Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Claudia--how old she looked! Claudia, with that one only shadow on her once bright face, was still living with Dr. and Mrs. Rankin. It was Lady Greystock's pleasure to live with them. She said she had grown out of the position of a patient, and into their hearts as a friend. "Was it not so?" she asked. It was impossible to deny that which really brought happiness to everybody. "Well, then, I shall build on a few rooms to the house, and I shall call them mine, and I shall add to the coach-house, and hire a cottage for my groom and his wife--I shall live here. Why not? You will take care of me, and feed me, and scold me, and find me a good guidable creature. You know I shall be ill if you refuse."

It all happened as she chose. Hers was the prettiest carriage in the county, the best horses, the most perfectly appointed little household--for she had her own servants. Among her most devoted friends were the good doctor and his wife. Lady Greystock was as positive and as much given to {28} govern as the clever little Claudia in school-girl days. But the arrangement was a success, and "Mother-Mary," who saw her constantly, was very glad. Only one trouble survived; Claudia would never go and stay at Beremouth. She would drive her ponies merrily to the door, and even spend an hour or two within the house, but never would she stay there--never! She used to say to herself that she dared not trust herself with the things that had witnessed her love, her sorrow, her marriage--with the things that told her of him who had ruined everything like a murderer--as he was.

And so, to save appearances, she used to say that she never stayed away from Blagden for a single night, and she never left off black. It was not that she wore a widow's dress, or covered up the glories of her beautiful hair. She was but twenty-nine at the moment recorded in the first page of this story. She was very thin and pale, but she was a strong woman, and one who required no more care than any other person; but she had determined never again to see Horace Erskine. What he had done had become known to her, as we have seen. She only bargained with life, as it were, in this way, that _that_ man should be out of it for ever. And for this it was that she made her resolution and kept it.

Horace Erskine had been abroad for some years; but though she had felt safe in that fact, she had looked into the future and kept her resolution. And so she lived on at Blagden, doing good, blessing the poor, comforting the afflicted, visiting the sick, and beautifying all things, and adorning all places that came within her reach. Certain things she was young enough to enjoy greatly; the chief of these was the contemplation of Frederick Brewer, her half-brother, a fine boy of nine years old, for nine years of widowhood had been passed, and through all that time this boy, her dear father's son, had been Lady Greystock's delight. She loved "Mother-Mary" all the better for having given him to her father, and she felt a strong, unutterable thanksgiving that, his birth having been expected, the test of whether or not Horace Erskine loved her for herself had been applied before she had become chained to so terrible a destiny as that of being wife to a thankless, disappointed man. Terrible as her great trial had been, she might have suffered that which, to one of her temper, would have been far worse. So Fred Brewer would ride over to see his sister. Day after day the boy's bright face would be laid beside her own, and to him, and only to him, would she talk of Sir Geoffrey. Then they would ride together down to Marston to see Mrs. Morier and Jenifer, who was a true friend, and lived on those terms with the lady who loved her well; then to the market-place where the old home stood, now turned into an almshouse of an eccentric sort, with all rules included under one head, that the dear old souls were to have just whatever they wanted. Did Martha Gannet keep three parrots, and did they eat as much as a young heifer? and scream, too? ah, that was their nature--never go against a dumb creature's nature, Mr. Brewer said there was always cruelty in that--and did they smell, and give trouble, and would they be mischievous, and tear Mrs. Betty's cap? Indeed. Mr. Brewer was delighted. An excellent excuse for giving new caps to all the inmates, and to look up all troubles, and mend everybody's griefs--such an excellent thing it was that the fact of three parrots should lead to the discovery of so many disgraceful neglects that Mr. Brewer begged leave to apologize very heartily and sincerely while he diligently repaired them. It was a very odd school to bring up young Freddy in. But we are obliged to say that he was not at all the worse for it.

And here we must say what we have not said before. Mr. Brewer was a Catholic. He and Jenifer were {29} Catholics; Mrs. Brewer had not been a Catholic; and Claudia had been left to her mother's teaching. When Freddy was born, Mr. Brewer considered his ways. And what he saw in his life we may see shortly. He had been born of a Catholic mother who had died, and made his Protestant father promise to send him to a Catholic school. He had stood alone in the world, he had always stood alone in the world. He seemed to see nothing else. Three miles from Marston was a little dirty sea-port, also a sort of fishing place. A place that bore a bad character in a good many ways. Some people would have finished that character by saying that there were Papists there. To that place every Sunday Mr. Brewer went to mass. Many and many a lift he had given to Jenifer on those days. How much Jenifer's talk assisted his choice of Mary for his wife, we may guess. When Freddy was born Jenifer said her first words on the subject of religion to Mr. Brewer: "You will have him properly baptized:" "Of course." "Order me the pony cart, and I'll go to Father Daniels." "I must tell Mrs. Brewer." "Leave that to me--just send for the cart." It _was_ left to Jenifer. By night the priest had come and gone. It had not been his first visit. He had been there many times, and had known that he was welcome. The Clayton mission had felt the blessing of Mr. Brewer's gold. He had seldom been at the house in the market-place in Marston, but at Beremouth Mary had plucked her finest flowers, and sent them back in the old gentleman's gig, and he had been always made welcome in her husband's house with a pretty grace and many pleasant attentions. Now, when Freddy was baptized, Mr. Brewer went to his wife and bent over her, and said solemnly, "Mary--my dear wife; Mary--I thank thee, darling. I thank thee, my love." And the single tear that fell on her cheek she never forgot.

