right angles with the window where he leaned. A small, displaced fold of the curtain showed him the priest on his knees there before a crucifix, his hands clasped, his black-robed form as motionless as if it had been carved out of ebony. Here, too! Could he have no other friend than a Christian priest for his hand and heart to cling to?

Yet all was sweet and peaceful, and everything conspired to soothe him. The air touched him with a breath too soft to be called a breeze, the city was still about him, and only a foamy murmur told where the sleepless river flowed.

Triumph, joy, and sweetness he had felt, and at last came gratitude to God and forgiveness of man. One of his last thoughts that night was of pity for Lawrence Gerald.

In that pity he was not alone; for nearly the whole of Crichton shared it. They had known the young man from his childhood, had blamed and petted him, had put every temptation in his way, and been ready to defend him when he yielded. In spite of his haughtiness and assumption, there was not a single person in the city, perhaps, who really disliked him. His captivating beauty and wayward sweetness won more affection than the highest virtues or the noblest gifts of mind would have won. When a stranger and a Jew was accused, they could believe him to have been actuated by the most cruel malignity; but it was impossible to impute such feelings to Lawrence Gerald. He was weak and imprudent, and had become involved, and so led on beyond his intention. Each one could imagine, even before the confession was made public, just how it had happened; and when they read the confession, the feeling was almost universal in favor of his escape. Only a few, sternly just, insisted on hoping that he would be [pg 499] brought to suffer the full penalty of the law. Fathers and mothers whose boys, scarcely more governable than he, had played and grown up with him, looked with terror on their own children; and young men who secretly knew themselves to have been preserved only by what they would have called chance from crimes as bad as his, shuddered at the thought of his being brought back among them to be tried for his life. A sort of panic seized upon all when they saw what horrors could grow out of that which had seemed to be mere youthful errors, and how criminal had been the leniency of public opinion and of the law. Mr. Schöninger's case had held no moral for them, for he was an alien; but what Lawrence Gerald was some of their own might be. They were conspicuously generous, these people, in that charity which stays at home and makes excuses for its own little circle; and for this time, at least, they regretted that their charity had not gone beyond that boundary, and extended to the stranger within their gates.

“I confess before Almighty God, to the man who has been so wronged on my account, and to my friends and neighbors, whom I have deceived”—so Lawrence Gerald's confession began—“that I am guilty in deed, though not in intention, of the death of Madame Chevreuse, for which Mr. Schöninger is now unjustly condemned. I had gambled, and was in debt to a man who threatened to expose me if I did not pay him at once. I knew that the exposure would ruin me. I should have lost my situation, my marriage would have been prevented, and my mother's heart would have been broken. The debt was not a new one. I had not gambled for a good while, and had resolved never to do so again; and I have kept that resolution. If I would have broken it, and increased my debt, the man would have waited. I was tempted to, but I resisted. It seemed to me better to take the money—I did not call it stealing—when I could get it, and repay it privately after my marriage. I knew that I could have it then, a little at a time. I had known many men to be excused for such things—men who had used money that belonged to others, meaning to repay it some time, and the law had not punished them severely. Yet there was not a case where the need seemed to be as great as mine. I thought of it a long time before I felt as if I could do it, and then I didn't resolve that I would. I only felt that I would take advantage of whatever chance occurred. I never arranged anything. F. Chevreuse dropped his latch-key into the furnace register one day when he was at my mother's. I got it out afterward, and kept it. I knew already that the key of our street-door would unlock his. Those two helps I regarded as an intimation of what I was to do. I even thought them providential; and I promised God that if I should succeed in getting the money and paying my debts, I would lead a good life in future. I didn't know that I was blaspheming. Afterward I heard F. Chevreuse say just how much money he had, and where he kept it. He was talking to my mother and me. I took that as another intimation. I said, Such a good man as he would not be permitted to help me along in this way, if I were not to do what I am thinking of. Then I knew that for one night he would be away; but still I did not resolve. I only followed wherever circumstances [pg 500] led me; and every circumstance led me straight on to crime. We were at Mrs. Ferrier's that evening singing, and the night was dark. If it had been a bright night, I should not have ventured to go to the priest's door. I said to myself that it was perhaps God who had made the night dark for me. I went home from Mrs. Ferrier's, and went to my own room, taking the key of the street-door with me. I stayed there till all were asleep; and I thought that if my mother had left her chamber-door open, I would not go out, for she might hear me going down-stairs. She usually left it open, but that night it was shut. I went down the back stairs, and got out of a little window at the back of the house; and even then I did not say surely to myself what I was going to do.

“It was necessary that I should have some disguise, and I had none; but I had seen Mr. Schöninger lay his shawl down in Mrs. Ferrier's garden, and I thought he had left it there. I took that for another sign. If the shawl were not there, I would go home again. It was there, and I wrapped myself in it, and walked toward the priest's house, ready to turn back at the least obstacle. The only person I saw was a policeman, and he was behind me, so that I was forced to go forward. A thunder-shower was coming up, and the sound of it deadened my steps. When I reached the door, I stopped again, and, for the first time, made a plan. If any one should find me unlocking it, I would say that my mother was sick, and I had come for Mother Chevreuse. If Andrew or Jane should meet and know me as I entered, I would tell the same story, and would ask for Mother Chevreuse, and then confess the whole truth to her. I knew she would pity, and perhaps she would help, me. If Mother Chevreuse herself should come upon me, and recognize me, I would confess to her, and beg her mercy. Nobody saw or heard me till I had got the money into my hands, and was going away; and then it was too late to confess. All my irresolution had gone away, and I was desperate. It was no longer a question of confessing to one person, but of being exposed before three, and, of course, before the world. All the excuses I had made for myself before became as nothing, and I knew that I was a thief. The money was in my hands, I had earned it, and I meant to keep it. The rest is all like a flash of lightning. Why did she cling so to me? I told her twice to let go, or I might hurt her. My blood was all in my head. If those two servants had come and seen me there, I should have killed myself before their faces. I heard their steps coming, and I pushed her with all my strength. I did not stop to think where we were. She let go then; but I have felt her soft hands clinging to me ever since. It maddens a man to have a woman's soft hands clinging to him when he wants to get away. After that, I ran back to Mrs. Ferrier's garden, and left the shawl, and then I went home.

“When I was sick, and thought I was going to die, and couldn't get another priest, I confessed to F. Chevreuse, and he forgave me; but he told me that I must consent to his telling all in order to clear Mr. Schöninger as soon as I should be dead. I consented; but I did not die, and so he could do nothing. I hereby give him leave to tell all that I then told him. I have not been to confession since, because I [pg 501] didn't want to give him a chance to say anything to me. I forgot then to tell him that I had the money still, but I shall give it back with this. Of course I did not dare to use it. I told the man I owed to do his worst about it, and he did nothing, only said he would wait till I could pay him. I found I had gained nothing, and lost all.

“My wife found me out, I do not know how, and I never asked; and it is she who writes this from my dictation. John, my mother's footman, found me out, and I have never asked him how. He will sign this, but without reading it. I think he has no proof against me. F. Chevreuse knows nothing except what he has learned in the confessional. This will be left with him, to be opened four weeks from to-day. With him, also, I leave a letter to my dearest mother, whom I am not worthy to name, and a letter for Mr. Schöninger.”

The letter to his mother was buried with her. No one ever read it, unless those dead eyes could see. The letter to Mr. Schöninger was simply to beg the forgiveness which, the writer added, he scarcely hoped to receive.

The confession was written in a clear, even hand, with evident deliberation and painstaking on the part of the amanuensis; and if the writer's heart had trembled, not a line showed it. Only here and there a large blister on the paper showed where a tear had fallen.

Mr. and Mrs. Grundy were shocked at the writer's insensibility; but then Annette Ferrier always was queer, they added.

Perhaps only one of the many who read that confession was aware of the sting it contained for F. Chevreuse, or dreamed that those “soft, clinging hands” would be felt by him also, as well as by the criminal, for many a day. Mr. Schöninger shrank with a pang of sympathetic pain when he saw the words, and almost wondered that Annette Gerald could, even in that moment of supreme misery, have been unaware of their cruelty.

“I own to you,” F. Chevreuse confessed years afterward to F. O'Donovan, “that when I first read those words, I realized for one moment how a man might be willing to kill another. The image of him flinging off my mother's clinging hands—well, well! The time will never come when I can speak calmly of it. Fortunately for me then, it was Holy Week, and I had my crucified Lord before me, and plenty of work on my hands. Mr. Schöninger helped me, too. I knew what he meant, though he made no explanation. He only said, ‘Your Christ is strong, if he can keep your hand from clinching.’ ”

Christ was strong, and the Jew was yet to feel his might.

Just at present, however, he had earthly things to think of, and a trial to endure particularly disagreeable to one of his temperament. He had to be a second time the lion of the hour, to be stared at, followed, observed in all he did, listened to in all he said—in short, to be the temporary victim of public curiosity.

Conquering his disgust and annoyance, he chose the best method of making this trial a short one, by showing himself quite freely. He took rooms at a quiet hotel frequented by business men, and very seldom visited by ladies. If the mood should take him to pace his room at night, he did not choose that any sympathizing heart should be counting his footsteps. He called on his former pupils, and [pg 502] made appointments with them, and listened with patience to their earnest, and often tearful, protestations of regret and indignation in his regard. He gathered up into his hands, one by one, the threads of ordinary life, and tried to interest himself in them again, and to renew some of his old pleasures; but he could not unite them and weave his heart in with them as before. A gulf, of which he only now became aware, lay between him and the past. It was not the sense of wrong and loss, it was not even that he had a greater distrust of mankind; it was at once higher and deeper than anything merely personal: it was a disgust and fear of life itself, as he had seen and felt it, a sense of instability and of hollowness everywhere. His desires for wealth and power and fame dropped into an abyss, and left no sound to tell that they were substances or had encountered any substance in their descent. Like one who, walking over a bridge, suddenly perceives that, instead of solid arches of stone beneath, there is only a thin and trembling framework between him and the torrent, he felt that he might at any moment fall through into the unknown world, or into nothingness.

This man had called himself a Jew, partly from an inherited allegiance, which ran in his blood, though it was no longer niched in his brain, partly, also, from a generous unwillingness to desert the unfortunate. He cherished the fragments of his ancient traditions as the poet and the antiquary cherish the ruins of an antique temple, in which the vulgar see only broken rocks and rubbish, but from which their imaginations can rebuild portico and sculptured frieze and painted ceiling. Their eyes can discern the acanthus leaf where it lies half choked in dust, and the dying glimmer of what once was gold, and, faintly burning through its encrusting soil, the imperishable color of that rare stone, blue as the vault of a midnight sky. In the ruin of his people Mr. Schöninger still beheld and gloried in that sublime race which, in the early world, had borne the day-star on their foreheads.

But it was only a memory to him, and the present was all vanity.

While in prison, he had thought that liberty was, of all things, the most precious. In his emptied heart it had been the one object of longing; and in the first moments of freedom he had found it intoxicating. But the joy it gave effervesced and died away like foam, and the emptiness remained. Looking back on that prison life, he almost wondered at the agony it had caused him, or even that the shameful death which had threatened him should have had power to move him so, or that the opinions and the enmities of men should have struck such bitterness from his soul. What was it all but motes in the beam? “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity.”

