Chapter X: A Despairing Chapter (2)

What contrasts the events of history present! While this relentless slaughter was at its height, and the worst passions of the fiercest of heathens were let loose, the scene of blood, fire, and death was relieved by the presence of Christian heroes the most gentle, merciful, and self-sacrificing. They stood in the breach to the last stroke of the enemy, encouraging the dying Christians to fortitude and hope, the wounded to patience, and the prisoners to courage and perseverance in the faith. The palisades of St. Louis finally were cut away. The infuriate Iroquois swept in, and the whole surviving garrison, warriors and priests, were all made prisoners together. The savages rejoiced especially at the capture of such a prisoner as Father Brébeuf, whom they immediately showed signs of torturing, when a generous Oneida chief, more magnanimous than the rest, purchased him from his captors for a large price in wampum. It seemed as though he was about to be deprived of his coveted crown; but no! the victors retracted their bargain, and Father Brébeuf was again seized by his enemies. He and Father Lalemant were stripped, bound fast, and cruelly beaten, and their nails were torn out. But lest some change in the tide of war should deprive them of their prisoners, the latter were all sent, closely bound and tightly secured, to St. Ignatius. Here, as they entered the town, they were beaten and bruised by the rabble with sticks and clubs. The large and conspicuous frame of Father Brébeuf attracted a double share of blows on his already bruised and lacerated head and body. In the midst of these cruelties, he was forgetful of himself, and anxious only that his Christian Hurons, who were now his fellow-prisoners, should be encouraged and consoled in their extreme danger. From the stake to which he had been tied, beholding them assembled for the torture, he lost sight completely of his own greater calamities and sufferings, and thus he addressed them: "My children, let us lift up our eyes to heaven in the worst of our torments; let us remember that God beholdeth all we suffer, and will soon be our reward exceeding great. Let us die in this faith, and hope from his goodness the accomplishment of his promises. I pity you more than myself, but support manfully the little torment that yet remains. It will end with our lives; the glory which follows will have no end." How great must have been his consolation when he heard their heroic answer, a convincing proof that Indians may be truly converted to Christianity, and possess the constancy to die in the faith. "'Tis well, Echon," they cried, "our souls will be in heaven, while our bodies suffer on earth; entreat God to show us mercy; we shall invoke him to our latest breath." Enraged at his exhortations and unflinching zeal, even in death, some Hurons adopted by the Iroquois rushed upon him and burned his flesh with a fire which they kindled near him, they cut off his hands, and while Father Lalemant's flesh was cut and punctured with awls and other sharp instruments, and hot irons placed under his armpits, they led him forth to torture and death before the eyes of Father Brébeuf, in order to add to the agonies of the latter. As Father Brébeuf continued to speak and to exhort his Christians, and to threaten the vengeance of heaven upon their persecutors, they cut off his lower lip and nose, and thrust a red-hot iron down his throat. Even after this, when he saw his superior, the gentle Lalemant, led out to death, he called out to him with a broken voice in the words of St. Paul, "We are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men." Throwing himself at Father Brébeuf's feet, Father Lalemant was ruthlessly torn away, and in a few moments he was enveloped in flames at the stake, and his gentle soul preceded that of the intrepid Brébeuf to heaven. Turning next upon Father Brébeuf, they threw a collar of red-hot axes around his neck, which seethed and burned their way into his flesh; he stood, in the midst of such agonies, erect and motionless, apparently insensible to pain, intent only on vindicating the faith he had so long and faithfully announced. His tormentors were awed by his constancy, which seemed to them a proof that he was more than man. But they again taxed their ingenuity for new tortures. An apostate Huron, who had been a convert of Father Brébeuf in the Huron mission, and had since been adopted by the Iroquois, was the first to signalize the zeal of the renegade. He proposed to pour hot water on the head of Father Brébeuf, in return for the quantities of cold water he had poured on the heads of others in baptism. The suggestion was received with fiendish joy, and soon the kettle was swung. While the water was boiling, they added fresh cruelties to their victim's sufferings. They crushed his mouth and jaw with huge stones, thrust heated iron and stones into his wounds, and with his own eyes he beheld them devour the slices of flesh which they cut from his legs and arms. Let us not cut short the appalling story; for surely, what a martyr bore a Christian may have courage to Three.'and bringing the scalding water from the caldron, they poured it over his bruised head and lacerated body amidst shouts and imprecations, and, as they did so, the high-priests of the occasion mockingly said to him: "We baptize you that you may be happy in heaven; for nobody can be saved without a good baptism." By this time Father Brébeuf's mouth and tongue could no longer articulate, but even yet by his erect posture, the struggling and brave expression of his almost expiring eye, and even by his half-formed words, he encouraged the Christian captives to perseverance, and endeavored to deter the savages from torturing them by threats of heaven's vengeance. Again cutting slices from his body and devouring them before his eyes, they told him that his flesh was good. Some of the renegade Hurons, more fiendish than even the Iroquois, again mocked him by saying: "You told us that the more one suffers on earth, the happier he is in heaven. We wish to make you happy; we torment you, because we love you; and you ought to thank us for it." They next scalped him, and even after this they poured the boiling water over his head, repeating the torture three times; they cut off his feet, and splitting open his stalworth and generous chest, they crowded around and drank with exultation the warm blood of the expiring hero. His eye, firm and expressive to the last, was now dimmed in death, and at last a chief tore out his noble and brave heart, cut it into a thousand pieces, and distributed it to the savage cannibals that crowded around to receive a share of so exalted and unconquerable a victim. Thus perished of earth, while crowned of heaven, the illustrious Brébeuf, "the founder of the Huron mission--its truest hero, its greatest martyr."