Then Mr. Brewer met Jenifer at his wife's door. "It's like a new life, Jenifer." And the steady-mannered woman looked in his bright eyes and saw how true his words were.

"It's a steady life of doing good to everybody that you have ever led, sir. It was a lonely life once, no doubt. I was dazed when she married you. But, eh, master; I have _that_ to think about, and _that_ to pray for, that a'most makes me believe in anything happening to _you_ for good, when so much is asked for, day and night, in my own prayer."

"Put _us_ into it; let me and mine be in Jenifer's prayer," he said, and passed on.

TO BE CONTINUED.

----

From The Month.

PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR THE STEAM-ENGINE.

The present year has been remarkable for the large number of machines invented for the purpose of superseding steam, in at least some of its lighter tasks. Many of these are due to French engineers; being further proofs, if any were required, of the great activity now displayed in France in all matters of mechanical invention.

Two of these new engines are especially interesting as illustrating that all-important law in modern physics, the correlation or convertibility of forces. By this is meant that the forces of inanimate nature, such as light, heat, electricity--nay, even the muscular and nerve forces of living beings--have such a mutual dependence and connection that each one is only produced or called into action by another, and only ceases to be manifest when it has given birth to a fresh force in its turn. Thus motion (in the {30} shape of friction) produces heat, electricity, or light; heat produces light or electricity; electricity, magnetism; and so on in an endless chain, which links together all the phenomena of this visible universe.

As a metaphysical principle, this is as old as Aristotle, and may be found dimly foreshadowed in the forcible lines of Lucretius:

"--Pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater aether
In gremium matris terrai praecipitavit;
At nitidae surgunt fruges, ramique virescunt,
Arboribus crescunt ipsae, fetuque gravautur,
Hinc alitar porro nostrum genus atque ferarum.

* * * * * *

Haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur,
Quando aliud ex alio reflcit natura, nec ullam
Rem gigni patitur, nisi morte adjuta aliena." [Footnote 8]

[Footnote 8: Lucret. lib. i. 250-65.]

But the rediscovery of this law, as a result of experiment, is due to English physicists of our own day; and it is so invariably true, and the produced force is always so perfectly proportioned to the force producing it, that some [Footnote 9] have gone so far as to revive a very old hypothesis in philosophy, supposing that all the forces of nature are but differently expressed forms of the Divine Will.

[Footnote 9: Dr. Carpenter, Philos. Trans. 1840, vol. ii. ]

As a corollary to this law, it follows that many a force of nature, hitherto neglected because of its position or intractability, may be turned to practical account by using it to produce some new power, which may be either stored up or transmitted to a distance, and so can be employed wherever and whenever it is required. Thus, in the first machine we propose to notice, a M. Cazal has just hit upon a plan by which to use the power of falling water at a considerable distance. He employs a water-wheel to turn a magneto-electric machine (of the kind used for medical purposes, on a very large scale), and the electric force so obtained may be conveyed to any distance, and employed there as a motive power. In this way a mountain stream in the Alps or Pyrenees may turn a lathe, or set a loom in motion, in a workshop in Paris or Lyons; or even (as has been remarked), if a wire were laid across the Atlantic, the whole force of Niagara would be at our disposal.

The idea is at present quite in its infancy; but we are told that the few experiments hitherto made show that such an engine is not only very ingenious but perfectly feasible, and (most important of all) economical.

The second engine gave promise of considerable success when first brought out in Paris about eight months ago. It was invented by a M. Tellier, and proceeds on the principle of storing up force, to be used when wanted. It has long been well known to chemists that a certain number of gases (as chlorine, carbonic acid, ammonia, and sulphuretted hydrogen) can be condensed into liquids by cold or pressure, or both combined. Of all these gases, ammonia is the most easily liquefied, requiring for this purpose, at ordinary temperatures, a pressure only six and a half times greater than that of the atmosphere. A supply of liquid ammonia obtained in this manner is kept by M. Tellier in a closed vessel, and surrounded with a freezing mixture, so that it has but little tendency to return to the gaseous state. A small quantity is allowed to escape from this reservoir under the piston of the engine, and, the temperature there being higher than in the reservoir, the ammonia becomes at once converted into gas, increasing thereby to more than twelve hundred times its previous bulk, and so driving the piston with great force to the top of the cylinder. A little water is now admitted, which entirely dissolves the ammonia, a vacuum being thus created, and the piston driven down again by the pressure of the air without. M. Tellier employs three such cylinders, which work in succession; and the only apparent limit to the power to be obtained from this machine is the amount of liquid ammonia which would have to be used, about three gallons (or twenty-two pounds) being required for each horse-power per hour. There is no waste of material; for the water which has dissolved {31} the gas is saved, and the ammonia recovered from it by evaporation, and afterwards condensed into a liquid. M. Tellier proposed to use his engine for propelling omnibuses and other vehicles; but it would appear that it is too expensive and too cumbrous to be practically useful; there can, however, be very little doubt that the principle will be used with success in some new form. A patent has quite recently been taken out for such an engine in England. It will be perceived at once how the ammonia engine illustrates the law of storing up force. It originates no power of its own, but simply gives out by degrees the mechanical force which had been previously employed to change the ammonia from a gas to a liquid.