But life must be lived, and work must be done; and he took up the duties that came to hand, and performed them almost as if he loved them.

One small pleasure, indeed, he gave himself. Escaping from the city, with as much care as if he had been flying from justice, he took a long, solitary walk in the pine-woods where, nearly a year before, he had gone with a May party, and, searching there, he brought back handfuls of pale, nodding snow-drops, and sent them by a trusty messenger to Honora Pembroke.

“They are for her or for Mrs. [pg 503] Gerald, as she may choose,” he said.

She made no answer, but the messenger saw her lay the delicate blossoms in the white hand of the dead, while her tears fell on them, drop by drop.

Mr. Schöninger's generosity of feeling would have prompted him to attend the funeral, but his good taste prevented. He would have been too much observed there. He watched the procession as it passed by his window—an old-fashioned, solemn, genuine New-England funeral; no mourning carriages with laughing people inside, no hired bearers but a long line of friends and neighbors, who knew and lamented the dead, walking after her with downcast faces, to stand by her grave till the earth should have covered her in.

In a town like Crichton such a death for such a cause would create a deep impression; and crowds stood all about the cottage when the friends who were admitted came out from its doors, and a grave silence prevailed in all the streets as they passed through them.

It was Good Friday; and that evening, for the first time, the new organist was to take charge of the choir in the Immaculate Conception. There was but little to do, for the singers were not in training—only a hymn or two to sing before the sermon, and nothing after.

Mr. Schöninger was glad that he should thus be able to leave the church before the sermon without seeming disrespectful to F. Chevreuse, as he would have seemed in going out and coming in again when the sermon was over. He had not the least objection to hearing Catholic sermons, provided they did not bore him—had, indeed, heard many of them; but he did not wish to hear F. Chevreuse speak on the passion and death of Christ. To him, that had always been the weakest point in the Christian theology. He could reverence almost to the verge of adoration the sublime humility and sweetness and patience of that life which they called divine; but he shrank from the agony which crowned it as something weak and unfitting. A life so perfect ending thus was to him incongruous; as though the eye, travelling up a lofty and exquisite column, should see a rude block at the top instead of a perfect capital.

“If it does not prove the falsehood of the whole,” Mr. Schöninger said to himself, “it proves a great mistake somewhere; and I would rather not hear such a man as F. Chevreuse try to make it seem reasonable.”

But he would not be in too great a hurry to go. He lingered a little, arranged the music, and stopped at the door of the choir long enough to hear the priest announce his text: The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all.

“My Isaiah!” he thought. “I wonder what he meant in writing that?”

“Good Friday is, to my mind, not so much a day of sorrow as a day of remorse,” the priest began. “The Jews were ungrateful, and we are ungrateful.”

“That dear, just soul!” Mr. Schöninger muttered with a smile, as he went slowly out.

Going down the stairs, he caught now and then a sentence. “We sin, and are forgiven, and then we sin again; and we sin against a God whom we acknowledge; they sinned against a God in whom they did not believe.”

And again: “Peter sinned once, but he never denied his Master a second time; Magdalene was once a sinner, but never again.”

Mr. Schöninger stopped at a narrow pointed window near the foot of the stairs, and looked out into the night. He had half a mind to go back and listen to the sermon. There was something enchaining in the way F. Chevreuse preached. His were no cut-and-dried orations where the form is first laid out, and each part fitted in as exact as a mosaic, and where no fault can be found, except that there is such an absence of faults. He poured his heart out; he announced a truth, and then, in a few sentences, he threw a picture before their eyes to illustrate it; he walked the platform where he stood, and seemed at times so transported by his feelings as to forget that he was not talking to himself alone.

Mr. Schöninger paused in the lower door, and listened again, hating to stay, hating still more to go away, so empty did his soul feel.

The speaker gave a brief backward glance over what he had already said. They had seen the agony in the garden, and now they were going to see what it meant. They had seen the cup put aside by the hand of Christ, and now they were going to see him drink it to the dregs. They had seen him bear uncomplainingly the stripes and the thorns, now they were going to hear him cry out in the agony of desolation.

With a rapid touch he sketched the scene—the surging, angry crowd, driving and hurrying forward a man in the midst, who drags and stumbles under a heavy cross.

The priest wrung his hands slowly, walking to and fro, with that sight before him. “O my God!” he said, half to himself, “is it thus that I see thee? Thy divinity is reduced so small—so small that it requires all the fulness of my faith to discern it. This man is covered with dust and blood. He hath fallen beneath his load, and the dust of the street is on him, on his hands, and even his face, with the blood and the sweat. They buffet him, they laugh at him”—the speaker faced his congregation suddenly, stretching out his hands to them. “A God! a God!” he cried, and was for a moment silent.

Mr. Schöninger turned away, shuddering at this image of Divinity in the dust.

Yet he had not gone far when, in spite of him, his feet were drawn back.

F. Chevreuse stood beside the great black and white crucifix, to which he did not seem to dare to lift his eyes.

“The cup is at his lips at last! He has lost sight of the Father! The Lord has laid upon him the iniquities of us all. All the murders, all the adulteries of the world are on him; all the sacrileges are on him; all the brutality, the foulness, the lies, the treacheries, the meannesses, the cruelties—they are all heaped upon him. All iniquities, past, present, and to come, overclouded and hid his divine innocence out of sight. And the Father, seeing him so, relented not, spared him not, but poured on his head the full measure of his hatred of our sins, as if he were the criminal who was guilty of them all.”

Mr. Schöninger started back as if lightning had flashed in his face, uttered a faint cry, and hurried from the church.

He knew why the veil of the temple was rent and the face of the [pg 505] sun darkened; and he knew why the Son of God had bled at every pore.

He walked once rapidly round the square, baring his head to the tender coolness of the air. When he reached the church again, F. Chevreuse had finished speaking, and was just turning away. But he paused, as he saw Mr. Schöninger walk up the aisle as unconscious of the astonished congregation who gazed at him as if the church had been empty.

He knelt at the communion railing.

“F. Chevreuse,” he said in a voice that every one heard, so still were all, “I have not yet kissed the cross on which my God was crucified.”

F. Chevreuse drew the small crucifix from his girdle, and presented it, his hands trembling and tears rolling down his face; and all the congregation fell on their knees while the Jew kissed the cross on which his God was crucified.

To Be Continued.

The Jesuit Martyrs Of The Commune.[111]

In this little volume the Rev. F. de Ponlevoy has faithfully recorded the Acts, as he well entitles them, of five brave men of our own time, who went forth “rejoicing,” like the apostles of old, “that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus.”

The author has not attempted a biography or any detailed account of the lives of these brave men previous to their arrest “in the name of the Commune,” but simply an exact statement, far more impressive, of their known words and acts from that moment which so plainly marked them as chosen ones of God.

These Jesuit fathers suffered in most saintly companionship, and the world will heartily echo the pious wish of our author that other societies may do for their martyred brethren that which he has so lovingly accomplished for his.

The Jesuits in Paris during the war of 1870 saw plainly the gathering signs of darker days yet to come for France; but it is not in their traditions to yield anything to fear, and so they were resolved, the moment the armistice was concluded, to open their school of S. Geneviève and College of Vaugirard. At the very beginning of the war with Prussia, these two establishments had been freely passed over to the military authorities for the use of the sick and wounded, hundreds of whom had been there received and tenderly cared for, many of the fathers attaching themselves to the ambulances and hospitals with the utmost devotion. Consequently these buildings now needed many repairs and to be almost entirely refurnished. The residence in the Rue Lafayette had [pg 506] fared better, as the greater part of the community were Germans who had been obliged to leave France at the beginning of the war, while the house fell under the protection of the American minister, charged by Prussia to watch over the interests of its people in Paris. Add to which this modest mission had the deserved reputation of being very poor—not much of a bait for the blood-hounds of the Commune. At the house in the Rue de Sèvres such measures were taken as prudence seemed to suggest, leaving the rest to Providence. Thus at first it had seemed best to keep some members of the order in Paris—men at once necessary and willing to stay. Some were sent to the provinces, and others remained scattered throughout the ungrateful capital. At the conclusion of the armistice the College of Vaugirard was hastily prepared for pupils, and its reopening fixed for the 9th of March, by which time nearly two hundred students had applied for admission. But on the 18th the long-threatened revolution burst forth, and the rector, more anxious for the pupils than for the fathers, hurried both to the country-house of the college, at Moulineaux, between Issy and Meudon. However, they were soon compelled to retreat precipitately, first to Versailles, and finally to Saint Germain-en-Laye; for, placed exactly in the narrow belt between the belligerent lines, they found themselves, upon the breaking out of hostilities between Paris and Versailles, veritably between two fires. The deserted College of Vaugirard was surrounded, occupied, and pillaged, but no one was there to be arrested.

The school of S. Geneviève required more time for repairs, and was to be opened on March 20; but the insurrection, coming in the interval, necessitated new delays, and parents were notified to await further announcements. The rector, F. Léon Ducoudray, born at Laval, May 6, 1827, a man of great spirit and energy, was not one to lose time or to be dismayed in the hour of trial. He at once sent out four of the fathers, one to negotiate a loan in England or Belgium to meet the exigencies of the moment, and the others to seek in the provinces an asylum for the exiled school, which was finally removed to a country-house at Athis-Mons, on the railway line to Orléans, not far from Paris. The pupils were notified that the school would open on April 12; the rector, who had remained in Paris to superintend the final arrangements, was to join his community on Monday, the third.

On Sunday, the second, F. Ducoudray perceived that F. Paul Piquet, a sick priest left at S. Geneviève, was rapidly sinking, and at a quarter-past eight in the evening this good father had the happiness of leaving this world and its momentarily-increasing trials. It was a great loss to the house, and at this time a very painful embarrassment. The next morning (Monday) the Commune issued a decree confiscating all the furniture and property belonging to religious houses, and at S. Geneviève they every instant expected a visit on the part of the new rulers of the city. Nevertheless, F. Ducoudray sent for several of the fathers to come up from Athis to attend the funeral ceremonies of the deceased priest, set for Tuesday, April 4.

All at once, just after midnight on Tuesday, before these fathers had returned to Athis, the buildings were [pg 507] encircled by a battalion of National Guards, armed to the teeth. The Rue Lhomond, the Rue d'Ulm, the Passage des Vignes, the very woodyard at the foot of the garden, all were guarded. There were repeated blows at the door of No. 18. The brother porter went at once to say that the keys, according to custom, were in the rector's room, and that he would go and get them. But at this simple and reasonable answer the outsiders got into a rage; a summons was sounded three times at rapid intervals; the whole neighborhood was startled by a general discharge at all the windows of the Rue Lhomond; there were loud threats of bringing cannons and mitrailleuses from the Place de Panthéon near by. Presently the doors were opened, and the rector himself appeared, calmly requesting to be allowed to make some remarks in the name of common justice and of individual liberty. But the day for these things had gone by. For sole response the leader signified, revolver in hand, that he constituted the rector his prisoner in the name of the Commune, and should occupy and search the house for the arms and munitions of war therein concealed. But in reality they were here, as everywhere else, on a hunt for the cash-box. “That which we most need,” said a member of the Commune, “is money.”