The Iroquois, now glutted with carnage, and apprehensive of the approach of a superior force, retired to their own country. The fathers from St. Mary's came to St. Ignatius to bestow the last honors upon the earthly remains of their martyred companions. It was with difficulty they discovered their burned and mangled bodies among the mass of slain the victorious Iroquois had left. Their precious remains were solemnly and sorrowfully carried to St. Mary's, and affectionately and religiously interred. A portion of Father Brébeuf's relics were subsequently carried to Quebec. A silver bust, containing the head of the martyr, was presented by his family to the Canadian mission, and is still reverently preserved by the convent of hospital nuns in that city. So great was his reputation for sanctity that it became a familiar and pious practice in Canada to invoke his intercession. There are well-attested cases recorded of the wonderful intervention of heaven in favor of those who invoked his aid as a saint in heaven.

Among the many virtues which adorned the life and character of Father Brébeuf may be particularly mentioned his ardent love of holy poverty and suffering, his purity of soul, his singleness of purpose, his profound obedience and humility, his zeal and courage, his love of prayer and penitential austerities, and his generous longing for the salvation of souls. "The character of Brébeuf," says Bancroft, "was firm beyond every trial: his virtue had been nursed in the familiar sight of death. Disciplined by twenty years' service in the wilderness work, he wept bitterly for the sufferings of his converts, but for himself he exulted in the prospect of martyrdom." "Thus," writes Mr. J. G. Shea in his _History of the Catholic Missions_, "about four o'clock in the afternoon, after three hours of frightful torture, expired John de Brébeuf, the real founder of the [Huron] mission, a man such as the Catholic Church alone can produce; as a missionary, unequalled for his zeal, ability, untiring exertion, and steady perseverance; as a servant of God, one whose virtues the Rota would pronounce heroic; patient in toil, hardship, suffering, and privation; a man of prayer, of deep and tender piety, of inflamed love of God, in whom and for whom he did and suffered all; as a martyr, one of the most glorious in our annals for the variety and atrocity of his torments." "He came of a noble race," says Parkman, "the same, it is said, from which sprang the English Earls of Arundel; but never had the mailed barons of his line confronted a fate so appalling with so prodigious a constancy. To the last he refused to flinch, and his death was the astonishment of his murderers."

Praise has become exhausted on such a subject. Would that we might hope for some national good from the sublime lesson he has taught us! The red men are our brothers. The most precious blood of a God-man was poured out for them as for us; and God's martyrs have joyfully given their noble lives for their salvation. Might not a Christian nation, in its power and goodness, yea, in its justice, save at least the poor remnant of them from further slaughter; and say to the ever-ready and zealous missionaries of the Catholic Church: "Go, christianize and save our brothers; we will not slay them more; there is land enough for us and for them; we confide them to your heroic charity. We will protect you and them in the peace and good-will of the Gospel. Go, save our brothers"?

THE ANCIENT LAWS OF IRELAND.

Next to written and well-authenticated historical annals, the clearest insight that can be afforded us of the civilization, polity, and social condition of the nations of antiquity is derived from the study of ancient laws and customs, when their authenticity is guaranteed by existing contemporary authorities, and they bear in themselves the intrinsic evidence of adaptability to time, place, and circumstance, so easily recognized by the antiquarian and the philologist. Were it possible to conceive the total destruction of this republic with all its material monuments and historical literature, nothing being left for posterity but our books of law, the philosophical student a thousand years hence would be able to form a pretty correct and comprehensive idea of the state of society at present existing and of the nature of the institutions under which we have the good fortune to live. From the large number of statutes regulating the intercourse of man and man, he would deduce the fact that we were a commercial and ingenious people; from our laws relating to real estate, he would necessarily argue that its ownership was general and its transmission from one to another a matter of everyday occurrence; and from the few restrictions imposed on its possession or sale, that the facilities for its acquisition were comparatively easy and unrestricted; while from the care that has been taken by our national and local legislatures to guard the life, liberty, and prosperity of the citizen, he would naturally conclude that our right to the enjoyment of these inalienable rights formed the corner-stone of the edifice of our government.