Lenoir's "gas-engine" has been more successful; for, although but a few months old, it has been already largely adopted in Parisian hotels, schools, and other large establishments, for raising lifts, making ices, and even--for what is not done now-a-days by machinery?--cleaning boots. In London, it was lately exhibited in Cranbourne Street, and is now used for turning lathes and for other light work.

This engine, like the ammonia-engine, is provided with an ordinary cylinder, into which coal-gas and air are admitted, under the piston, in the proportions of eleven parts of the latter to one of the former. The mixture is then exploded by the electric spark, and the remaining air, being greatly expanded, drives up the piston. When the top is reached the gas and air are again admitted, but this time above the piston, and the explosion is repeated, so that the piston is driven down again. The most ingenious part of the whole thing is the mechanism by which the electric spark is directed alternately to the upper and lower ends of the cylinder. This cannot be satisfactorily explained without a diagram, but is brought about (roughly speaking) by connecting either end of the cylinder with a semicircle of brass, which is touched by the "rotary crank" in the course of its revolution. The crank is already charged with electricity, and so communicates the electric spark to each of the semicircles in turn. The cylinder is kept plunged in water, so that there is no fear of its overheating by the constant explosions.

This engine has cheapness for its main recommendation. A half-horsepower gas-engine (the commonest power made) costs, when complete, £65, and consumes twopence worth of gas per hour; while the cost of keeping the battery active is about fourpence per week.

An engineer of Lyons, M. Millon, has since proposed to use, instead of coal-gas, the gases produced by passing steam over red-hot coke. These gases are found to explode rather more quickly than coal-gas, when mixed with common air, and fired by the electric spark. They will probably be found cheaper and more efficient when they can be obtained; but in many cases coal-gas will be the only material available.

A M. Jules Gros has recently invented an engine in which gun-cotton is exploded in a strong reservoir and air compressed in another, the compressed air being afterward employed to move the pistons of the machine. This sounds more dangerous than it perhaps really is, since gun-cotton is now known to be more tractable than gunpowder, when properly used; but we very much doubt whether the machine can be regular or economical enough to be more than a curiosity.

To close the list of French inventions of this kind, we may state that Count de Molin has lately patented an electro-magnetic machine, which, he states, will be more powerful than any previously made. It is too complicated for a mere verbal description to be of any use; but is apparently not free from the fault of all electro-magnetic engines, of costing too much to be of practical value.

{32}

[ORIGINAL]

CHRISTINE.

A TROUBADOUR'S SONG,

IN FIVE CANTOS,

BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 10]

[Footnote 10: Copyright secured.]

PRELUDE.

The Queen hath built her a fairy Bower
In the shadow of the Accursed Tower,
For the Moslem hath left his blood-stained lair,
And the banner of England waveth there.
Thither she lureth the Lion King
To hear a wandering Trovère sing;
For well she knew the Joyous Art
Was surest path to Richard's heart.
But the Monarch's glance was on the sea--
Sooth, he was scarce in minstrel mood,
For Philip's triremes homeward stood
With all the Gallic chivalry.
And as he watched the filmy sail
Upon the furthest billow fail,
He muttered, "Richard ill can spare
Thee and thy Templars, false and fair;
Yet God hath willed it--home to thee,
Death or Jerusalem for me!"
Then pressing with a knightly kiss
The peerless hand that slept in his,
"Ah, would our own Blondel were here
To try a measure I wove last e'en.
What songster hast thou caught, my Queen,
Whose harp may soothe a Monarch's ear?"
She beckoned, and the Trovère bowed
To many a Lord and Ladye fair
That gathered round the royal pair;
But most his simple song was vowed
To a sweet shape with dark brown hair,
Half hidden in the gentle crowd;
Pale as a spirit, sharply slender.
In maiden beauty's crescent splendor.
And never yet bent Minstrel knee
To Mistress lovelier than she.

{33}

THE FIRST SONG.

I.

Ye have heard of the Castle of Miolan
And how it hath stood since time began,
Midway to yon mountain's brow,
Guarding the beautiful valley below:
Its crest the clouds, its ancient feet
Where the Arc and the Isère murmuring meet
Earth hath few lovelier scenes to show
Than Miolan with its hundred halls,
Its massive towers and bannered walls,
Looming out through the vines and walnut woods
That gladden its stately solitudes.
And there might ye hear but yestermorn
The loud halloo and the hunter's horn,
The laugh of mailèd men at play.
The drinking bout and the roundelay.
But now all is sternest silence there.
Save the bell that calls to vesper prayer;
Save the ceaseless surge of a father's wail,
And, hark! ye may hear the Baron's Tale.

II.

"Come hither. Hermit!--Yestermorn
I had an only son,
A gallant fair as e'er was born,
A knight whose spurs were won
In the red tide by Godfrey's side
At Ascalon.

{34}

"But yestermorn he came to me
For blessing on his lance,
And death and danger seemed to flee
The joyaunce of his glance,
For he would ride to win his Bride,
Christine of France.

