Chapter VIII: A Startling Disclosure (2)

Lady Anwyll had gone to visit some poor sick woman in the neighborhood, and had not yet returned. The gentlemen went round to the stables, and Franceline to her room. She dressed herself quickly, wrote a short letter to her father according to her promise of writing to him every day during her absence, and then threw the window wide open and sat down beside it. It was fresh enough, and she wore only her muslin dress, but she did not feel the freshness of the air--she was too excited to be conscious of any external influence of the kind. She sat as motionless as a statue, gazing abstractedly over the empurpled sky where the moon appeared like a shred of white cloud. She had not sat there long when the fragrant fumes of a cigar came floating in through her window, followed soon by a sound of footsteps and voices. Ponsonby and his guest were coming in. Franceline did not close the window or move away, though the voices were now audible; the speakers had not entered the house; they were walking under the veranda that ran round the front. What matter? They were not likely to be talking secrets; she was welcome to listen, no doubt, to whatever they might have to say.

“There is the carriage coming,” said Ponsonby; “my mother is out too late with her rheumatism; I’ll pitch into her for it.”

“Yes; it doesn’t do to stay out after sunset when one has any chronic ailment of that sort. By the way, you mentioned De Winton just now; have you heard of him lately?”

“No; not since he left Berlin. It seems he was very near kicking the bucket there; he was awfully bad, and nobody with him but his man Stanton.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“Through Parker, a fellow in our regiment whose brother is _attaché_ at Berlin; the story made a sensation there, but no one knew of it until De Winton had left.”

The speakers passed on to the end of the veranda, and Franceline could catch nothing more until they drew near again. Lord Roxham was speaking.

“Poor fellow! It’s tremendously hard on him, and I believe there is no redress; nothing to make out a case for divorce.”

“I fancy not; but even if there were it would not be available, since he’s a Romanist.”

“Ah! to be sure; I forgot that; but what a mystification the whole business is! I’ve known De Winton since we were both boys--we were Eton chums, you know--but he never breathed a word of it to me. Yet he’s not a close fellow; quite the contrary. And who the deuce is the woman? Where did he come across her?”

They passed out of hearing again, and when they returned the tramping of horses and the crunching of wheels overtopped their voices. The sounds all died away; Lady Anwyll had come in, and gone to her room--every one was waiting in the drawing-room, but Franceline did not appear. Her hostess, thinking she had not heard the dinner-bell, sent for her. Presently the maid came rushing down the stairs and into the forbidden precincts of the drawing-room with a scared face.

“Please, my lady, she’s in a dead faint! I found her all in a heap on the floor, ready dressed. I lifted her on to the bed, but she don’t move!”

An exclamation burst simultaneously from the three listeners. In a moment they were all in Franceline’s room; there she lay stretched on the bed, as the woman had said, white and still as death, one hand hanging, and her hair, that had been loosened in the fall, dropping on her shoulder. The usual restoratives were applied, and in about a quarter of an hour she gave signs of awakening--the veined lids quivered, the mouth twitched convulsively, and a short sigh escaped her. Lady Anwyll signed to her son and Lord Roxham to withdraw; they had scarcely left the room when Franceline opened her eyes and stared about her with the blank gaze of returning consciousness. She swallowed some wine at Lady Anwyll’s request, but soon put the glass away with a gesture of disgust. In answer to her hostess’ anxious entreaties to say where she suffered, and why she had swooned, the young girl could only say she had felt tired and weary, and that she longed to be left alone and go to sleep. Lady Anwyll agreed that sleep would be the best restorative, and insisted on staying till she saw her settled in bed; then she kissed her, and promising to come soon and see if she was asleep, she left the room with a noiseless step.

“What is it? Is there anything much amiss, mother?” was the captain’s exclamation. Lord Roxham was equally concerned.

“Nothing, except you have nearly killed her, both of you. You have ridden the child to death; she is not accustomed to it, and she has overdone herself; but she will be all right I hope in the morning. There’s nothing the matter but fatigue, she assures me.”

Ponsonby rated himself soundly for being such a brute as to have let her tire herself; he ought to have remembered that she was done up the day before after a much shorter ride. He was awfully sorry. His remorse was no doubt quite genuine, but when they sat down to dinner he proved to demonstration that that feeling is compatible with an unimpaired appetite. Lady Anwyll left them before they had finished to see how Franceline was going on; she found her awake, but quite well, and going to sleep very soon, she assured the kind old lady.

“Then, my dear child, I will not have you disturbed again; if you wake and want anything, strike this gong, and Trinner will come at once. I will make her sleep in the room next yours to-night.”