In the same manner, we of this century, looking back to a country so old as Ireland, one of the most antique of the family of European nations, by examining the laws framed in the early days of her dawning civilization, can picture to ourselves, even without the aid of history, the genius of her inhabitants, and form comparatively accurate opinions of how much or how little intelligence and natural sense of justice and the "eternal fitness of things" were exhibited by them in their efforts to regulate and organize society. Strange to say, we are partly indebted for this opportunity to the English government, never very generous in its patronage of Irish interests, though of course the principal credit is due to that noble band of Irish scholars, formerly headed by the late lamented O'Curry, Petrie, and O'Donovan, who by their antiquarian lore, profound knowledge of their vernacular, and untiring industry, have reconstructed from the scattered and almost illegible manuscripts deposited in various libraries the body of the laws of ancient Ireland, and have presented them to the world in the language in which they were originally written, with the elaborate glosses of after-years, accompanied by an accurate English translation. This long-desired work bears the appropriate and principal title of _Senchus Mor_, or great law, and contains all the laws that were enforced in Ireland from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries, if we except a small portion of the island which was occupied by the Anglo-Norman colony from the invasion till the reign of James I. That it was admirably adapted to the wants and dispositions of the people, we can judge by the affection and tenacity with which the natives so long clung to it, in despite of all the efforts of the invaders to induce them by force or fraud to adopt that of the conquerors, and that it was more liberal and equitable than the harsh restrictions of the feudal system is proved from the alacrity of the Anglo-Norman lords who resided without the "pale" in conforming to it in preference to their own enactments.

Like most of her other blessings, Ireland owed the possession of this excellent and merciful code to the Catholic Church, for it was in the eighth or ninth year of the ministration of her great apostle and at his instance that it was framed as we at present find it, purified from all the grossness of paganism, and freed from the uncertainty and doubt which always attach to mere tradition. Up to his time, law in Ireland had been administered at the discretion of Brehons or judges, and, being preserved only in the poems of the bards and _ollamhs_ (professors), was deficient in those essential qualities of all human legislation, exactness and uniformity. That there were learned and wise lawgivers in Ireland before the introduction of Christianity, we know from history and from the introduction to and the text of the _Senchus_ itself, in which frequent mention is made of decisions and writings, but they were necessarily the exponents of that limited sense of justice which the human mind, unaided by religion, is capable of comprehending. The propagation of the faith in Europe created a complete and permanent revolution in the laws of each country successively visited with the light of the gospel, and while the darkness of paganism vanished before it, the municipal laws which upheld idolatry were either totally abrogated or modified so as to conform, as much as possible, to the benign spirit of the church. The immediate occasion of the revision of the Irish laws is stated to have been the deliberate murder of one of St. Patrick's servants by a relative of the reigning sovereign, but the real cause, no doubt, was the desire of the saint to root out of the judicature of the people all traces of paganism as effectually as he had erased it from their hearts.

Accordingly, by virtue of his high office, he summoned a convention of the learned men of the country, a few years after his arrival, and proceeded to execute his important reforms. His principal assistants, we are informed, were Laeghaire, monarch of all Ireland, Corc, and Dairi, two subordinate kings, whom we may suppose represented the temporal authority of the nation, and without whose countenance and support it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to enforce the new code; Rossa, Dubhtach, and Fergus, those poets and professors whose duty it had been to preserve and perpetuate the legal traditions of their race and the decisions of the Brehons; and two ecclesiastics, Saints Benen and Cairnech. The former of these bishops, afterward known by the name of Benignus, was one of St. Patrick's earliest and favorite converts, and eventually his successor in the primatial see of Armagh, and the latter, a Briton from Wales, was remarkable alike for his piety and extensive learning. Thus sustained by the civil arm, and assisted by the advice and knowledge of men well versed in the common and canon law, the saint, in addition to his other apostolic labors, succeeded in leaving to the people he loved so well a harmonious and Christian code, the spirit of which, like that of all his teachings, sank deep in the popular heart, and defied the efforts of time and the ruthlessness of man to eradicate it.

While this code remained the rule of guidance for the mass of the people, it was sacredly preserved by the Brehons, who, though not empowered to alter it in any respect, added elaborate commentaries explanatory of its general or obscure provisions; but when the country was divided into counties by the conquerors, and their system took the place of the national one, the manuscripts of the ancient laws were scattered through the country, in England and on the Continent, whither they were brought by the exiles.

As early as 1783, Edmund Burke, ever mindful of the fame of his native country, suggested the propriety of collecting and publishing in English or Latin those remarkable remnants of former greatness and wisdom, but it was not till the year 1852 that the English government, at the repeated solicitation of several distinguished and influential Irish gentlemen, consented to lend its aid to the great work, which from its very magnitude was beyond the ability of any individual or voluntary association to accomplish. In that year, at the special instance of Doctors Todd and Greaves, both eminent Protestant clergymen, a commission was issued appointing them and several other well-known scholars "to direct, superintend, and carry into effect the transcription and translation of the ancient laws of Ireland, and the preparation of the same for publication," etc., with power to employ proper persons to execute the work. The persons selected by the commissioners were Dr. O'Donovan and Professor O'Curry, both thoroughly qualified to perform so momentous and laborious a labor, and whose conscientious discharge of the duties so assigned them ended only at their much lamented deaths. With the patience and zeal of true antiquarians, they set about transcribing the various MSS. relating to the old laws, deciphering the half-obliterated characters of the earlier centuries, and rendering the peculiar phraseology of the Gaelic into modern English. They were succeeded by W. N. Hancock, LL.D., professor of jurisprudence in Queen's College, Belfast, and the Rev. Thaddeus O'Mahony, professor of Irish in the Dublin University, under whose auspices the two volumes already in print were prepared for publication, having first received the sanction and approval of the commission. With such endorsement, we do not wonder that, speaking of the authenticity of the _Senchus Mor_, O'Curry should have said in one of his admirable lectures on Irish history, "I believe it will show that the recorded account of this great revision of the body of the laws of Erin is as fully entitled to confidence as any other well-authenticated fact in ancient history."