"All sparkling in the sun he stood
In mail of Milan dressed,
A scarf, the gift of her he wooed,
Lay lightly o'er his breast.
As, with a clang, to horse he sprang
With nodding crest

"Gaily he grasped the stirrup cup
Afoam with spicy ale,
But as he took the goblet up
Methought his cheek grew pale.
And a shudder ran through the iron man
And through his mail.

"Oft had I seen him breast the shock
Of squire or crownèd king,
His front was firm as rooted rock
When spears were shivering:
I knew no blow could shake him so
From living thing.

"'Twas something near akin to death
That blanched and froze his cheek,
Yet 'twas not death, for he had breath,
And when I bade him speak,
Unto his breast his hand he pressed
With one wild shriek.

"The hand thus clasped upon his heart
So sharply curbed the rein,
Grey Caliph, rearing with a start,
Went bounding o'er the plain
Away, away with echoing neigh
And streaming mane.

"After him sped the menial throng;
I stirred not in my fear;
Perchance I swooned, for it seemed not long
Ere the race did reappear,
And my son still led on his desert-bred.
Grasping his spear.

{35}

"Unchanged in look or limb, he came.
He and his barb so fleet,
His hand still on his heart, the same
Stem bearing in his seat,
And wheeling round with sudden bound
Stopped at my feet.

"And soon as ceased that wildering tramp
'What ails thee, boy?' I cried--
Taking his hand all chill and damp--
'What means this fearful ride?
Alight, alight, for lips so white
Would scare a Bride!'

"But sternly to his steed clove he,
And answer made he none,
I clasped him by his barbèd knee
And there I made my moan;
While icily he stared at me,
At me alone.

"A strange, unmeaning stare was that,
And a page beside me said,
'If ever corse in saddle sat,
Our lord is certes sped!'
But I smote the lad, for it drove me mad
To think him dead.

"What! dead so young, what! lost so soon,
My beautiful, my brave!
Sooner the sun should find at noon
In central heaven a grave!
Sweet Jesu, no, it is not so
When Thou canst save!

"For was he dead and was he sped,
When he could ride so well,
So bravely bear his plumèd head?
Or, was't some spirit fell
In causeless wrath had crossed his path
With fiendish spell?

"Oh. Hermit, 'twas a cruel sight.
And He, who loves to bless,
Ne'er sent on son such bitter blight.
On sire such sore distress,
Such piteous pass, and I, alas,
So powerless!

{36}

"They would have ta'en him from his horse
The while I wept and prayed,
They would have lain him like a corse
Upon a litter made
Of traversed spear and martial gear.
But I forbade.

"I gazed into his face again,
I chafed his hand once more,
I summoned him to speak, in vain--
He sat there as before,
While the gallant Grey in dumb dismay
His rider bore.

"Full well, full well Grey Caliph then
The horror seemed to know.
E'en deeper than my mailèd men
Methought he felt our woe;
For the barbed head of the desert-bred
Was drooping low.

"Amazed, aghast, he gazed at me,
That mourner true and good.
Then backward at my boy looted he.
As if a word he sued.
And like sculptured pile in abbey aisle
The train there stood.

"I took the rein: the frozen one
Still fast in saddle sate.
As tremblingly I led him on
Toward the great castle gate.
O walls mine own, why have ye grown
So desolate?--

"I led them to the castle gate
And paused before the shrine
Where throned in state from earliest date,
Protectress of our line.
Madonna pressed close to her breast
The Babe Divine.

"And kneeling lowly at her feet,
I begged the Mother mild
That she would sue her Jesu sweet
To aid my stricken child;
And the meek stone face flashed full of grace
As if she smiled.

{37}

"And methought the eyes of the Full of Grace
Upon my darling shone,
Till living seemed that marble face
And the living man seemed stone,
While a halo played round the Mother Maid
And round her Son.

"And there was radiance everywhere
Surpassing light of day,
On man and horse, on shield and spear
Burned the bright, blinding ray;
But most it shone on my only one
And his gallant Grey.

"A sudden clang of armor rang,
My boy lay on the sward.
Up high in air Grey Caliph sprang,
An instant fiercely pawed.
Then trembling stood aghast and viewed
His fallen lord.

"Then with the flash of fire away
Like sunbeam o'er the plain,
Away, away with echoing neigh
And wildly waving mane.
Away he sped, loose from his head
The flying rein.

"I watched the steed from pass to pass
Unto the welkin's rim,
I feared to turn my eyes, alas,
To trust a look at him;
And when I turned, my temples burned
And all grew dim.

"Sweet if such swoon could endless be,
Yet speedily I woke
And missed my boy: they showed him me
Full length on bed of oak.
Clad as 'twas meet in mail complete
And sable cloak.

"All of our race upon that bier
Had rested one by one,
I had seen my father lying there,
And now there lay my son!
Ah! my sick soul bled the while it said--
'Thy will be done!'

{38}

"Bright glanced the crest, bright gleamed the spur,
That well had played their part,
His lance still clasped, nor could they stir
His left hand from his heart;
There fast it clove, nor would it move
With all their art

"I found no voice, I shed no tear.
They thought me well resigned.
All else who stood around the bier
With weeping much were blind;
And a mourning voice went through the house
Like a low wind.

"And there was sob of aged man
And woman's wailing cry,
All cheeks were wan, all eyes o'erran,
Yon fair-haired maidens sigh.
And one apart with breaking heart
Weeps bitterly.