Right away every one in the house was on his feet, and each one followed his instinct; but first of all one priest hurried to the private chapel, where, for precaution, the Blessed Sacrament had been previously placed, and hastened to secure it against profanation.

The envoys of the Commune were in number and force enough to carry on several operations at once. They arrested everybody they could lay their hands on—priests, lay brothers, even the servants of the school—and, as fast as they found them, seated them in the entrance hall, and kept them there for several hours. They ransacked the entire house; the rector himself led them everywhere. The search was very long and very minute, without the desired result; for they found no arms and very little money. F. Ducoudray, without falsifying himself in the slightest, replied with so much unconcern, with such dignity and politeness, that they said to each other in astonishment: “What a man this is! What energy of character!” At last, after three painful hours, they took him to the hall; but even from the first moment they separated him from his brethren, and put him in a little vestibule of the chapel in front of the parlors. It is almost superfluous to add that the pillage of the house commenced almost at once, accelerated, and the next day completed, by bands of women and children.

At five in the morning the recall was sounded; it was the signal for defiling and departing for the préfecture of the police. The prisoners were ranged between two lines of National Guards. First came the rector, a little ahead of the others; behind him the Rev. FF. Ferdinand Billot, Emile Chauveau, Alexis Clerc, Anatole de Bengy, Jean Bellanger, Theodore de Regnon, and Jean Tanguy, four lay brothers, and seven servants.

“Well,” said F. Ducoudray, with a radiant countenance, to F. Caubert, who was nearest him. “Ibant gaudentes,[112] did they not?”

“What is he saying there?” asked [pg 508] the uneasy guards. F. Caubert repeated the sentence; God knows what they understood by it!

At the préfecture a major exclaimed: “Why have you brought me these rascals (coquins)? Why didn't you shoot them on the spot?”

“Gently,” answered one of the guard; “it is necessary to proceed calmly, or you yourself might get it before the rest.”

The same officer then asked, revolver in hand, for the director.

“I am here,” replied F. Ducoudray, advancing.

“I know that you have arms concealed in your house.”

“No, sir.”

“I have it on certain authority.”

“If there are any, it is without my knowledge.”

“You have an iron will. We are going to see about that, we two; and if we do not find them, you do not get back here.”

Then followed a number of charges against the priests, such as poisoning the sick and wounded in the hospitals and ambulances, perversion of youth, and complicity with the government of Versailles. F. Ducoudray, following the example of his divine Master, made no reply, and, after being loaded with insults, was finally taken secretly and locked up in a cell of the Conciergerie prison. The others were confined in a common hall of the depot prison, intended for vagrant women.

In the meantime, two priests and one brother, who had escaped detection in the tumult, remained at S. Geneviève. The brother was an invalid confined to his bed, and the two priests, one of whom had been concealed all night in the garden, met in his room after the guards had left, and it remained for nearly two months virtually their prison.

The saintly president of the house of the Rue de Sèvres, F. Pierre Olivaint, had seen all his flock sheltered from the gathering storm, and on that Monday was alone in the house with one reverend companion, F. Alexis Lefebvre, and several devoted brothers, incapable of fear. All day long warnings and entreaties poured in upon him to cause him to fly in advance of the impending visit from the Commune. “But what would you have?” he answered tranquilly. “I am like the captain of a vessel, who must be the last to leave the ship. If we are taken to-day, I shall have but one regret: that it is Holy Tuesday, not Good Friday.”

“Why, now, my child,” he said again, at six o'clock, to one who implored him to save himself while there was yet a moment, for it was certain there was to be a visit on the part of the Commune that very evening—“why, now, my child, why do you excite yourself? Is it not the best act of charity we can perform to give our life for the love of Jesus Christ?” And then he went to the lower floor, facing the hall door, and calmly went on with his office. “I am waiting,” he said to a friend who passed by, pressing his hand.

Just as they were assembling in the refectory for the evening collation, at the usual hour of a quarter-past seven, the brother porter was summoned; a delegate of the Commune was at the door, behind him a company of National Guards. The brother was instructed to detain them in the vestibule or in the parlor until the superior himself should come. Brother Francis did so, in spite of the impatience and threats of the visitors. In anticipation of this visit, but two hosts had been left in the morning, and now [pg 509] each father hurried to his room, and each had his viaticum ready. F. Lefebvre returned the first, soon followed by F. Olivaint. The delegate announced the object of his mission—to look for arms and munitions kept in reserve by the Jesuits; but, being himself called away on important business, deputed citizen Lagrange to take his place. This man, well worthy of the deed, ordered every avenue of escape to be guarded, and then, followed by nearly half his force, began the tour of inspection, accompanied by F. Olivaint, and preceded by two brothers, one with a light, the other carrying the keys; two other brothers were stationed at the entrance with the guards, and, as each room was examined, Lagrange left two of his men to guard it. To have any idea of the shameless impiety and vulgar insolence of these functionaries of the Commune, one must have seen and heard them; for three hours the search continued, amid threats and mockery, through all which F. Olivaint remained calm and reserved.

The critical moment came while in the procurator's chamber, where the cash-box was discovered. “Hurry and open it,” they cried. “Where's the key?”

“I haven't it; it is not even here,” answered F. Olivaint. “Our father procurator, who is absent, has it with him.” Then came the tempest; one of the brothers was sent off with three guards, arms in hand, to hunt up the father procurator, and bring him back alive or dead. In the end, F. Caubert really did arrive, and opened the box. It was empty. Naturally, the siege had suppressed all receipts and increased all expenses; for a long time the Jesuits had lived only by borrowing. “We are robbed,” Lagrange exclaimed. “All right, the superior and the steward are my prisoners, in the name of the Commune. Off to the préfecture of police!” F. Lefebvre begged to be taken with his brethren. “No, no,” was the answer. “You stay here and hold this house in the name of the Commune.” And actually the sentence was prophetic; for the house guarded by F. Lefebvre was spared with him.

At about half-past eleven o'clock the two prisoners departed, never to return; they sought in vain for a carriage, to make the long transit. As they passed out, F. Olivaint saw, in the crowd in the street, a group of compassionate friends; he saluted them with a smile, as if to say: “Weep not for me.”

Lagrange and his company quartered themselves at the Place Vendôme, as proud of their prowess that night as if they had captured Versailles; a single piquet of armed men took the prisoners to the préfecture, and there, instead of being placed with the others in the common hall, they were immediately and secretly locked up in the cells of the Conciergerie.

“FF. Olivaint and Caubert are in prison,” F. Lefebvre wrote to our author at Versailles. “They absolutely would not take me. I am alone at the house, with Brother Bouillé, both fearless, thank God! The others are dispersed, and come from time to time to see me. I have placed the Blessed Sacrament in the gallery near my room, and, when they return, I shall consume the sacred hosts. The church will be closed. They are arresting the priests. Monseigneur himself is at the préfecture of police; they say these are the hostages, I am told. Pray, pray for me, my father! Oh! how happy I should be to give my life for our Lord!”

F. Ducoudray accepted his imprisonment without any surprise. “Before long,” he had said, on March 19, to the Prince de Broglie—“before long our churches will be closed, our houses devastated, our persons arrested, and God knows who will regain his liberty. The things which are to be done will have a particular character of hatred to God, and—that which is very sad for a priest to say—there will prove to be no other argument for the miserable ones who are to be masters of Paris than the cannon. I have lived for seven months in the very midst of these men, and I have not met with one heart or one honest mind among them.”

“For six months,” he wrote under date of Feb. 20, “I have seen only grief and mourning.... My God! must I say to you that I can still hope? Paris has lost the last fibre of moral and religious sense. Its population is mad, delirious. Can we hope for the return of divine mercy when this immense city thinks only of founding a society based on the absence of religion and on the hatred of God? Only a miracle can help us out of the abyss in which we are plunged. I hold my peace.... My heart is too heavy, and my soul too gloomy.”

F. Olivaint, loving his country not less, was filled with joy from the very moment of his arrest. “Ibant gaudentes,” he said with sparkling eyes to the archbishop's secretary, who passed his grating—“Ibant gaudentes; it is for the same Master!” “France,” he said, “like the world, requires to be ransomed by blood—not the blood of criminals, which sinks into the ground, and remains mute and barren, but the blood of the just, which cries to heaven, invoking justice and imploring mercy.”

“There must be victims,” said F. Caubert. “It is God who has chosen them.”

On the evening of Holy Thursday there came a change. The archbishop, the president, Bonjeau, FF. Ducoudray, Clerc, and de Bengy, each in a separate compartment of a prison carriage, were conveyed from the Conciergerie to the prison of Mazas. F. Olivaint and F. Caubert were left alone at the Conciergerie, in separate cells, debarred from all possible communication.

“And from this hour,” cries F. Ponlevoy, in tender remembrance,[113] “I seem to myself to be really writing an episode of the Catacombs. The church is ever fruitful in generous souls, but it is the hour of trial that more than any lays bare the depths of the heart; and if, on one side, there is in the martyrs a patience beyond all grief, there is in the Christian a charity stronger than death itself.”

A system of correspondence was organized outside those now hallowed prison walls, and continued to the very end, consoling and sustaining the captives, and laying up treasures for the faithful far and wide through the edifying little notes thus preserved. And finally, on Thursday, April 13, safe means were found to convey to the prisoners at the Conciergerie not simply a consolation, but the Consoler himself. Only a few hours after this was accomplished, FF. Olivaint and Caubert were removed to Mazas, whither three of their order, as we have seen, had preceded them.

The prison of Mazas, on the boulevard of the same name, is constructed on the system of cells. At its door all motion ceases; life itself fades out; the isolation is [pg 511] complete; the unfortunate detained there are buried alive. But the love and devotion of the faithful contrived to pierce even these gloomy walls, and letters were again carried back and forth between the imprisoned priests and their exiled brethren. These letters contained few facts, but, put together, make a most exquisite journal of the interior life of the saintly captives. F. Ducoudray opens this series of letters by a formal one to his superior, giving an account of the situation and of his own personal disposition. “You know our history and its sadness,” he writes.

“Here I pass much time in prayer, and a little in suffering. Isolation, separation, uncertainty, and, above all, the privation of not being able to celebrate Mass—this is indeed cruel!

“No possible communication cum concaptivis meis. They are there, near to me, in the same corridor; that is all I know.

“This is the part it is the will of God we should perform. For us, we have only to follow the apostle's counsel: ‘In omnibus exhibeamus nosmetipsos, sicut Dei ministros, in multa patientia, in tribulationibus,... in carceribus, in seditionibus, ... per gloriam et ignobilitatem, per infamiam et bonam faman.’[114]

“Say to my friends,” F. Olivaint wrote to one of his brethren, “that I do not find anything to complain of; health pretty good; not a moment of ennui in my retreat, which I continue up to the very neck.... I know nothing of my companions.” “I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” to another, “for your charity to the poor prisoners. Here is a work I did not fully comprehend until I was in prison. How well you practise it—I might almost say too well!... No, the time does not seem long to me.” ... “In reality,” he writes again, “I do very well in body; and as for the spirit, it seems to me that I am making a retreat of benediction, Deo gratias.” ... Later on: “I am at the twenty-fourth day of my retreat. I had never hoped that a retreat of a month would be granted me; and see, now I am touching that term. Well, if we do not regain our liberty by the end of the month, I shall not, I hope, lose anything in this way by the prolongation of the trial. You will understand that here we have no news to give. And those frightful cannon that never cease grumbling! But that, too, reminds me to pray for our poor country. If it were required to give my miserable life to put an end to its troubles, how quickly I would make the sacrifice!”