The principal materials used by the distinguished translators are thus described in the preface to the first volume:

"I. A comparatively full copy among the manuscripts of
Trinity College, Dublin. H. 3, 17.

"II. An extensive fragment of the first part, 432, of
the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum.

"III. A large fragment of the latter part among the
manuscripts of Trinity College, Dublin, H. 2, 15.

"IV. A fragment among the manuscripts of Trinity
College, Dublin, H. 3, 18."

Of the capacity of the gentlemen above-mentioned to faithfully transcribe and translate these valuable relics of past legislation there can be no doubt, nor of the genuineness and authenticity of the records themselves. They are not, of course, the originals as written in the fifth century, but are accurate copies, as far as they have been saved from destruction, made centuries ago by the Brehons and _ollamhs_, and handed down by them from father to son, for the Brehon order was hereditary, and from generation to generation, until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Besides this, by their peculiar wording and reference to contemporaneous events and opinions, they bear the undoubted impress of great antiquity, and of having been intended for the government of a primitive people, who had little or no intercourse with the outside world. We have thus before us for the first time a complete body of written fundamental laws, collected and perfected over fourteen hundred years ago by a segregated and peculiar race, occupying a remote part of Europe, the only part, in fact, of the civilized portion of that continent that never echoed to the tread of a Roman soldier, or bowed before the edicts of an imperial Cæsar. In reading over the laws of that unique and ancient people, so unlike all we know of the Roman and Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, we find, not without some regret, we must confess, that the halo of exalted virtue and unsullied purity with which the poetic fancy of subsequent historians and poets led them to surround their pagan ancestors, vanishes like the mists of a summer morning, but we discover also that the epithets, barbarous, ignorant, and unlettered, so freely bestowed on them by the venal scribes of the dominant race, rest on no foundation whatever save on the malice or deficiency of knowledge of the Anglo-Norman authors. In truth, the Irish of the pagan era seem to have had nearly all the virtues and failings of their posterity of to-day, the former being brought more actively into play under the influence of Christianity, and the latter repressed by the unlimited authority of the Catholic Church and the judicious regulations of the _Senchus_.

We find this more particularly the case in studying the laws regulating the domestic relations of the family, which, being the unit of which society is but an aggregate, is the most vital and important part of all human enactments. Ample provision is made for the mutual protection of husband and wife, and the reciprocal rights and duties of parent and child are clearly and minutely defined; but we observe with regret that much of this portion of the code is occupied with provisions for the distribution of property on the disagreement or separation of married people, and for other domestic infelicities of a more criminal nature. The prohibition of an offence in a statute does not necessarily imply the frequency of the commission of the crime itself; but so much pains are taken to point out the rights and disabilities of persons cohabiting without the sanction of lawful wedlock that the conviction is forced upon us that they were not by any means unnecessary. As an offset to this, however, we find that a lawful wife was treated with the greatest indulgence, being in many ways the equal of her husband, and in this respect the _Senchus_ presents a marked contrast to all the other European legislation of that time, by which woman was held little better than a slave, and generally at the mercy of her father or husband, even in some instances to the taking of her life. We feel certain that our strong-minded sisterhood who are so manfully battling for social and political equality will be gratified to learn that a portion of their principles, at least, were fully recognized fourteen centuries ago, and for their edification we quote the following passage from the expressed wisdom of our ancestors:

"In the connection of equal property, if with equal
land and cattle and household stuff, and if their
marriage state be equally free and lawful, the wife
in this case is called the wife of equal rank. The
contract made by either party is not a lawful contract
without the consent of the other, except in cases of
contracts tending equally to the welfare of both; such
as the alliance of co-tillage with a lawful tribe when
they (the couple) have not the means themselves of
doing the work of ploughing; the taking of land; the
collection of food; the gathering for the festivals;
the buying of breeding-cattle; the collecting of
house-furniture; the collecting of litters of pigs; the
buying of stacks and other necessaries.... Each of the
two parties has the power to give refection and feast
according to their respective dignity."

In case of separation, adequate protection was thrown around the wife's rights of property. If her property were equal to that of her husband at the time of marriage, she took an equal moiety of the collective lands, goods, and chattels, and, in case of dairy produce and the proceeds of the loom, two-thirds. If the property had originally belonged wholly to the husband, the wife was entitled to one-third on her separation, and if it had been her own before marriage, to two-thirds. Whether these provisions extended to their mutual claims after death, we are not informed by the glossators, but it is not improbable that they were, thus creating estates not unlike the more modern _dower_ and _courtesy_ of the English law. This equality of married persons was still further extended in the right of each to the disposal or guardianship of their offspring, and in their authority to demand in return the assistance of their children in poverty or decrepitude.