"But sharper than spear-thrust, I trow,
Their wailing through me went;
Stem silence suited best my woe,
And, howe'er well the intent.
Their menial din seemed half akin
To merriment

"For oh, such grief was mock to mine
Whose days were all undone.
The last of all this ancient line
To share whose grief was none!
Straight from the hall I barred them all
And stood alone.

"'Receive me now, thou bed of oak!'
I fell upon the bier.
And, Hermit, when this morning broke
It found me clinging there.
O maddening morn! That day dare dawn
On such a pair!

"I sent for thee, thou man of God,
To watch with me to-night;
My boy still liveth, by the rood,
Nor shall be funeral rite!--
But, Hermit, come: this is the room:
There lies the Knight!"

{39}

III.

But she apart
With breaking heart?--
That very yestermorn she stood
In the deepest shade of the walnut wood,
As a Knight rode by on his raven steed,
Crying, "Daughter mine, hast thou done the deed?
I gave thee the venom, I gave thee the spell,
A jealous heart might use them well."
But she waved her white arms and only said,
"On oaken bier is Miolan laid!"
"Dead!" laughed the Knight. "Then round Pilate's Peak
Let the red light burn and the eagle shriek.
When Miolan? heir lies on the bier,
Low is the only lance I fear:
I ride, I ride to win my Bride,
Ho, Eblis, to thy servant's side.
Thou hast sworn no foe
Shall lay me low
Till the dead in arms against me ride!"

------

THE SECOND SONG.

I.

They passed into an ancient hall
With oaken arches spanned.
Full many a shield hung on the wall,
Full many a broken brand.
And barbèd spear and scimetar
From Holy Land.

And scarfs of dames of high degree
With gold and jewels rich,
And many a mouldered effigy
In many a mouldering niche,
Like grey sea shells whose crumbling cells
Bestrew the beach.

{40}

The sacred dead possessed the place,
The silent cobweb wreathed
The tombs where slept that warrior race,
With swords for ever sheathed:
You seemed to share the very air
Which they had breathed.

Oh, darksome was that funeral room,
Those oaken arches dim,
The torchlight, struggling through the gloom,
Fell faint on effige grim,
On dragon dread and carvèd head
Of Cherubim.

Of Cherubim fast by a shrine
Whereon the last sad rite
Was wont for all that ancient line,
For dame and belted knight--
A shrine of Moan which death alone
Did ever light.

But light not now that altar stone
While hope of life remain,
Though darksome be that altar lone,
Unlit that funeral fane,
Save by the rays cast by the blaze
Of torches twain.

Of torches twain at head and heel
Of him who seemeth dead,
Who sleepeth so well in his coat of steel.
His cloak around him spread--
The young Knight fair, who lieth there
On oaken bed.

One hand still fastened to his heart.
The other on his lance,
While through his eyelids, half apart.
Life seemeth half to glance.
"Sweet youth awake, for Jesu's sake,
From this strange trance!"

But heed or answer there is none.
Then knelt that Hermit old;
To Mother Mary and her Son
Full many a prayer he told,
Whose wondrous words the Church records
In lettered gold:

{41}

And many a precious litany
And many a pious vow,
Then rising said, "If fiend it be,
That fiend shall leave thee now!"
And traced the sign of the Cross divine
On lips and brow.

As well expect yon cherub's wings
To wave at matin bell!
Not all the relics of the kings
Could break that iron spell.
"Pray for the dead, let mass be said,
Toll forth the knell!"

"Not yet!" the Baron gasped and sank
As if beneath a blow,
With lips all writhing as they drank
The dregs of deepest woe;
With eyes aglare, and scattered hair
Tossed to and fro.

So swings the leaf that lingers last
When wintry tempests sweep,
So reels when storms have stripped the mast
The galley on the deep,
So nods the snow on Eigher's brow
Before the leap.

Uncertain 'mid his tangled hair
His palsied fingers stray,
He smileth in his dumb despair
Like a sick child at play.
Though wet, I trow, with tears eno'
That beard so grey.

Oh, Hermit, lift him to your breast,
There best his heart may bleed;
Since none but heaven can give him rest,
Heaven's priest must meet his need:
Dry that white beard, now wet and weird
As pale sea-weed.

Uprising slowly from the ground,
With short and frequent breath.
In aimless circles, round and round,
The Baron tottereth
With trailing feet, a mourner meet
For house of death.

{42}

Till, pausing by the shrine of Moan,
He said, the while he wept,
"Here, Hermit, here mine only one,
When all the castle slept,
As maiden knight, o'er armor bright,
His first watch kept.

"This is the casque that first he wore,
And this his virgin shield.
This lance to his first tilt he bore,
With this first took the field--
How light, how lâche to that huge ash
He now doth wield!

"This blade hath levelled at a blow
The she-wolf in her den.
With this red falchion he laid low
The slippery Saracen.
God! will that hand, so near his brand,
Ne'er strike again?

"Frown not on him, ye men of old.
Whose glorious race is run;
Frown not on him, my fathers bold.
Though many the field ye won:
His name and los may mate with yours
Though but begun!

"Receive him, ye departed brave,
Unlock the gates of light.
And range yourselves about his grave
To hail a brother knight.
Who never erred in deed or word
Against the right!