Those cannon jarred on the ears of the other captives. “We hear day and night the roar of cannon,” F. Clerc wrote to his brother. “I conclude that the siege and my detention will not end to-morrow.... People talk of the cloister of religious houses; that of Mazas is not to be despised.... We have neither Mass nor sacraments. Never, I well believe, did prisoners more desire them. I pray to the good God, I study, I read, I write a little, and I find time goes quickly, even at Mazas.... Do not take further measures to see me; I fear further efforts would bring you annoyance, and I have little hope of the result. These gates will be opened by another hand than yours; and, if they open not, we know well that we must be [pg 512] resigned.... I am proud and happy to suffer for the name I bear. You know well the blow did not take me by surprise. I did not desire to evade it, and I wish to support it. I do not hope for the deliverance of which you speak.... The less I am master of myself, the more I am in the hands of God; there will happen to me what he wills, and he will give me to do that which he wishes I should do. Omnia passum in eo qui me confortat.”

F. Caubert writes in the same tone: “My health up to the present remains good. For the rest, I have all that is necessary, and even over. Besides, the moral serves to strengthen the physical in giving courage and strength. Now, this comes to me because I am full of confidence in God, and most happy to do his will in all that he really demands of me. For the rest, the prison rule, in spite of its stern and austere side, is not in itself injurious to the health. They have us take the air every day for an hour, solitarily, and each in his turn. The delicate stomachs can obtain the food they need. Twice a week they give us soup and a bit of beef. The house is conducted with propriety, order, and regularity.... We can visit the doctor or the apothecary daily. There is a library comprising a pretty good number of books of great variety, and any one can ask for them to pass the time. As for the details of the ménage, that which they bring me is quite sufficient, and I need no more. It simplifies matters not to have my cell encumbered, otherwise I should get things a little pell-mell.”

To hear these good fathers, everything was right, everybody good to them. Undoubtedly they suffer, but, as they are patient, they suffer less than others; as they have hope, they endure better than others; finally, as they love Christ crucified, their joy is greater than their pain. A Frenchman and a Jesuit conquered by hard treatment or most distressing privation! Never! Starving, dying by inches, in stripes and in prison, under the tomahawk, at the stake, in hunger and thirst, in burning India or the snows of Canada, at the mercy of Western savages or Paris revolutionists, it is ever the same thing—everything is right and nice and fine; much better than could be expected. The story, fresh in our minds, of our own early missionaries, exiles of the first Revolution, prepares us to hear the sweet patience of the American forests echoing to-day in the prison of Mazas. God wills it. Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

M. Ponlevoy, who had the tender curiosity to visit the prison of Mazas on a holiday, when it could easily be inspected, says: “I saw those three stories of long corridors, with double galleries, radiating around a centre where lately there was a chapel—ah! if the Commune had but had at least the humanity to leave to the captives the divine Prisoner of the tabernacle—on both sides, on all the floors, the doors loaded with bolts and provided with regular gratings, and those narrow cells, of which the inventory could be made in a single glance! Facing the entrance, the grated window, which measured the air and light; in one corner the hammock; opposite, the little table, with just room enough for a straw chair; behind the door a plank for a cupboard, a broom, and some pieces of coarse crockery completed the furniture. As for the famous promenade so often [pg 513] mentioned in their letters, it was a little triangular prison-yard, shut in by a grating in front, and walls on the sides, without shelter anywhere, and no other seat than a stone in one corner. During their solitary recreation the captives could absolutely see no one, unless the guard under the arch who held them in surveillance.”

But the human heart is still human, however resigned the will. Say what they would, the prison was still a prison, and Mazas certainly was more like Calvary than paradise. After all, Christians are not stoics, and the martyr himself feels the weakness of the flesh, that he may overcome it by the vigor of the spirit.

“This poor heart!” writes brave F. Ducoudray. “It sometimes will be tempted to escape and to bound. The imagination willingly takes its part. Neither lets itself be ruled as much by reason as I would wish. Thence come, at times, certain fits or impressions of weariness, the suffering of the soul, throwing it into languor, discouragement, uneasiness, and disgust. ‘Magnum est et val de magnum, tam humano quant divino posse carere solatio et pro honore Dei, libenter exilium cordis velle sustinere.’[115] There is matter in that one comprehends only when one feels it. I had the good thought, when leaving the house, to put into my pocket a small volume containing the New Testament and the Imitation. I have read S. Paul much. What a great and admirable heart! It expands my soul to read it, for it has been ‘in laboribus plurimus, in carceribusabundantius,’[116] as he writes himself. And I, though I am yet but a carcere uno, I boast of suffering somewhat. But if we are those of whom it is written: ‘Eritis odio omnibus propter nomen meum,’[117] how contemptible our tribulations in comparison with those of the great apostle!” “I am still,” he wrote at another time, May 5, “more ill omened than the greatest pessimist. You tell me they fix the 20th as the final term of the civil war. I much fear it will be prolonged even to the 30th. Military operations go slowly. The war beyond the ramparts offers difficulties; the war of the streets has its difficulties also—most bloody ones, alas!... We touch upon the week of great events, or, at least, the beginning of great events.... What a punishment! It was expected. It is here.”

Two or three human consolations were vouchsafed the prisoners, after a time. On May 5 they were permitted to read several of the daily papers approved by the Commune, and about the same time F. Ducoudray had the inestimable privilege of twice seeing and saluting, at a short distance, F. Clerc, and of once seeing far off F. Bengy, his beloved brethren and fellow-prisoners.

In May another favor was vouchsafed. F. Clerc's brother had been incessant in his attempts to obtain an interview with him, but without any success; at last a dear friend, a lady, received permission to visit the prisoner, and, as a French lady must needs have an escort, she took M. Clerc for hers. This was an inexpressible happiness to the noble-hearted priest, and his thanks to God for the favor were boundless. F. Caubert, whose simple and exquisite letters, full of golden [pg 514] thoughts, we would gladly linger over if there were only space enough, received, May 11, a visit from the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, which was very agreeable to him. “It appears,” he said, “that I had been recommended to him by some person of his acquaintance. He came to inquire most cordially, in true American style, how I got along, and if I had need of anything.” Here, in uncertainty, inaction, and shut out from all the world, these brave men made light of all the trials and privations to which their bodies were so long and painfully subjected. The Communists knew too much, however, to think of breaking their spirit by bodily suffering; they had the means of creating cruel anguish in the heart of every priest within those prison walls, and well they knew how to use it. From every cell came a cry such as no rack or stake could draw from them.

On Easter Sunday, fifth day of their confinement, F. Clerc wrote to his brother: “To-day is the feast of feasts, the Pasch of the Christians, the day the Lord has made. For us there is no Mass to say or hear.” Just at the hour of leaving the Conciergerie, FF. Olivaint and Caubert had the happiness, so longed for and so unexpected, of receiving the “Consoler himself.” Then came the long days at Mazas, and no such consolation possible. “Oh! if we could but soon ascend the altar!” cries F. Ducoudray in the early days at Mazas. “Here is a privation to which I can never become accustomed.”

“Here,” F. Clerc wrote May 5—“here no confession, no Mass, not even on Sunday. We are lodged, fed—it is enough for animals.”

“I pass my time,” F. Ducoudray again, “praying much, suffering some; for the privation of the Holy Mass, the isolation, the separation, are cruel, but I see not the end.”

On May 8 an order was promulgated which put an end to all visits; on that very day F. Ducoudray had expected to receive our Lord himself. “What a sacrifice!” he exclaims. “I have offered to our Lord this hard trial, incomparably more painful yesterday than ever, on account of the precious pledge of the love of the divine Master. I seek to make my poor heart the altar on which I sacrifice. I shall add that of yesterday as new fuel to the sacrifice.”

“Six Sundays passed in darkness,” writes F. Olivaint, May 14. “How many days without ascending to the altar!” And the next day: “I am at the forty-first day of my retreat. After to-day, I intend to meditate only on the Eucharist. Is it not the best means of consoling myself that I cannot ascend to the altar? If I were a little bird, I would go somewhere every morning to hear Mass, and then I would willingly come back to my cage.”

The fathers outside the prison walls, understanding well the longing indicated by these and similar expressions, had endeavored in every way to find means to answer their desires. But it required infinite precautions to secure the faithful and sure transmission through all the formalities of surveillance. What is there prudence and love together may not accomplish? At last the doors opened; the prisoners came not out, but the Redeemer entered. Towards mid-day of the 15th the Long-Desired arrived. That tells all. Only FF. Ducoudray, Olivaint, and Clerc could be reached at first. Each of [pg 515] these was given four sacred hosts, and each preserved and carried on his breast, as on a living altar, the God of his heart and his heritage for all eternity.

“There is no more prison,” F. Clerc wrote to his brother, “no more solitude; and I have confidence that if our Lord permits the wicked to satisfy their malice, and for a few hours to prevail, he will profit by them in that very moment to glorify his name by the feeblest and vilest of his instruments.”

Once again, May 22, an opportunity was found to reach the captives. Two feeble but intrepid women traversed the vast, deserted districts to Mazas. This time all measures had been taken, and each prisoner received a share—four sacred hosts wrapped in a corporal, as in a shroud, duly enclosed in a little box with a silk case and a cord, in order that it might be carried around the neck. Coming at that hour, the Saviour seemed to say again: “I return, not to live with you, but to carry you with me.” For the end was at hand.

We linger for a few moments over the last letters gathered here in a most fragrant, fadeless wreath. On the 16th F. Clerc wrote his last letter, truly his nunc dimittis:

“Ah! my God, how good thou art! How true it is that the mercy of thy heart will never fail!... I had not dared conceive the hope of such a blessing—to possess our Lord, to have him for companion of my captivity, to carry him on my heart, and to rest on his, as he permitted to his beloved John! Yes, it is too much for me, and my thought cannot compass it. And still it is. But is it not true that all men and all the saints together could not conceive the Eucharist? O the God of the Eucharist! how good he is, how compassionate, how tender! Does it not seem as if he made again the reproach: You have asked nothing in my name; ask now, and you shall receive? I have him now without having asked; I have him now, and I will never leave him more, and my desire, fainting for want of hope, is reanimated, and will only increase in the measure that possession lasts.

“Ah! prison, dear prison, thou whose walls I have kissed, saying, Bona crux, what happiness thou hast won me! Thou art no longer a prison; thou art a chapel. Thou art no longer even a solitude, because I am not alone; but my Lord and my King, my Master and my God, lives here with me. It is not only in thought that I approach him; it is not only by grace that he approaches me; but he has really and corporally come to find and console the poor prisoner. He wished to keep him company; and can he not do it, all-powerful as he is?... Oh! lost for ever, my prison, which wins for me the honor to carry my Lord upon my heart, not as a sign, but the reality of my union with him.