The relations between parent and child were the subjects of careful and minute legislation. The father was obliged to see that his daughter was educated in a manner becoming her rank, and, when at a marriageable age, to procure her a husband of suitable means and family. In return, she was to give him one-third of her first marriage gift (_coibhche_), and a certain proportion of other gifts received after her nuptials. Should the father be dead, his son, succeeding him as heir, was also obliged to assume the same responsibility, and received from his sister a proper equivalent at her marriage. The mother's duty to her son was similar to that of the father to his daughter, he being required to assist her in her poverty or old age, and in conjunction with the daughter to provide, if necessary, for both his parents, an obligation imposed even on grandchildren. That the father should especially have care of the daughter and the mother of the son is something very contrary to the modern ideas of domestic discipline, but it doubtless, in a primitive state of society, had the advantage of equalizing the stronger and weaker elements of the family, giving to the woman the benefit of manly protection, and to the rougher masculine nature a gentler and more humanizing influence.

Fosterage, though not unknown in other countries, was so general in ancient and mediæval Ireland as to give it a character almost peculiar to that island.

It is known to have been of very ancient origin, and to have originated in the natural relations that existed between the sept or tribe and its chief, which was one of mutual rights and duties; for, observes the _Senchus_, "every head defends its members, if it be a goodly head, of good deeds, of good morals, exempt, affluent, capable. The body of every head is his tribe, for there is no body without a head. The head of every tribe, according to the people, should be the man of the tribe who is most experienced, the most noble, the most wealthy, the wisest, the most learned, the most truly popular, the most powerful to oppose, the most steadfast to sue for profits and be sued for losses." It will thus be easily understood, particularly by the citizens of a republic, that the authority of a chief, thus qualified, depended to a great extent on the affection and good-will of his constituents; and, in order to create more close relations between himself and them, it was customary for him to send his children at an early age to be nursed and trained by some family of his sept. The children thus placed under tutelage were regarded with equal, if not greater, affection by the foster-parents than their own. The existence of this custom may still be traced in Ireland, and well-authenticated instances of the most self-sacrificing devotion on the part of the natural child of the foster-parent to his foster-brother or sister form the theme of many of our best Irish stories and historical romances. The foster-parent for the time being stood in the place of the actual parent, and was obliged to feed, clothe, and educate the foster-child for a certain number of years, males till they had attained the age of seventeen, and females fourteen years, and the children were expected in return to compensate, succor, and in some cases support their foster-parents, as if they were their actual progenitors.

The statutes regulating fosterage occupy a large portion of the _Senchus_, so far as published, and affords us a fuller and more accurate knowledge of the social habits and condition of the Gaelic people in and before the fifth century than any other portion of the collection, or even all the histories of Ireland extant which profess to treat of that remote epoch. Fosterage, we are told, was of two sorts, for affection and compensation. When the latter, the fosterage price was regulated according to the rank of the chief, and varied from three cows in the case of the son of an _Og-Aire_, or lowest chief, to thirty cows for the son of a king. The services to be rendered for their payments, being food, raiment, and education, were proportioned to the amount, and seem to have been the subject of much elaborate legislation, not easily reconcilable to our modern notions. For instance, in the matter of food, Dr. O'Donovan renders a very ancient commentary on the first clause of the law of fosterage as follows:

"What are their victuals? They are all fed on
stirabout; but the materials of which it is made,
and the flavoring with it, vary according to the
rank of the parents of the children. The children of
the inferior grades are fed to bare sufficiency on
stirabout made of oatmeal on buttermilk or water, and
it is taken with stale (salt) butter. The sons of the
chieftain grades are fed to satiety on stirabout made
of barley-meal upon new milk, taken with fresh butter.
The sons of kings are fed on stirabout made of wheaten
meal upon new milk, taken with honey."

According to one authority, every foster-child should be provided with two suits of clothing, in color and quality according to the rank of his father--blay, yellow, black, and white colored clothes for the inferior grades, red, green, and brown for the sons of chieftains, and purple and blue for princes. According to another, the distinction of rank was indicated in the following manner:

"Satin and scarlet are for the son of the king of Erin,
and silver on his scabbards, and brass rings on his
hurling-sticks; and tin upon the scabbards of the sons
of chieftains of the lower rank, and brass rings upon
their hurling sticks.... And brooches of gold having
crystal inserted in them with the sons of the king of
Erin and of the king of a province, and brooches of
silver with the sons of the king of a territory."