"But is he dead and is he sped
Withouten scathe or scar?
Why, Hermit, he hath often bled
From sword and scimetar--
I've seen him ride, wounds gaping wide,
From war to war.

"And hath a silent, viewless thing
Laid danger's darling low,
When youth and hope were on the wing
And life in morning glow?
Not yonder worm in winter's storm
Perisheth so!

{43}

"Oh, Hermit, thou hast heard, I ween,
Of trances long and deep,
But, Hermit, hast thou ever seen
That grim and stony sleep.
And canst thou tell how long a spell
Such slumbers keep?

"Oh, be there naught to break the charm,
To thaw this icy chain;
Has Mother Church no word to warm
These freezing lips again;
Be holy prayer and balsams rare
Alike in vain? . . . .

"A curse on thy ill-omened head;
Man, bid me not despair;
Churl, say not that a Knight is dead
When he can couch his spear;
When he can ride--Monk, thou hast lied.
He lives, I swear!

"Up from that bier! Boy, to thy feet!
Know'st not thy father's voice?
Thou ne'er hast disobeyed . . . is't meet
A sire should summon thrice?
By these grey hairs, by these salt tears,
Awake, arise!

"Ho, lover, to thy ladye flee,
Dig deep the crimson spur;
Sleep not 'twixt this lean monk and me
When thou shouldst kneel to her!
Oh 'tis a sin, Christine to win
And thou not stir!

"Ho, laggard, hear yon trumpet's note
Go sounding to the skies,
The lists are set, the banners float.
Yon loud-mouthed herald cries,
'Ride, gallant knights, Christine invites.
Herself the prize!'

"Ho, craven, shun'st thou the melée,
When she expects thy brand
To prove to-day in fair tourney
A title to her hand?
Up, dullard base, or by the mass
I'll make thee stand!" . . . .

{44}

Thrice strove he then to wrench apart
Those fingers from the spear.
Thrice strove to sever from the heart
The hand that rested there.
Thrice strove in vain with frantic strain
That shook the bier.

Thrice with the dead the living strove,
Their armor rang a peal,
The sleeping knight he would not move
Although the sire did reel:
That stately corse defied all force,
Stubborn as steel.

"Ay, dead, dead, dead!" the Baron cried;
"Dear Hermit, I did rave.
O were we sleeping side by side! . .
Good monk, I penance crave
For all I said .... Ay, he is dead,
Pray heaven to save!

"Betake thee to thy crucifix,
And let me while I may
Rain kisses on these frozen cheeks
Before they know decay.
Leave me to weep and watch and keep
The worm at bay.

"Thou wilt not spare thy prayers, I trust;
But name not now the grave--
I'll watch him to the very dust! ....
So, Hermit, to thy cave.
Whilst here I cling lest creeping thing
Insult the brave!"

------

Why starts the Hermit to his feet,
why springs he to the bier,
Why calleth he on Jesu sweet,
Staying the starting tear.
What whispereth he half trustfully
And half in fear?

{45}

"Sir Knight, thy ring hath razed his flesh--
'Twas in thy frenzy done;
Lo, from his wrist how fast and fresh
The blood-drops trickling run;
Heaven yet may wake, for Mary's sake,
Thy warrior son.

"Heap ashes on thy head, Sir Knight,
In sackcloth gird thee well,
The shrine of Moan must blaze in light,
The morning mass must swell;
Arouse from sleep the castle keep,
Sound every bell!"

They come, pale maid and mailèd man
They throng into the hall,
The watcher from the barbican,
The warder from the wall.
And she apart, with breaking heart,
The last of all.

"__Introibo! _Introibo!_"
The morning mass begins;
"_Mea culpa! mea culpa!_"
Forgive us all our sins;
And the rapt Hermit chaunts with streaming eyes,
That seem to enter Paradise,
"_Gloria! Gloria!_"
The shrine of Moan had never known
That gladdest of all hymns.

------

II.

The fair-haired maiden standeth apart
In the chapel gloom, with breaking heart.
But a smile broke over her face as she said,
"The draught was well measured, I ween;
He liveth, thank Allah, but not to wed
His beautiful Christine.
No lance hath Miolan couched to-day:
Let the bride for the bridegroom watch, and pray.
Till the lists shall hear the shriek
Of the Dauphin's daughter borne away
By the Knight of Pilate's Peak."

TO BE CONTINUED.

{46}

A LETTER TO THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D., ON HIS RECENT EIRENICON.

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D., OF THE ORATORY.

Veni, Domine, et noli tardare, relaxa facinora plebi tuae; et rovoca dispersos in terram suam.

No one who desires the union of Christendom, after its many and long-standing divisions, can have any other feeling than joy, my dear Pusey, at finding from your recent volume that you see your way to make definite proposals to us for effecting that great object, and are able to lay down the basis and conditions on which you could co-operate in advancing it. It is not necessary that we should concur in the details of your scheme, or in the principles which it involves, in order to welcome the important fact that, with your personal knowledge of the Anglican body, and your experience of its composition and tendencies, you consider the time to be come when you and your friends may, without imprudence, turn your minds to the contemplation of such an enterprise. Even were you an individual member of that church, a watchman upon a high tower in a metropolis of religious opinion, we should naturally listen with interest to what you had to report of the state of the sky and the progress of the night, what stars were mounting up or what clouds gathering; what were the prospects of the three great parties which Anglicanism contains within it, and what was just now the action upon them respectively of the politics and science of the time. You do not go into these matters; but the step you have taken is evidently the measure and the issue of the view which you have formed of them all.