“In the first days I demanded with great earnestness that our Lord should call me to a more excellent testimony to his name. The worst days are not even yet passed; on the contrary, they are coming near, and they will be so evil that the goodness of God will be obliged to shorten them; but, at all events, we are now drawing near to them. I had from the first the hope that God would give me the grace to die well; at present my hope has become a true and solid confidence. It seems to me that I am prepared for anything through Him who sustains me and will accompany me even unto death. Will [pg 516] he do it? That which I know is, that if he will not, I shall have a regret which nothing but submission to his will can calm.”

F. Ducoudray gives us his farewell letter also. It ends with alleluia in the heart and the fiat on the lips:

“I have received all. Tuesday what a surprise, what joy!... I am no more alone. I have our Lord for guest in my little cell.... And it is true, credo! On Wednesday I seemed to live over again the day of my first communion, and I surprised myself by bursting into tears. For twenty-five days I had been deprived of the rich blessing—of my only treasure!

“I shut myself in the guest-chamber,” he continued, referring to the room in which the Last Supper was eaten, and that “upper chamber,” in which the disciples remained concealed until the coming of the Holy Ghost, “and much I wish, after these ten days which separate us from Pentecost are passed, to see again the light of heaven. Between now and then what events may arise! We are near the crisis; but if it is prolonged, we have reason to fear that horrible events will take place. I cannot prevent myself at times from being greatly impressed at finding myself connected with such grave circumstances. But here we make a good retreat, which will facilitate our entrance into eternity. I have held myself, from the first day of my arrival here, ready for any sacrifice whatever; for I have the strong, sweet confidence that if God permits hostages and victims to be made of us priests and religious, it will truly be in odium fidei, in odium nominus Christi Jesu.[118]

“We pray, pray much, disposed to live if God pleases, to die if God pleases, as worthy children of our most happy father, S. Ignatius.”

Happy the pen that is broken after those last lines.

“It should be well understood,” wrote F. Caubert, “that it is really God who gives us courage in our trials; otherwise the courage would very soon exhaust itself. For me, I have to run often to prayer to renew mine, like a poor clock that has to be wound up every little while. In a life so isolated, sequestered and devoid of occupation, ennui comes quickly. One can easily make himself a rule, but we cannot always read or pray. I should have experienced much of this in myself during this my three weeks' retreat had I not been sustained by this very dose of prayer. You understand that in this monotonous life, whenever the good God hides his presence (and that is usual, in order to make the trial greater), one must often feel the sinking of nature. But this feeling of weakness is precisely the very thing that drives us constantly near to God. The good God is most admirable in his manner of sustaining the soul through these very depressions. Our feebleness is as a chain binding us to his strength, and as an attraction drawing us to his infinite goodness.

“You say to me that it must be that I suffer. In a measure it is true; but if one had nothing to endure, the good God would find nothing in his account. He desires to show mercy to all, and, that he may do so, he wills that we should offer him some sorrows borne for love of him. Alas! if one were not a prisoner (I speak for myself), perhaps he would too easily forget that charity requires [pg 517] that we should have compassion on poor sinners, and offer something for their intention. And then is not the priest the friend of God, and should he not, by this title, devote himself to obtaining for his brothers reconciliation with God, the father of all—the father so full of goodness and so ready for indulgence—especially when he hears himself importuned by the voice of a friend?”

“I take little account of the time of my imprisonment,” he wrote later. “I prefer to leave all that in the hands of God, and to give up to him the care of all that concerns me. He knows better than I what is most useful for my soul. I seek to remember often that one glorifies him so much more, the more that one suffers for his love and to accomplish his holy will. In reality, in submitting to the trial, we practise in an admirable manner the annihilation of ourself.... Is it not also by the sacrifice of ourself that we best imitate our Lord? It is true that my soul has not yet reached to that perfection and to a love so pure and so detached. It is necessary to pass through trials to reach this union with God. He sends them, in his goodness, to purify the soul and to break down the obstacles which oppose themselves to this union. Pray for me, that I may draw this profit from my present trial.”

A few rapidly-written words from F. Olivaint were the last greeting from one of the tenderest hearts and sweetest souls in the world. “What deplorable events!” he wrote, May 18, to F. Lefebvre. “How well I understand the weary souls of other days who fled to the desert! But it is worth much more to stay in the midst of perils and difficulties to save so many unfortunates from shipwreck. My health is always good, and, after forty-six days, I am not tired of my retreat—just the contrary.” To F. Chauveau: “Thanks from my heart. Yes, we are nearing the end, by the grace of God. Let us seek to be ready for all that comes. Confidence and prayer! How good our Lord is! If you but knew how, especially for several days past, my little cell has become sweet to me! Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit. Who knows that I may not regret it some day? I think just as you do—that Eugene [Count Eugene de Germiny] should not interfere; but in the end, if, by the favor of M. Urbain and his associates, I have need of help, I will ask for Eugene. In any case, thank him for me. Tenderest remembrances to Armand; many thanks to all; benedictions to our friends and benefactors. I believe that all of our own here are doing well. For me, I am perfectly sustained. Once more our Lord is good! Yours from the heart.... May 19, '71.”

On Monday, the 22d, the order was given to proceed at once, and on the spot, to the execution of all the hostages confined at Mazas. This was kept concealed from the prisoners, but they could not help suspecting it, from the additional gloom growing every moment heavier and more ominous throughout that ever-gloomy building. The guards came and went, exchanging mysterious words among themselves, replying to the questions of the condemned by threatening allusion, or by an affected silence even more significant. However, the director of the prison, moved by a sentiment of humanity, or perhaps of prudence, ventured to represent to the imperious Commune that an execution in a simple house of detention [pg 518] would be contrary to all forms and precedents; and consequently they were ordered to La Roquette, the prison for those condemned to death. It was on this day that the two pious women succeeded in reaching Mazas, and giving to each of the Jesuit priests there four sacred hosts, with conveniences for carrying them around the neck.

Nearly all were transferred to La Roquette late in the evening of May 22d; but there were so many, the wagons were not large enough to hold all, and some were left at Mazas until the next day. What a moment that must have been when the prisoners, so long in solitude, not even knowing who were their companions in misfortune, came from their cells, and, meeting in the office, beheld and recognized one another! Priests, religious, laymen, all surrounded the Archbishop of Paris.

The transit was long and painful. The prisoners, forty in number, were crowded into baggage-wagons belonging to the railway of Lyon, and exposed to the gaze and the insults of all. They had to cross the populous quarters of the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Bastile, where the insurrection was still mistress. The convoy went at a walk, between two lines of armed men, followed by the grossest insults and by a maddened multitude. “Alas! monseigneur,” said a priest, leaning towards the archbishop, “look at your people now.”

When they reached La Roquette that night, they were assembled at once, without any other formality, in the hall, called by name, and shown by a person with a lantern to a long corridor on the lower floor; and as each one passed on in the order named, a door opened and closed upon a captive. The darkness was intense; but it is good to remember that in some of the cells there was the Real Presence, shedding light and peace. The Commune was in desperate straits, and it was at first intended to execute the victims as soon as they should arrive at La Roquette; but a few hours were gained through the jealousy of the director. In the cells was a bed, and such a bed!—a pile of straw and a coverlet, and that was all; no tables, not even a chair. Still, Roquette was better than Mazas, for the cells were not vaults, and, though one was locked up, he was not entombed. And, besides, they were permitted to see each other by means of a window between every two cells, and at recreation, which they were allowed to take in a corridor together, and even in some unoccupied cell opening into the corridor. Food was scarce from the first; even bread was rare. F. Olivaint shared some little things which remained to him with the archbishop, and had the happiness, also, of giving him the Bread of the Strong, for which the prelate was overcome with gratitude.

Every hour the Commune was losing ground. It had only strength left for crime, and it hastened, with its dying breath, to order the execution en masse of the hostages of La Roquette. This was modified to sixty at first. At any price the Commune demanded the head of the priests—those hated men who had troubled the world for eighteen hundred years.

About eight o'clock in the evening of May 24, when the prisoners were in their cells, there was heard a confused noise in the distance—the voices of men and of children, a clamor and laughing that was still more terrible, mixing with the [pg 519] clash of arms. It came nearer and nearer, and some fifty rascals, Avengers of the Republic, Garibaldians, soldiers with all kinds of arms, National Guards with all sorts of costumes, gamins of Paris, poured into the prison, hungry for the blood of six victims, their share. They rushed the whole length of the corridor containing the cells of our dear prisoners, and ranged themselves at the head of a small spiral staircase which led to the chemin de ronde. As they passed, each prisoner was pelted through the grating of his cell with a running fire of insult and sentence of death.

Then some one, assuming the office of herald, summoned the prisoners to be ready and to respond each one as his name was called. After that, as each name was pronounced, a door opened, and a victim presented himself. M. Bonjeau, FF. Duguerry, Clerc, Ducoudray, Allard, and Archbishop Darboy were the six chosen. All were present, all were ready, and, in the order named, the procession began. The archbishop and his companions, preceded and followed by this frightful escort, descended the dark, narrow staircase one by one. So unrestrained was the insolence of the captors that their leader was obliged to interfere. “Comrades,” he cried, “we have something better to do than to insult them—that is, to shoot them. It is the command of the Commune.”

No place of execution had been fixed upon. They would have liked to have had it on the spot, but that would give too many witnesses; the first chemin de ronde was in view of the prison windows, and the occupants of the cells on every floor could see all, hear all. So they passed to the second, where they would be sheltered by high ramparts. The victims were ranged in a line at the extreme end of this path, at the foot of the great outside wall.

Those left behind knelt, prayed, and held their breath. The fire of a platoon was heard, followed by a few scattered shots, then cries of Vive la Commune! which told that all was over. There were martyrs now, not victims.

Towards morning the bodies were thrown into a hand-cart and carried to Père la Chaise, where they were tossed into a ditch; no coffins, no ceremony of any kind. “What matters it,” F. Olivaint had said and proved—“what matters it to a Jesuit, who daily sacrifices his heart, once to sacrifice his head?”

Two days passed, and Friday came, rainy, and the prisoners were confined to their corridor. As they were taking their noon-day recreation, a delegate of the Commune appeared, and, standing in their midst, called off fifteen names. F. Olivaint was the first. “Present,” he answered, crossing the corridor. F. Caubert was second, and F. de Bengy third. This last name was badly written, and worse pronounced. “If you mean to say de Bengy,” he replied, “it is I, and I am here.”

The condemned men asked to be allowed to go for a moment to their cells, as some had slippers on, and no hats. “No,” was the response, “for what remains for you to do you are well enough as you are.” New victims were added from other parts of the prison until there were fifty in all, the number required by the Commune.

These were taken a long road to Belleville, a faubourg at a great [pg 520] distance, in order, probably, to excite the passions of the mob, and rouse them once more.