The course of instruction to be pursued by the foster-children was likewise regulated by the degree of the dignity of their parents. The sons of the "lower classes" were to be employed in "the herding of lambs, and calves, and kids, and pigs, and kiln-drying and combing, and wood-cutting," while the girls were expected to learn the use of the _quern_, or hand-mill for grinding grain, the useful household art of making bread, and winnowing corn, etc.; the young chieftains were to be taught horsemanship, shooting, swimming, and chess-playing, and their sisters, sewing, cutting-out, and embroidery. We have thus placed before us in all its simplicity, and upon the best authority, the modes of living prescribed for the youth of both sexes in Ireland at the time of its conversion to Christianity--a record valuable to the historian and the antiquarian, dissipating alike the poetic imaginings of too partial Celtic chroniclers and the voluntary misrepresentations of the Anglo-Norman writers. It may be objected that such limited views of education argued little for the civilization of the race who entertained them; but when we recall the condition of Western Europe at the time the _Senchus_ was composed, we may well be surprised at the sound sense and practical wisdom so often found in its pages. Nor must it be supposed that the labors of the child ended with the performance of the tasks thus assigned him. There existed another and correlative species of tutelage called literary fosterage, which is thus defined in the "law of social connections":

"The social connection that is considered between the
foster-pupil and the literary foster-father is, that
the latter is to instruct him without reserve, and
to prepare him for his degree, and to chastise him
without severity, and to feed and clothe him while he
is learning his profession, unless he obtains it from
another person, and from the school of Fenius Forsaidh
onward this custom prevails; and the foster-pupil is to
assist his tutor in poverty and to assist him in his
old age, and the honor price of the degree for which he
prepares him and all the gains of his art while he is
learning it, and the first earnings of his art after
leaving the house of his tutor, are to be given to the
tutor."

In addition to this excellent and equitable plan of intellectual culture, we also find in the law of tenures that the sons of tenants holding church lands were entitled to receive instruction from the holders of the benefices, which, we may presume, were not necessarily altogether of a spiritual nature. We thus find that fosterage constituted one of the most important elements of society, and, though much condemned by subsequent and partial writers, contained within itself most of the duties and responsibilities which we now divide among corporations and individuals under different names. The importance which ancient Irish lawgivers seemed to attach to this crude but not altogether unsuccessful attempt to define the relations of parent and child, employer and employed, master and scholar--questions still raised in this enlightened age--is shown in the number of the statutory enactments originally made, and the elaborate and critical glosses afterward appended to them, the whole not unworthy the notice of the modern legislator.

The land tenure has always been a subject of doubt and difficulty in Ireland, and the laws of the _Senchus_ appear to us as little satisfactory and as hard to be understood as that recently passed in the British Parliament under the supervision of Mr. Gladstone. It seems to us, from the careful examination of the different statutes relating to it, that each chief held the whole of the land of his tribe in his own name, not, however, in his own right altogether, but partly as trustee of his tribe, and in this respect the Irish system differs materially from the feudal, which for centuries prevailed in all parts of Europe, except in the country of which we are writing. The tenants were divided into two classes, those who held by _saerrath_ or _daerrath_, terms for which we can find no equivalents in the English language. The first class received from their chief, upon taking the land, and without security, sufficient cattle to stock the same, for which they were obliged to return an annual rental in kind, or, at the chief's option, its value in personal service and labor, such as working on his _dun_ or _rath_, and following him in his wars. This species of tenure, except in the case of those who held immediately from the king, could at pleasure be turned into holding by _daerrath_, by which the tenant gave security for the stock received, and was exempt from personal and military service. The rents and their manner and time of payment varied according to circumstances, but always subject to the above restrictions, and were, of course, the exclusive property of the landlord or chief for the time being. The restrictions on the alienation of land, or rather of the good-will of it--for in fact the fee did not rest in the individual, but in the tribe as represented by its chief--were many and onerous, including forfeiture and other penalties, and were generally directed to the exclusion of members of neighboring or hostile tribes. The agrarian portion of the ancient code, in fact, while far superior in point of liberality to that of many of the then existing nations, resembled more the laws that govern our Indian reservations than those of any enlightened country of the present day. It was full of fatal and mischievous errors, and to its baleful operation have been ascribed many of the evils which centuries before and after the Anglo-Norman invasion afflicted Ireland. By jealously confining the occupancy of a certain district to one particular tribe or family, it engendered a feeling of faction, and what might be called parish patriotism, which unfortunately have outlived the cause that gave them birth, and, by persisting in considering the tribal land as indivisible, it destroyed that high sense of independence and spirit of enterprise which can only be felt and maintained by him who owns his own farm and calls no fellow-man master.

The laws relating to distress, or the form of collecting claims, such as debts, tributes, forfeitures, etc., are the least attractive and instructive portion of the work, and for dense obscurity and incomprehensibleness can only be compared to our own Code of procedure. We gather, however, from them that all civil claims and damages for injuries were collectable by a short process of the seizure of the goods and chattels of the defendant, and the retention of the same on the premises of the plaintiff, or, as in the case of cattle, in the public pound. After the expiration of a certain number of days, if the defendant did not replevin his property or disprove his opponent's claim, the goods became the absolute property of the creditor. With a humanity, however, which many suppose to be the growth of our century, the plaintiff should exhaust first the property upon the possession of which the subsistence of the defendant's family did not immediately depend, and even some articles of primary necessity were altogether exempt from seizure. Imprisonment for debt, however, partially existed, and, when the debtor had no goods and did not belong to the class of freemen, he was arrested and compelled to labor for the creditor until the demands of the latter were fully satisfied.