However, you are not a mere individual; from early youth you have devoted yourself to the Established Church, and after between forty and fifty years of unremitting labor in its service, your roots and your branches stretch out through every portion of its large territory. You, more than any one else alive, have been the present and untiring agent by whom a great work has been effected in it; and, far more than is usual, you have received in your lifetime, as well as merited, the confidence of your brethren. You cannot speak merely for yourself; your antecedents, your existing influence, are a pledge to us that what you may determine will be the determination of a multitude. Numbers, too, for whom you cannot properly be said to speak, will be moved by your authority or your arguments; and numbers, again, who are of a school more recent than your own, and who are only not your followers because they have outstripped you in their free speeches and demonstrative acts in our behalf, will, for the occasion, accept you as their spokesman. There is no one anywhere--among ourselves, in your own body, or, I suppose, in the Greek Church--who can affect so vast a circle of men, so virtuous, so able, so learned, so zealous, as come, more or less, under your influence; and I cannot pay them all a greater compliment, than to tell them they ought all to be Catholics, nor do them a more affectionate service than to pray that they may one day become such. Nor can I address myself to an act more pleasing, as I trust, to the Divine Lord of the church, and more loyal and dutiful to his Vicar on earth, than to attempt, however, feebly, to promote so great a consummation.

{47}

I know the joy it would give those conscientious men of whom I am speaking to be one with ourselves. I know how their hearts spring up with a spontaneous transport at the very thought of union; and what yearning is theirs after that great privilege, which they have not, communion with the See of Peter and its present, past, and future. I conjecture it by what I used to feel myself, while yet in the Anglican Church. I recollect well what an outcast I seemed to myself when I took down from the shelves of my library the volumes of St. Athanasius or St. Basil, and set myself to study them; and how, on the contrary, when at length I was brought into Catholicism, I kissed them with delight, with a feeling that in them I had more than all that I had lost, and, as though I were directly addressing the glorious saints who bequeathed them to the Church, I said to the inanimate pages, "You are now mine, and I am now yours, beyond any mistake." Such, I conceive, would be the joy of the persons I speak of, if they could wake up one morning and find themselves possessed by right of Catholic traditions and hopes, without violence to their own sense of duty; and, certainly, I am the last man to say that such violence is in any case lawful, that the claims of conscience are not paramount, or that any one may overleap what he deliberately holds to be God's command, in order to make his path easier for him or his heart lighter.

I am the last man to quarrel with this jealous deference to the voice of our conscience, whatever judgment others may form of us in consequence, for this reason--because their case, as it at present stands, has, as you know, been my own. You recollect well what hard things were said against us twenty-five years ago, which we knew in our hearts we did not deserve. Hence, I am now in the position of the fugitive queen in the well-known passage, who, "haud ignara mali" herself, had learned to sympathize with those who were inheritors of her past wanderings. There were priests, good men, whose zeal outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently, when they would have been wiser had they suspended their adverse judgment of those whom they had soon to welcome as brethren in communion. We at that time were in worse plight than your friends are now, for our opponents put their very hardest thoughts of us into print. One of them wrote thus in a letter addressed to one of the Catholic bishops:

"That this Oxford crisis is a real progress to Catholicism, I have
all along considered a perfect delusion. ... I look upon Mr. Newman,
Dr. Pusey, and their associates as wily and crafty, though
unskilful, guides. . . . The embrace of Mr. Newman is the kiss that
would betray us. . . . But--what is the most striking feature in the
rancorous malignity of these men--their calumnies are often lavished
upon us, when we should be led to think that the subject-matter of
their treatises closed every avenue against their vituperation. The
three last volumes [of the Tracts] have opened my eyes to the
craftiness and the cunning, as well as the malice, of the members of
the Oxford convention. . . . If the Puseyites are to be the new
apostles of Great Britain, my hopes for my country are lowering and
gloomy. . . . I would never have consented to enter the lists
against this strange confraternity ... if I did not feel that my own
prelate was opposed to the guile and treachery of these men. . . . .
I impeach Dr. Pusey and his friends of a deadly hatred of our
religion. . . . . What, my lord, would the Holy See think of the
works of these Puseyites? . . ."

Another priest, himself a convert, wrote:

"As we approach toward Catholicity our love and respect increases,
and our violence dies away; but the bulk of these men become more
rabid as they become like Rome, a plain proof of their designs. ...
I do not believe that they are any nearer the portals of the
Catholic Church than the most prejudiced Methodist and Evangelical
preacher. . . . Such, rev. sir, is an outline of my views on the
Oxford movement."

{48}

I do not say that such a view of us was unnatural; and, for myself, I readily confess that I had used about the church such language that I had no claim on Catholics for any mercy. But, after all, and in fact, they were wrong in their anticipations--nor did their brethren agree with them at the time. Especially Dr. Wiseman (as he was then) took a larger and more generous view of us; nor did the Holy See interfere, though the writer of one of these passages invoked its judgment. The event showed that the more cautious line of conduct was the more prudent; and one of the bishops, who had taken part against us, with a supererogation of charity, sent me on his death-bed an expression of his sorrow for having in past years mistrusted me. A faulty conscience, faithfully obeyed, through God's mercy, had in the long run brought me right.