The procession started at about four o'clock from La Roquette. First came a guard bareheaded, who loudly announced that these were Versaillais, made prisoners that morning. The escort consisted of five hundred armed men, National Guards, to whom were added, for this genial occasion, the Enfants Perdus of Bergeret and rowdies under various names. Presently the women, veritable furies, and the children joined in, howling, shrieking, imprecating, blaspheming. The crowd increasing in numbers and insolence, the guards were obliged to interfere to protect the prisoners, not from insult, but from extreme violence. The fury of the mob constantly demanded the moment of execution; a military band was added to the procession to drown the clamor and make the crowd more willing to wait. Finally they reached the entrance to the Cité Vincennes. The passage is narrow, the crowd was enormous, and growing ever more furious as they neared the end. An aged priest, who could not keep up, was shot and killed by a woman, and dragged to the place of general execution. After a time, they found some grounds laid out for country parties or picnics, and an enclosure, uncovered, which was intended for a dancing-hall. The fifty prisoners were forced into this, jammed savagely against the walls, while the crowd showered maledictions upon them. Then, at about six o'clock, there took place a scene absolutely indescribable; not an execution, but a slaughter. They were not shot, but massacred. One discharge followed another; there was an attempt made to fire by platoons, but it was badly managed. The heroines of the Commune climbed the walls, urging on the men and insulting the priests. The tumult at its height lasted for about fifteen minutes. At seven o'clock all was ended. The bodies were left stretched upon the ground until the next day, when they were thrown into a cellar or vault.

It was the death-throe of the Commune. The blood of the just had cried to heaven, and France lifted up her head. The next day was Pentecost; the Commune was crushed, the doors of Roquette were opened, the bodies of the martyrs were recovered, and on Wednesday, May 31, the Jesuit church, for two months closed like the rest, was opened once more, and the funeral ceremonies of the five of their order whose imprisonment we have so hastily followed celebrated with the utmost solemnity. Their remains now repose in the Jesuit chapel of the Rue de Sèvres.

“There must be victims; it is God who has chosen them.” They recognized the divine call, and went forth rejoicing. Ibaut gaudentes.

Antar And Zara; Or, “The Only True Lovers.” III.

An Eastern Romance Narrated In Songs.

By Aubrey De Vere.

Part III.

He Sang.

I.

Beside the well she stood, and water drew:

The bowl, high held in both her hands, I drained;

She smiled, and sparkles showered of gelid dew

On my hot hair, and brows with travel stained.

“O maiden! by thy lambs, and by thy kids,

And by that holy, hospitable hand,

Know'st thou her name whom Love to name forbids,

That fairest fair one of the far-off land?”

Her eyes grew large; in wonder half, half ruth

She spake, like one who sorrowed, yet forgave

“Our land a land of beauty is, O youth!

Her maids are fair and good; her sons are brave.”

“O maiden! by those eyes, and quivering lids,

Forgive! From thee Love hides not his sweet lore:

Breathe it to none—not even thy lambs and kids—”

Then whispered I thy name, but told no more.

II.

How base the soldier's revel o'er his wine!

The tale around the encampment fire; the song!

Would I might hear, O maid! no voice but thine,

Or clash of swords that meet to right the wrong!

Why must his earthlier nature taint, or vex

Man's race? His heart is brave; his thoughts are large;

Benigner angels guard thy happier sex,

The angels that have innocence in charge.

The brightest of that band I saw in dream

To thee make way: a lily stem she bore:

She vanished, lost in thee, as gleam in gleam

Is lost: thou glittered'st brighter than before.

III.

Who shall ascend into thy realm, O Love?

It is a garden on a mountain steep:

From heaven it hangs, the woods, the clouds above;

Sees many rivers into ocean creep.

Round it are icy spires; that vale they guard;

But who can breathe the airs that o'er it blow?

Within it blooms the rose, and drops the nard;

But who can clasp the roses of the snow?

The bird that sings there sings as sings a bride;

But who her mystic chaunt can understand?

O maid, I saw thee ere we met, and cried,

“The land she treads on is a virgin land!”

IV.

Gladdening, as if in founts of Eden dipped,

Thy beauty cheers and strengthens hearts forlorn,

Not like the shafts of Islam, venom-tipt;—

Dove's eyes thou hast, the glances of the morn.

Thy father's joy art thou, thy mother's boast;

Upon the dusty track by pilgrims trod

Laugheth the cripple; and the warlike host

Divides before thee, giving thanks to God.

The merchants praise thee, and the wandering guest—

“Her veil down streams with such a humble pride,

Fairer is that alone than all the West

Irreverent boasts of charms that scorn to hide!”

V.

“Is thy love fairer than each other maiden?”

The young maids ask me. Answer find I none:

I know but this;—she shines on hearts grief-laden

Like visitant from star more near the sun.

Above her vesture's hem a lustre hovers:

Whiter her veil than earliest white of dawn,

Now lifted as on sighs of happy lovers,

Around her now, like mist o'er Hesper, drawn.

Sweet is her voice, as though with saint and angel

Her converse had been ever, and were still:

With her she seems to waft some high evangel,

So light her step, so frank with all good-will.

Let her be child, or girl, or maid, or woman—

I know not what she is. Alone I know

She moves o'er earth like creature more than human,

Missioned from God to spread his peace below.

VI.

When, travel-worn, on thee I chance to muse,

Breeze-like the fragrance comes across my heart

Of spring-flowers breathing sweetness through their dews;

So blissful and so bountiful thou art.

That hour I sing no song; but all my soul

Inly with laughter loud of music rings:

The anthems of a spirit o'er me roll;

Of virtue, loveliness, and love he sings.

All light, the fields of duty round me spread;

Beyond them honor sits, with thee beside:

A heaven all glory flashes overhead;

An earth all rapture trembles like a bride.

VII.

Changed is my love from what it was when first

Forth from my heart that dream of fair and good,

Like Eve from side of sleeping Adam, burst,

And by me, when I woke, in glory stood.

That dream wert thou! A dream, and yet how true!

Still, still I see thee oft beside that brook,

Standing 'mid lilies in the evening dew,

And in thy hand a little open book.

Dear are such memories; dearer far than these

Art thou—now known; a lovely human soul

Running on levels of some spirit-breeze

With wingèd feet to virtue's glittering goal.

The songs and sufferings of our native land,

The faith that lifts her high all griefs above,

These, and thy daily tasks of heart and hand,

Thee too have raised, and with thee raised my love.

VIII.

My hand, made strong by years of manly strife,

Has taught my heart to love in manly sort;

I know thee now—a maid—one day a wife;

No more a phantom from the fairy court.

Mine Arab sires their towers cross-crowned had raised

Like thine, on crag and peak, and dwelt therein,

Hundreds of years ere first in scorn they gazed

Far down on crescent flags of Saladin.

Seldom for us the unequal strife hath ceased:

Age after age that martyr-crown we bear,

Here in our old untamed, inviolate East,

The Church for three short centuries bore elsewhere.

Wife of our race must share the heroic mould:

A mother 'mid our mothers with calm eye

Must look on death: like that great heart of old

Must give her own—if God so wills—to die!

IX.

From things that be around thee stand apart,

For I thy lover am, and fight afar:

A sword I send thee, that betwixt thy heart

And alien things henceforth there may be war.

I send thee not the trophies I have won,

Tokens of town redeemed, or rescued shrine:

I send a sword; thy life is now begun:

Look up! In heaven, too, hangs the sword, a Sign!

With this commandment have I bound thine eyes,

That, fixed and set, henceforth no more they swerve:

Mine are they. She my life who glorifies

On me must gaze not, but that cause I serve!

X.

In single fight we met: the invader fell;

Two hosts stood mute, one gloomy, both amazed;

His eyes, the eyes of one that hears his knell,

On me, and not my lifted sword, were raised.

Forth from that shivered helm outstreamed afar

His locks dust-stained. Forth from those eyes there shone,

Baleful in death, hate's never-setting star:

He hoped no mercy, and he asked for none.

Then cried my heart, “A sister's hands have twined,

How oft! those locks; a mother's lips have pressed:

Perhaps this morn the cassia-shaking wind

Waved them, rich-scented, o'er his true love's breast.”

“Foe of my race,” I said, “arise; live free;

But lift no more against the Faith thy sword!”

Was it thy prayer, or but the thought of thee,

That sentenced chieftain rescued and restored?

A Glimpse of the Green Isle. II.

After mature reflection, the Lady from Idaho pronounced the Dublin ladies the most beautiful in Europe. I consider the judgment an important one. If the fair arbiter had any prejudice, it could only be a general one against the recognition of beauty in others of her sex. I have been informed by young gentlemen of my acquaintance who profess a thorough knowledge of womankind that such a prejudice is not unusual in feminine minds. I think Madame Idaho was rather astonished at the result of her observations. It is possible that, before her visit to Ireland, she supposed that feminine beauty in Ireland offered only one style: that of the robustious or “Irish washerwoman” type. She did not say so, however. While I agreed with her, in general, in her estimate of the Dublin beauties, I ventured to ask if their lovely feet were not a trifle too flat and too large for perfect symmetry.

“Not at all,” was the reply. “It is the horrid, clumsy, broad-toed English chaussure that makes the ladies' feet look so broad and flat. If they wore American brodequins, their feet would look as small, in proportion, as—ahem!—as those of any other nation.”

No more on those feet.

Of the various manifestations of Irish beauty, the most engaging is the union of black or dark-brown hair with soft blue eyes, a skin with the whiteness of milk, and cheeks with the bloom of the rose. It is inexpressibly soft and attractive. And that wonderful blush that decks the cheek of youth and age! Is it the soft moisture of the climate which makes the grass so green, even in the winter of the year, that causes the cheek to bloom so rosily, even in the winter of old age?

A magnificent jeunesse of the sterner sex may also be seen on promenade in Grafton Street every afternoon. Bright, intelligent-looking, of splendid physique, well dressed, not “flashy,” the students of the university and the other colleges—the picked youth of the country—are not inferior in appearance to any class of young men in the great educational institutions either at home or abroad. They have an amiable weakness for light-colored Jouvins and single eye-glasses. You shall not find two out of twenty unprovided with a glazing for the left eye. They are armed with canes—for use as well as ornament. I witnessed a “Town and Gown” row in January of 187-, in which the canes did vigorous service. A little snow had fallen. Snow is a very precious thing in Ireland. It does not last long, and must be used at once. The foolish janitors had swept the snow into little heaps. This was temptation too strong for undergraduates. Snow-balling commenced. The young gentlemen paid their compliments to the town through the railings of College Green. The unwashed young gentlemen [pg 527] of the town replied vigorously. The fun grew fast and furious. In the delightful excitement of the moment some of the students, not having the fear of the board before their eyes, paid their compliments to some of the dons, who happened to cross the outer quadrangle in cap and gown, with snowballs of no contemptible solidity. The excitement increased. The gownsmen went outside the college grounds, and charged on the town ragabrashes who were collected outside. The police intervened in the interest of order, and were attacked by both parties. The policeman is the natural enemy of the student as well as of the ragabrash. The police proceeded to make some arrests among the leaders of the gownsmen, and began brandishing their clubs. Snowballs were thrown aside, and canes were used. It was a sight to see the canes go up and down. The gownsmen succeed in rescuing the prisoners from the police, and retire within the walls, taking a captive policeman with them, and cheering in triumph. The police invade the college precincts, and rush to the rescue of their captured comrade. They are driven out, and the victorious students follow them into the street. The police suddenly turn on their pursuers, seize one of the college leaders, and, by a pretty piece of strategy, lift him on an outside car, and drive off with him at full speed to the nearest police station. Rescue was out of the question, the coup was executed so quickly. Everybody rushes after the car, and the green is deserted.