Such, in brief, is a _résumé_ of the laws contained in the two volumes of the _Senchus Mor_ already published, and which we hope soon to hear of occupying a position on the shelves of every library of reference in the country. Much yet remains of the ancient _Code of St. Patrick_[148] to be given to the world before the entire work is completed, and we are assured that this will be done at an early day, and in as scholarly a manner as the portion before us. We shall look eagerly for its appearance, not for its practical value as a legal study, but as a picture of a remote but interesting era and race, and as an additional evidence of how much the world owes to the Catholic Church even in the civil and political affairs of life. The science of true government has been a plant of slow but sure growth, and, while we enjoy so many of its fruits in our favored land, we must not forget that the seeds were planted with so much suffering and labor by the apostolic men who have gone to their rest centuries ago.

FOOTNOTE:

[148] The _Senchus Mor_ was sometimes known as _Cain Patraic_, or _Patrick's Law_.

THE STORY OF AN ALGERINE LOCKET.

I.

In the sunshine of a May morning stood an old gray house, with a porch draped in woodbine and sweetbrier. A mass of wisteria climbed to the very chimneys, and on the lawn a bed of red and golden tulips swayed with the soft breeze. A wren was building in an acacia and singing, while a young girl watched his work and sang also, trying with her fresh soprano voice to catch his melody.

The old house was the homestead of Holly Farm, and the young girl was Sybil Vaughan, the heroine of a very short story.

"Sybil looks charming in white," thought Miss Mildred, sitting at the window of the green parlor with her mending-basket beside her; "and the locket is quite becoming."

It was before the day when every one began to wear medallions, and the one that hung by a quaint twisted chain from Sybil's neck was a locket of rich enamel, brought to her from Algeria by a midshipman cousin, and quite unlike our gewgaw from the Palais Royal.

As we have said, Miss Mildred sat at the window of the green parlor, raising her eyes now and then from her work to watch her pretty niece, her adopted daughter. During the seventy years of her life, she had sat at that same window almost every morning since she was old enough to work a sampler, or to read a paper in the _Spectator_ or a chapter of _Evelina_ to her mother and younger sisters.

In her girlhood, Holly Farm had been a lonely place, remote from town and village. The trees, now rising luxuriantly around the house, were then, like her, in their youth, and revealed whatever might be passing in the lane below the lawn. At a period of life when young people gaze abroad in vague expectation of some wonderful arrival or event that shall alter the current of existence, Mildred Vaughan had turned longing eyes toward this lawn hour after hour, and she had thought her morning's watch well rewarded if the old doctor had trundled by in his high-topped chaise and nodded to her in friendly greeting.

With a capacity for painting that in these days of potichomania, decalcomania, and the rest would have passed for originality, if not genius, she had received one quarter's lessons in oil-painting, and by dint of studying a few beautiful family portraits had acquired a keenness of perception that made her hunger for the world of art. With an earnest love for books, she had been obliged to devote her time to the care of her younger brothers and sisters. And so, out of her monotonous life, she had brought into old age an exaggerated idea of the value of learning and luxury, with a belief in possibilities and a regret for what might have been generally supposed to belong exclusively to youth.

This sounds more melancholy than it really was. Miss Mildred had kept her ideal of happiness fresh and vivid, and that is in itself a source of keen enjoyment. And, being a devout and trusting soul, she had framed for herself a prayer out of the thwarted aspiration of her heart and mind: "I thank thee, Lord, that there are joys so beautiful on earth, and I thank thee that they are not for me. Thy will is dearer to me than the realization of any dream."

Every one loved to come to Miss Mildred for sympathy. She believed in the reality and the durability of their joy, in the depth and in the cause of their grief. She did not say to the mother who had lost her little baby, "He is saved from sorrow and sin." She did not say to the young widow, "You have had the best part of life; later come trial and vexation of spirit." She knew that in bereavement the balm often enters with the sting; that the stainless beauty of the thing we lose is our only earthly consolation for its loss.

A great change had come to Holly Farm since the time when the doctor's visit was an important event. The sweep of meadow-land west of the house now served as camping-ground for the --th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, in which young Henry Vaughan held a second lieutenancy. Drumming and fifing, the arrival of carriages full of gayly dressed people to visit the camp, the music of the regimental band on moonlight evenings, such was the course of daily life on green slopes which cattle and sheep had once possessed without dispute, nibbling the grass and drinking from the river in all contentment.

Indeed, Miss Mildred's standard of events had so naturally changed in that course of seventy years that, when the little white gate swung open, and a young man in uniform walked across the lawn, she merely said to herself: "That must be Captain Adair coming to see Harry. He walks better than any man I ever saw. The maid's hanging out clothes; I do hope Sybil will have sense enough to come and speak to him instead of letting him knock."

Sybil had the amount of sense requisite for the emergency. She led the way into the green parlor, and, leaving Captain Adair with her aunt, went to announce the arrival to her brother, who was trying on his new uniform, and blushed to be caught admiring the epaulettes before a mirror in the library. There was no need of apology. Sybil was in full sympathy with the occasion, and returned to the parlor feeling as proud of her brother's military outfit as he of the beauty of the sister leaning on his arm.

