It was Friday evening when they arrived, and again the ritual of the Jewish Sabbath began in Eleazar’s home with the lighting of the seven-branched candlestick, and ended with the fragrance of the spices from the silver box, and the reading from the Hebrew manuscript. This Miriam had explained to Ethne. It was a thanksgiving to God for creating all sweet and pleasant things, a consecration of beauty, and a diffusion, symbolically, of the fragrance of the rest and worship of the Sabbath through the week. The words of the thanksgiving were, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who createst diverse kinds of spice, and all sweet and pleasant things.”
The next day Miriam and Eleazar remained at home, and the brother and sister were suffered to go together round the city. It was understood they were prisoners on parole; that day, therefore, was a memorable holiday to them.
Their first expedition was to the cathedral. It was still early morning when they entered. The loftiness of the vaulted roof, the vastness of the dimly-lighted spaces, the lights at the altar, the rich dresses of the officiating priests, the sweet and solemn singing of the choir, struck them with such awe and wonder, that they did not venture more than a few steps beyond the porch. Then, seeing the font, they felt that this at least belonged to them; that there they had the children’s right to stay; and they knelt down close beside it, and reverently crossing themselves, lifted up their hearts in prayer.
It was an early Mass, and when it was finished, and the congregation dispersed, the youth and maiden still knelt on beside the font.
In one of the chapels there was a tomb which seemed to receive much honour. Many of the worshippers paused beside it as they went out, and knelt there a few minutes in prayer. But when the last of the people had left, and the acolytes had finished their last services at the altar, and the brother and sister were left alone, they still lingered on. It felt more home-like to them than any place they had been in since they were swept away from their own Irish shores. It was indeed to them the Father’s house; and it was delightful to them to be together there for a while, quite alone. Ethne felt as if their mother might step in at any moment, with the radiant look she had on her face when she rose from the baptismal waters at Tara.
At last an aged monk came in, and went straight up to the tomb where so many had knelt. After a time they went up and knelt beside him. When he arose he looked kindly at them, and spoke to them in Latin, to which they responded as best they could. He evidently perceived at once that they were foreigners, and tried them with two or three languages; but they only shook their heads in perplexity, until, to their unspeakable delight, he said a few words in some Celtic tongue resembling their own, enough for them to understand and answer.
“You are from the Britanniæ,” he said. “I have been there with the holy bishops Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes, to combat the Pelagian heresy;” and with some anxiety he asked, “You are not Pelagians?”
They had never heard of the Pelagian heresy, which was at all events negatively satisfactory. But when he asked them from which of the seven provinces of Britain they came, he found they did not know anything about the seven provinces of Britain, which perplexed him not a little.
“Whence then do you come?”
“From the island beyond Britain,” Baithene replied; and he added with a mixture of apology and pride, “From the island the Romans never conquered.”