“Et le combat cessa faute de combattants.”

After a week of “hearings” at the police court and intense excitement among the university men, the ringleaders were fined. The fines were paid at once. The captured policeman, who was a little battered and bruised, received ten pounds from the students for “sticking-plaster.” The board wisely let off the offenders with a reprimand, and the trouble ended in a grand display of fireworks by the students.

Old Trinity is an imposing structure. Life-size statues of Burke and Goldsmith are placed at either side of the principal entrance. The college grounds cover about thirty acres—a beautiful green spot in the heart of the city. In the centre of the outer quadrangle is a pretty campanile. The provost has a pleasant residence within the college limits. Entry into the grounds is free to all. A chief porter, in a swallow-tailed coat and black-velvet jockey-cap, watches over the principal entrance. The examination-hall, the library, the lecture-rooms, the museum, etc., are each under charge of a special Cerberus in a jockey-cap, who shows you the room or building under his particular charge. Each Cerberus expects a gratuity. He will be very obsequious if he gets what his modesty considers a sufficient douceur, and the reverse if he does not. The new museum building is a fine edifice. The entrance-hall and principal stair-case are remarkable for the splendid specimens of every variety of native marble they contain. The old rooms, where the museum now is, are damp and cheerless. There is an interesting collection of ancient Irish weapons, ornaments, etc. What is said to have been the harp of Brian Boroihme will be pointed out to you by the jockey-capped janitor, who will also inform you that, though the public is admitted, the collection [pg 528] is intended for the use of the students, and not as an exhibition of curiosities.

Lectures, to which the public are admitted free, are given twice a week by the various professors during term-time. I had the pleasure of attending some lectures by Sir Robert Stewart, the professor of music, and one by the professor of ancient history. The latter gentleman handled Mr. Froude in an eminently courteous and scholarly manner, but at the same time most decidedly “without gloves.” His lectures, however, were but poorly attended, while Sir Robert crammed the examination-hall with the taste and fashion of Dublin, from the lady-lieutenant down. All flocked to hear his comparison of the Scotch and Irish bag-pipes, illustrated by performers on these instruments. Lady Spencer, it seems, has taken the Irish bag-pipes under her patronage. Her ladyship seems to be a very amiable and charming person, but as to her taste in musical instruments—well! dêgustibus non.

Trinity College is on the east side of College Green. On the north is the principal façade of the old Parliament House. It was sold to the Bank of Ireland after the Union. The House of Commons is now the teller's office. The principal façade is of the same order. It is grandly simple and impressive. The semi-circular colonnades of Ionic columns produce a noble effect. This building is said to be the finest development of the order among modern structures in Europe. I am inclined to think that this pretension is not without foundation. The dingy appearance of all public buildings in Ireland and throughout the British Islands—the effect of smoke and almost continual rain—detracts greatly from their effect. A porter in livery, with a scarlet waist-coat and a nose to match, shows you the House of Lords. A statue of George III. stands where the throne formerly stood. In all other respects the room remains as it was when Ireland had “a Parliament House of her own.” Tapestries of the Siege of Derry and the Battle of the Boyne are hung on the walls. If you give your red-breasted conductor a sufficient gratuity, he will ask you to “take a chair,” that you may be able to say “you had a seat in the House of Lords.”

One must not leave College Green without paying his compliments to the equestrian statue of William III., which stands nearly opposite the Bank of Ireland. The king is costumed en Romain. The bronze representative of the glorious and pious Dutchman and his charger have suffered severely at the hands of their enemies. The steed's fore-leg, which is raised, as in the act of stepping, has been broken off more than once, and replaced in contempt of proportion. A curious critic has calculated that, if the leg were straightened out, it would prove to be about half a foot longer than the other legs. A gilded wreath on the brows of the statue gives it rather a “gingerbread” appearance.

At the end of College Street is a bronze statue of Thomas Moore. The Dublin critics call it “a gloomy horror that murders the memory” of the poet. The unrivalled songster is enveloped in a long cloak, and holds a tablet and pencil. He seems to be taking an inventory of the cabs and “outsides” that pass his station. The statue reminded me of that of Mr. Lincoln in [pg 529] Union Square. Both have the same weather-beaten, “Ancient Mariner” appearance, even to the trowsers of truly nautical extent. At the end of Westmoreland Street—which is a continuation of College Street—is a statue of William Smith O'Brien, which is quite respectable in design, and does not lack spirit in execution. The artist saw that voluminous trowsers are incompatible with bronze or marble.

Two minutes' walk brings us to the City Hall—formerly the Exchange—situated on Cork Hill. It is a fine building of Portland stone with a Corinthian portico of six lofty columns. It is surmounted by a cupola. In the hall is a statue of Grattan by Chantrey, one of O'Connell by Hogan, of Dr. Lucas by Rontilias, and of the Third George by Van Nost. If you wish to see the Council Chamber—which has nothing more attractive than portraits of the various lord-mayors, O'Connell among the number—a gruff and crusty old porter in blue coat and brass buttons will admit you, moyennant finance. Even an extra obolus will not soften this rough old Cerberus.

We are now close by the Cork Hill entrance to “the Castle.” A figure of Justice, or Fortitude—I really forget which—surmounts the gate, and a private of the Coldstream Guards stands sentry. He will not stop you, as entry is free to all. About eleven in the morning is a good time to visit the castle-yard. At that hour the guard is relieved, and a magnificent military band will delight your ears with most excellent music.

The castle is a rambling structure, situated in a poor quarter of the city. There are two quadrangles: the upper and the lower castle-yard. In the upper are the apartments of the viceroy; in the lower, the offices and the castle chapel. The only portion of the original building now standing is the Record Tower, anciently known as the Ward Tower. Irish prisoners of state were here formerly confined. General Arthur O'Connor, I believe, was the last state prisoner who had to endure its hospitality.

The castle chapel is really a Gothic gem. It is built of Irish limestone and oak. The carving in the interior is exquisite. The windows bear the arms of the various lord-lieutenants in stained glass. The verger—a patriarchal-looking Englishman in a long, gray beard—was very polite and attentive. He looked so “respectable,” so venerable, that we hesitated to offer him a gratuity, lest we might offend him. He soon undeceived us on this point, for he accepted an English shilling; and pocketed it with an expression of thanks. The traveller through the three kingdoms never fails to discover a great many very respectable-looking persons who are not above receiving gratuities of sums from a three-penny piece upwards.

S. Patrick's Cathedral is situated in a poor and squalid portion of the city. The poor buildings which cluster close around it mar its general effect. It was closed when we reached it, but a silver key will open S. Patrick's, like most other buildings, at most hours. We were informed that in one of the dingy tenements hard by we should find a person who would admit us. We did find him—a man still young, dressed in very rusty black. He smelled very strongly of whiskey, entre nous. The interior of the cathedral is simple and grand. In the choir hang the helmets, swords, and banners [pg 530] of the Knights of S. Patrick. The spot where Swift and Stella sleep was the one most interesting to us, and thither our guide led us at once. Swift's memorial is a plain slab of marble affixed to one of the pillars. He is buried in front of it. The church is damp and cold. Our guide seems to feel the need of another stimulant. His voice trembles as he reads the caustic dean's inscription on Marshal Schomberg's tomb; for our guide has picked up some Latin—off the tomb-stones, probably. The dean made several applications to the descendants of Schomberg for funds to raise a monument to their deceased ancestor. But they never vouchsafed a reply to the dean. He finally put up a tablet at his own expense. The inscription, which was written by him, shows that he was very bitter on the subject. The place where Swift lies now needs a little care. Our conductor said he had called attention to it in vain; but, as I said before, he smelt strongly of the native beverage. There is a very fine monument to the officers and men of the 18th Royal Irish who fell in the Indian Rebellion. But the oldest and most remarkable monument in the church is that of Boyle, the first Earl of Cork. It is from twenty to thirty feet high, and represents the earl and countess lying side by side, surrounded by their children, thirteen in number, if I remember rightly. The figures are kneeling. They are life-size, and are colored.

S. Patrick's has been recently restored in its original style by a wealthy brewer of Dublin at a cost of seven hundred thousand dollars. It procured him a baronetcy. The grandeur of the interior is not marred by pews. The movable seats—such as one sees in Notre Dame and the Madeleine—are adopted. A pregnant notice is posted on each chair. It informs the public that “the future sustentation” of the cathedral depends solely on the voluntary contributions made by the public at the Offertory. Pity the sorrows of the disendowed Irish Church!

We were not able to visit Christ Church and the tomb of that ancient filibuster, Strongbow, as the church was closed for repairs. A wealthy distiller has undertaken the restoration of this cathedral at his own expense. It is said that he also expects to get a baronetcy for his money, like his rival, the manufacturer of “Foker's Entire.” Money is a glorious thing, if one has plenty of it. Tom Stumps, who sells just enough of man's brain-stealing enemy to eke out a miserable living, is a low, disreputable fellow. Bob Shallow, who manufactures the liquid madness en grana and makes a fortune by selling it to Tom Stumps and his like, becomes a distinguished patriot, a public benefactor, and “Sir Robert Shallow, Esq., Justice of the Peace and coram.”

The cathedral in Marlborough Street is in the Grecian style, with a portico of Ionic columns, in imitation, as we are told, of the façade of the Temple of Theseus at Athens. Massive columns separate the nave and aisles. The interior decorations are of great richness. In my humble judgment, they trench on the florid.

The Four Courts, on Usher's Quay, rise in solemn grandeur over the Liffey. This building stands on the site of the ancient Monastery of S. Savior. It was finished in 1800. The central front has a fine portico of six Corinthian [pg 531] columns surmounted by a rich pediment. On the left stands a statue of Moses. On either side are statues of Justice and Mercy. At the extremities of the façades are reclining figures of Wisdom and Authority. The main building is flanked by spacious quadrangles enclosed by arcades of stone. The quadrangles are entered by broad and lofty gateways. The main hall is circular in shape, and about seventy feet in diameter. The “Four Courts,” Chancery, Queen's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, open into this hall. It is a busy, buzzing place in term-time. Lawyers with plenty of briefs, and plenty of lawyers without briefs, may be seen there, the former having hurried interviews with their clients, the latter dawdling about with quizzing glasses on their eyes, exhibiting their wigs and gowns, and eating oranges and “currant-buns.” The court-rooms are small, uncomfortable, badly lighted, and ill ventilated. The hall is covered by a lantern and a dome supported by Corinthian pillars. In the spaces between the windows are allegorical alti-relievi—Justice, Wisdom, Liberty, Law, etc., and medallions of Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, and other great law-givers. During night sessions a colossal statue of Truth, holding a torch lit by gas, illuminates the hall. Over the entrances to the court-rooms are bas-reliefs of subjects in English and Irish history. The hall contains statues of Lord Plunkett and other legal celebrities.

The custom-house is on Custom-House Quay, four or five squares east of the Four Courts, and, like the latter building, looks upon the Liffey. The riverfront is about a hundred and thirty yards long. The portico is Doric. The Union of England and Ireland is allegorically represented in alto-relievo. The sister kingdoms are sailing in the same shell, while Neptune drives away Famine and Despair. The building is surmounted by a lofty dome which bears a statue of Hope.