Fully, then, do I recognize the rights of conscience in this matter. I find no fault in your stating, as clearly and completely as you can, the difficulties which stand in the way of your joining us. I cannot wonder that you begin with stipulating conditions of union, though I do not concur in them myself, and think that in the event you yourself would be content to let them drop. Such representations as yours are necessary to open the subject in debate; they ascertain how the land lies, and serve to clear the ground. Thus I begin; but, after allowing as much as this, I am obliged in honesty to say what I fear, my dear Pusey, will pain you. Yet I am confident, my very dear friend, that at least you will not be angry with me if I say, what I must say, or say nothing at all, that there is much both in the matter and in the manner of your volume calculated to wound those who love you well, but love truth more. So it is; with the best motives and kindest intentions, "Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem." We give you a sharp cut, and you return it. You complain of our being "dry, hard, and unsympathizing;" and we answer that you are unfair and irritating. But we at least have not professed to be composing an Irenicon, when we treated you as foes. There was one of old time who wreathed his sword in myrtle; excuse me--you discharge your olive-branch as if from a catapult.

Do not think I am not serious; if I spoke seriously, I should seem to speak harshly. Who will venture to assert that the hundred pages which you have devoted to the Blessed Virgin give other than a one-sided view of our teaching about her, little suited to win us? It may be a salutary castigation, if any of us have fairly provoked it, but it is not making the best of matters; it is not smoothing the way for an understanding or a compromise. It leads a writer in the most moderate and liberal Anglican newspaper of the day, the "Guardian," to turn away from your representation of us with horror. "It is language," says your reviewer, "which, after having often heard it, we still can only hear with horror. We had rather not quote any of it, or of the comments upon it." What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the controversy by the picture he drew of us? You may be sure that what creates horror on one side will be answered by indignation on the other, and these are not the most favorable dispositions for a peace conference. I had been accustomed to think that you, who in times past were ever less declamatory in controversy than myself, now that years had gone on, and circumstances changed, had come to look on our old warfare against Rome as cruel and inexpedient. Indeed, I know that it was a chief objection urged against me only last year by persons who agreed with you in deprecating an oratory at Oxford, which at that time was in prospect, that such an undertaking would be the signal for the rekindling of that fierce style of polemics which is now out of date. I had fancied you shared in that opinion; but now, as if {49} to show how imperative you deem its renewal, you actually bring to life one of my own strong sayings in 1841, which had long been in the grave--that "the Roman Church comes as near to idolatry as can be supposed in a church, of which it said, 'The idols he shall utterly abolish,'" p. 111.

I know, indeed, and feel deeply, that your frequent references in your volume to what I have lately or formerly written are caused by your strong desire to be still one with me as far as you can, and by that true affection which takes pleasure in dwelling on such sayings of mine as you can still accept with the full approbation of your judgment. I trust I am not ungrateful or irresponsive to you in this respect; but other considerations have an imperative claim to be taken into account. Pleasant as it is to agree with you, I am bound to explain myself in cases in which I have changed my mind, or have given a wrong impression of my meaning, or have been wrongly reported; and, while I trust that I have better than such personal motives for addressing you in print, yet it will serve to introduce my main subject, and give me an opportunity for remarks which bear upon it indirectly, if I dwell for a page or two on such matters contained in your volume as concern myself.

1. The mistake which I have principally in view is the belief, which is widely spread, that I have publicly spoken of the Anglican Church as "the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." In a pamphlet of yours, a year old, you spoke of "a very earnest body of Roman Catholics" who "rejoice in all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church of England (whatever they think of her), and are saddened by what weakens her who is, in God's hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." The concluding words you were thought to quote from my "Apologia." In consequence, Dr. Manning, now our archbishop, replied to you, asserting, as you say, "the contradictory of that statement." In that counter-assertion he was at the time generally considered (rightly or wrongly, as it may be), though writing to you, to be really correcting statements in my "Apologia," without introducing my name. Further, in the volume which you have now published, you recur to the saying, and you speak of its author in terms which, did I not know your partial kindness for me, would hinder me from identifying him with myself. You say, "The saying was not mine, but that of one of the deepest thinkers and observers in the Roman communion," p. 7. A friend has suggested to me that, perhaps, you mean De Maistre; and, from an anonymous letter which I have received from Dublin, I find it is certain that the very words in question were once used by Archbishop Murray; but you speak of the author of them as if now alive. At length a reviewer of your volume, in the "Weekly Register," distinctly attributes them to me by name, and gives me the first opportunity I have had of disowning them; and this I now do. What, at some time or other, I may have said in conversation or private letter, of course, I cannot tell; but I have never, I am sure, used the word "bulwark" of the Anglican Church deliberately. What I said in my "Apologia" was this: That that church was "a serviceable breakwater against errors more fundamental than its own." A bulwark is an integral part of the thing it defends; whereas the words "serviceable" and "breakwater" imply a kind of protection which is accidental and _de facto_. Again, in saying that the Anglican Church is a defence against "errors more fundamental than its own," I imply that it has errors, and those fundamental.