It was a pleasant meeting. Adair's frank and sympathetic manner had won its way through Miss Mildred's reserve; and his familiarity with the world and its ways secured him an easy victory over his young lieutenant. Sybil was less impressionable than the other two. Her manners were gentle and courteous to all, but it was not easy to penetrate her likes and dislikes, or to find out their cause. Just a trifle uninteresting, she was, poor Sybil, like many nicely poised young persons before they have enjoyed or suffered keenly. The very finish of her beauty, of her lovely manners, of her pleasant voice and accent, left nothing to be desired--no suggestion of anything beyond. But a soul so brave, so pure and honest as hers deserved to be developed, and the occasion for development came.

II.

ADAIR'S LETTERS TO HENRY ALLEYNE.

CAMP EVERETT, May, 1861.

I had an adventure yesterday that should have fallen to your lot, my dear Alleyne, not to that of a prosaic dog like me.

Hearing that my second lieutenant lived near the camp, and that he could not enter upon his duties for a day or two, I took it into my head to go and see what stuff he was made of, for, Alleyne, I am awfully interested in Company B, and in every creature connected with it. How could I ever have lived in that bore of a city, or slept within four walls, or used a silver fork! "Going off at half-cock, as usual," you say? Well, perhaps that is better than never going off at all. But to return to my story.

I went through a shady lane, leading from the camp to Vaughan's house. (Vaughan is the second lieutenant and owner of the camping-ground.) As I drew near the gate, I heard a woman's voice singing. A little further on came a gap in the trees, and I took a reconnoissance--such another I can never hope for during my military career. A low-spreading stone house, covered with vines, stood among fine old trees. Great bunches of blue blossoms draped the walls, and on the velvety lawn were clusters of brilliant flowers. Beneath a tree, honor bright, Alleyne, if ever angels do appear in white gowns with broad rose-colored sashes, it was an angel that stood beneath that tree, answering a bird with a voice as fresh, an expression as natural as his own. I stood there looking and listening--it was really very fascinating--until I suddenly remembered my errand. Then I pushed open the gate, and, walking across to the porch, lifted the bright brass knocker. But the rival of the wren, without letting me wait the coming of some creature of baser clay, came from among the trees, and asked if I wished to see Mr. Vaughan.

Now, I had wished to see Mr. Vaughan, and as it would not do to say on so short an acquaintance that my wishes were too completely satisfied by the vision before me to leave any want unfulfilled, I stoutly declared that I did wish to see Mr. Vaughan, and that I was Captain Adair.

And then she showed your too susceptible friend into a summer parlor, where the general effect was white and sea-green, and where there were hanging-baskets of flowers surrounded by vines and soft moss, and where an elderly lady in a lavender dress, with white lawn apron and kerchief, sat sewing, and where portraits of rosy-fingered dames and periwigged gentlemen gazed on us from the walls and read our destinies--mine must have been too plainly legible on my ingenuous countenance. And the old lady received me very courteously, and the maiden went to find her brother, and, when the brother came, he looked like his sister, and surely never before was lieutenant greeted by his superior officer with such ineffable tenderness. And we dined, so far as I could judge, off dishes of topaz and crystal, heaped high with ambrosia, and soon after dinner I returned to Camp Everett, and met the colonel going his rounds.

"You come from young Vaughan's, I see," he said. "What impression did he make upon you?"

"Charming, highly delightful, very promising," I replied, with a happy combination of diffidence and child-like openness of manner.

He gave me a look out of his shrewd old eyes. "So attractive a person will be an acquisition to the regiment," he remarked, and let me pass on to my tent.

I am half-asleep. Good-night!

ROBERT ADAIR.

CAMP EVERETT, June, 1861.

Things go on grandly at the camp, and between ourselves the colonel has just said that Company B is better disciplined than any other in the regiment--a compliment I'm very proud of, coming, as it does, from an old West Point martinet.

And now for the second part of my idyl. Every afternoon, Vaughan and I go up to his place and smoke awhile in the orchard. Then, by accident--it is wonderful, the unerring accuracy of accident at times--we appear at the east window of the green parlor, and there are Miss Vaughan and her niece, sewing or drawing, and sometimes Miss Sybil sings, to the accompaniment of a charming Pleyel piano, canzonets of Haydn in a style as fine, as pure, as exquisite as the composition. She--Sybil, I mean--has never danced a German or heard _Faust_! Duly shielded by the presence of aunt or brother, she is sometimes taken to hear the _Nozze di Figaro_ or to see _Hamlet_, or to some other unexceptionable afternoon entertainment. I smile sometimes to see her absolute ignorance of life, and wonder that, in a village not twenty miles distant from a city where the world runs riot, this being has sprung into womanhood, unconscious of the existence of anything less spotless than herself.

This guarded life has given to her manners a certain high breeding that would keep one at a distance but for her kind, frank nature. No one can venture to fancy himself distinguished above others.

Do you know what this makes me feel? That hitherto, and I am nearly twenty-five years old, I have looked at women with a coxcomb's eyes. Any day, any hour, I feel ready to throw myself on her mercy, but an instinct tells me that her love must be won by something better than professions. When I have suffered in the cause she loves well enough to give her only brother to defend it, then I will speak.