Dublin is well supplied with means of locomotion at cheap rates. There are omnibuses, street-railroads, outsides, insides, covered cars, and four-wheelers. The four-wheeler is something the same as the New York coupé. The fares for cars or coupés are sixpence English per trip for two persons, sixpence for each additional person, and an additional sixpence for each stoppage or “set-down.” The street-cars, or “tramway cars,” have seats on the roof, which are a few cents cheaper than the seats in the interior. The “top seats” are much used by all classes in fine weather. The city ordinances are very strict regarding cabmen and car-drivers, and the magistrates show the “jarveys” no mercy when they are proved to have made overcharges or illegal demands. The drivers are consequently very careful in their dealings with the general public. If you have a trans-Atlantic flavor about you, “jarvey” will expect a gratuity. You give him his exact fare. In order to keep within the law, he does not make a demand for a greater sum, but, allowing the coin to rest on his open palm, he looks at it with an air of superb disdain, and then, eyeing you with a sidelong glance, he asks with an air of primitive innocence:

“An' what's this for, sir?”

“For your fare,” you reply sharply, with a determination not to be imposed upon.

“Humph!” he says. “Shure it's [pg 532] a mighty long dhrive for half a bob. Faith, it's hard for a poor divil to make a livin' nowadays.”

Ten to one you agree with him, and give him an additional threepence or sixpence, which he receives with enthusiastic wishes that your life may be prolonged to an indefinite extent.

Our party patronized the four-wheelers extensively, but never had the hardihood to venture on an “outside” in daylight. We were averse to public display. During our stay in Ireland we tried the “outside” on one occasion only; then it was against our will. Fortunately, it was at night. We reached Dublin, from a visit to some friends in the south, by the 10 p.m. train. All the coupés and covered cars were engaged. Our lodgings were about two miles from the railway station. Walking, with the travelling “traps” necessary on British railroads, was out of the question. We were compelled to take an “outside.”

“How do you feel?” I asked the Lady from Idaho after we were seated and had started.

“Rather out of place,” she replied. “I feel as if I ought to be a little intoxicated.”

Her answer expressed my feeling exactly. It seemed to me that I was going “on the biggest kind of a spree.”

Railroads furnish rapid transit to suburban retreats where reside professional and commercial men whose business is in the city. One can live in the pleasant little village of Kingstown, the harbor of Dublin, six miles from the city, and reach Dublin in fifteen minutes. Trains run each way every half-hour. It has taken me an hour and a half to come from Eighty-sixth Street to the City Hall by the street-cars. This was when we met with no accidents, and made a good trip. But New York has the worst locomotive arrangements of any city in the world, and immeasurably the dearest.

I had counted upon finding a great many beggars in Ireland. I expected, whenever I alighted from coach or car, to have to run the gauntlet of a crowd of hungry petitioners. I was most agreeably disappointed. During my stay in Ireland I was asked for charity in the public streets only once. It was in Dublin, by a wretched-looking woman with a sick child.

A fine view of Dublin is obtained from one of the eminences in the Phœnix Park. It takes in the entire line of quays. This view has something of a reduced and smoke-blackened effect of Paris. The Phœnix is one of the finest and most extensive parks in the world. It covers nearly eighteen hundred acres. It is true that art has not done much for it, but nature has done a great deal. It possesses some of the most beautiful characteristics of English park scenery—beautiful green lawns, dotted with clumps of trees. Large herds of deer course swiftly over the uplands, or stop in groups, half frightened, to reconnoitre, in a coy side-glance, the intruder into their domain. Charming rides, drives, and walks invite the dwellers in the city to pure air and healthful exercise. A portion of the park is railed off into a “People's Garden,” where poor as well as rich have free ingress, and can gladden their town-weary eyes with the sight of growing shrubs and budding flowers, and graceful water-fowl sailing on the pretty meres. A lofty monument to the Duke of Wellington—not possessed of any artistic grace, [pg 533] however—crowns one of the knolls. On the right of the main avenue is the Viceregal Lodge. Near it is the column, mounted by a phœnix, erected by the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who first caused the park to be thrown open to the people. The English Government never sent to Ireland a viceroy who had less prejudices against the people he was sent to govern. Somewhere in his celebrated letters he speaks of “his friends the Irish,” and says: “They always liked me, and I liked them.” The Viceregal Lodge, with its dependent buildings, is a delightful summer retreat. I do not wonder that the viceroy should be glad to see the return of spring, that he might get away from the poor locality in which the castle is situated. The Hibernian school for soldiers' children is situated at the lower extremity of the park.

The Zoölogical Gardens are not far from the King's Bridge entrance. The collection is a fair one, but the damp climate does not agree with the animals, and they have the same woe-begone appearance as their fellow-sufferers in the Regent's Park. The elephants have a faded, mildewed appearance. The furred animals are suggestive of worn-out hair trunks. In neither the Dublin nor the London Gardens do they look so bright and sleek as, under the brighter sky and more genial atmosphere of Paris, in the Jardin des Plantes and the Jardin d'Acclimatation. The collection of lions is good. Among them is a noble leo which the keeper informed us was born in the gardens.

“Why, he is an Irish lion!” said one of our party, hazarding a gentle joke. There was no response from the keeper. Not the merest ripple of a smile. Decidedly, the Irish in Ireland are becoming a serious people.

Between the Under Secretary's Lodge and the Hibernian School is the historical tract known as “The Fifteen Acres.” It was a celebrated duelling-ground in the old days, when a “crooked look” was followed by an invitation to pistols and coffee. There it was that “the Queen's Bench went out with the Common Pleas,” and the “Chancery winged the Exchequer.” It was there that Daniel O'Connell met Mr. d'Esterre, and killed him. Beyond the park lie the famous “Strawberry Beds,” where the Dubliners crowd, in the season, to enjoy their “sweet strawberries smothered in cream.”

An omnibus plies regularly between the city and the Botanical Gardens at Glasnevin; but it is better to take a four-wheeler, and suit your own time and convenience. Make your bargain with Jehu before you start, however. The gardens are about thirty acres in extent. The cemetery where lie the ashes of the great orators, Curran and O'Connell, is at Glasnevin. The monument to O'Connell is an imitation of that puzzle to antiquarians—the Irish Round Tower. The effect of the monument is not good. It seemed to me grotesque and out of place. I could not at first explain to myself why it produced such a harsh, unpleasing effect. A glance at the veritable Tower of Clondalkin enlightened me. The mock tower wants the mellowing touch of artist-centuries to soften down its hard, new outlines, and make it seem in keeping with the repose that reigns in the City of the Dead.

A pilgrimage to the birthplace of Thomas Moore was a labor of love which we promised ourselves [pg 534] would be among the first performed after reaching Dublin. We learned that the spot where the bard first saw the light was in Anngiers Street, generally pronounced by the Dubliners Aingers Street. Everybody we asked professed to know all about it, yet nobody could tell us the number of the house. Anngiers Street is not a very long street. We concluded to go through it from end to end, and at either side, examining every house in detail. Anngiers Street commences at Stephen Street, in rear of the castle, and extends to Bishop Street. It is not a particularly clean street. It is only just to say, however, that it is no dirtier than continental, transatlantic, or Britannic streets of like degree. We began our pilgrimage at the wrong end, but our patient search was at length rewarded. The house is No. 12, at the corner of Anngiers Street and Little Longford Street. It was then occupied by “Thomas Healy, Wine and Spirit Merchant.” According to some of little Tom's biographers, the old house has always been devoted to the sale of intoxicating beverages. His father was what Uncle Sam calls by the undignified name of “rumseller.” But “honor and shame from no condition rise,” and Tom's muse may owe her seductive, anacreontic blush to his early associations.

A weather-soiled and smoke-blackened bust of the poet occupies a niche between the windows of the second story. The house has been recently painted and renovated. When these repairs were commenced, the bust was removed by the proprietor, and was not replaced at their completion. The worthy vender of wine and spirits who occupied the house, though he believed in filling bumpers fair, and their power of smoothing the brow of Care, was probably rather bored by the continual visits of votaries to the shrine of the poet. The sacrifices of these pilgrims to the rosy muse were most probably merely theoretical. They did not “send round the wine,” or order any of it sent to their address in the city. They took none of those “brimming glasses” generative of “wit's electric flame.” A plague on such pilgrims! say I, marry and amen! The bust of the bard shall no longer be a beacon for them. But the statesmen and critics who sit at the base of Nelson's Pillar soon noticed that the niche was empty. Their poetical ire was raised to an unpleasant degree. They brought such influences to bear on the proprietor of the Cradle of Genius that the bust was at once restored to its accustomed niche.

The Dubliners have a passion for flowers and rock-work. Every available foot of ground in front and in rear of their houses is devoted to the cultivation of flowers and the building of miniature grottos. The city is spreading very fast, and rows of cottages are building in the suburbs on all sides. In general, the houses are not what we Americans would call comfortable. The fire-places are very small; for coal is scarce and dear, and a bundle of kindling-wood, composed of half a dozen chips not much larger than matches, is an object of purchase. The grates seem constructed to throw out smoke instead of heat. In this they are well seconded by the moist, heavy atmosphere. Living is good and cheap, however—about one-fourth cheaper than it is in our principal cities on this side of the Atlantic. Liquors are good in quality and moderate in price. Clothing of all kinds costs two-thirds [pg 535] less than in New York, and is not “shoddy.” The English custom of wearing flowers in the button-hole prevails in Dublin. The commerce in flowers is therefore extensive, and the shops devoted to that charming traffic make delightful displays of floral treasures. The Irish fruit, however, with the exception of strawberries, gooseberries, and currants, is inferior to ours. American apples are for sale at all fruiterers', at prices very little greater than those of New York.

Carving in “bog-oak” is quite an important trade in Dublin. Indeed, it may much more probably be called an art. I have seen some very artistic specimens of bog-wood ornaments—statuettes, groups, etc. Ladies' chains, brooches, and bracelets of Irish bog-oak were very fashionable a year or two since. The fashion extended even to London and Paris.

The Dublin streets are dull at night. The quality of gas supplied the city is poor. Early closing is pretty general, and all the principal stores are closed at dark. Doubtless this is better for the clerks and shopmen, and more economical for their employers. But it is not so pleasant for that large class of the community who love to saunter along the lighted streets in the evening, and feast their eyes on the treasures in the illuminated shop-windows. There is little to tempt the tourist into the Dublin streets at night. I should advise him—or particularly her—to avoid promenading on Saturday evening. I regret to say that evening is very generally observed by handicrafts-men and laborers, and even by shopmen and clerks, as a Bacchanalian festival. The number of persons who sacrifice to the rosy god at the week's end is lamentably great. Monday is a workmen's holiday, and it is very hard to get mechanics to work on that day.

The unsavory localities of Dublin are designated by strange names. Here are a few by way of example: Bow Lane, near the Insane Hospital founded by Dean Swift, who, as he says or sings,

“Left the little wealth he had

To build a house for fools or mad,

To show, by one satiric touch

No nation wanted it so much”;

Cook's Lane, Paradise Row, Cuff Street, Bride Alley, Lung Lane, Smoke Alley, Black Horse Lane, Bull Alley, Pill Lane, Marrowbone Lane, Pig Town, and Stony Batter.