Franceline protested, but the dowager silenced her with a kiss; put out the light, and left her.

She lay very still, but there was no chance of sleep for her. Sleep had fled from her eyes as peace had fled from her heart. She longed to get up, and find relief from the intolerable strain of immobility, but she dared not; her room was over a part of the drawing-room, and she might be heard. The evening seemed to drag on with preternatural slowness. She could hear the low hum of voices through the ceiling. Once there was a clatter of porcelain--probably Ponce overturning the tea-tray. At last the stable-clock struck eleven; there was opening and shutting of doors for a while, and then silence. Franceline sat up and listened until not a sound was anywhere to be heard. Every soul in the house had gone to bed. Trinner had come last of all to her room. The star made by her candle gleamed through the key-hole for a long time; at last it disappeared, and soon the loud, regular breathing told that she was fast asleep. Franceline rose, threw her dressing-wrapper round her, and drew back the curtain from the window. It was a relief to let the night-lights in upon her solitude; the glorious gaze of the moon seemed to chase away phantoms with the darkness. She felt awake now. All this time, lying there in the utter darkness, it seemed as if she were still in a swoon, or held in the grip of a nightmare; she shook herself free from the benumbing clutch, and sat down close by the window, and tried to collect her thoughts. There was one phantom which the moonlight could not dispel; it stood out now distinctly as she looked at it with revived consciousness. Clide de Winton was a married man. It was to the husband of another that she had given her heart with its first pure vintage of impassioned love. He who had looked at her with those ardent eyes, penetrating her soul like flame, had all along been another woman’s husband. There was no more room for hope, even for doubt; suspense was at an end; the period of dark conjecture was gone. It was clear enough, all that had been so inexplicable,--clear as when the lightning flashes out of a lurid sky, and illuminates the scene of an earthquake; a sea lashed to fury by winds that have lost their current, ships sinking in billows that break before they heave, the land gaping and groaning, trees uprooted, habitations falling with a crash of thunder, all live things clinging and flying in wild disorder. Franceline considered it all as she sat, still and white as a stone, without missing a single detail in the scene.

Violent demonstration was not in her nature. In pain or in joy it was her habit to be self-contained. She had as yet been called upon but for very slight trials of strength and self-control; but such as the experience was it had left behind it an innate though unconscious sense of power that rose instinctively to her aid now. She had fainted away under the first shock of the discovery; but that tribute of weakness paid to nature, she would yield no more. Tears might come later; but now she would not indulge in them. She must face the worst without flinching. What was the worst? Clide was a married man. That was bad enough in all conscience; yet there might be worse behind. Circumstances might cast a blacker dye even on this. Lord Roxham had spoken in a tone of sympathy: “Poor fellow! It’s tremendously hard on him.…” He would have spoken differently if there were any villany in question. But if Lord Roxham had not thus indirectly acquitted him, Franceline would have done so spontaneously. Yes, even in the first moment of despair, while the flood was sweeping over her, she acquitted him. He had dragged her down into unsounded depths of agony and shame, but he had not done it deliberately; he was neither a liar nor a traitor. Had he not been brought to the jaws of death himself only a month ago? There was an indescribable comfort in the pang those words had inflicted. He too, then, was suffering; they were both victims. Clide had never meant to deceive her; she would have sworn it on the altar of her unshaken faith in him; she wanted no stronger evidence than the promptings of her own heart. She was confident there would be some adequate explanation of whatever now seemed ambiguous, when she should have learned all. No; she need not separate the attribute of truth and honor from his image; she could no more do it than she could separate the idea of light from the pure maiden moon that was looking down on her from heaven; she would see darkness in light before she would believe Clide de Winton false.

This irrepressible need of her heart once satisfied--Clide judged and acquitted--what then? Granted that he was innocent as yonder stars, how did it affect her? What did it signify to her henceforth whether he was innocent or guilty, true or false? He was the husband of another woman; as good as dead to Franceline de la Bourbonais; parted from her by a more impassable barrier than death. If he were only dead she might love him still, hold him enshrined in her heart’s core with a clasp that death could not sever--only strengthen. But he was worse than dead; he was married. She must banish him even from her thoughts; his memory must henceforth be as far from her as the thought of murder, or any other crime that her crystal conscience shuddered even to name. She might acquit him, crown him with the noblest attributes of manhood; but that done, she must dismiss him from her remembrance, and forget him as if he had never lived.

Franceline had remained seated, her hands locked passively in her lap, while these thoughts shaped themselves in her mind. When they reached the climax, expressed in these words: “I must forget him as if he had never lived!” she rose to her feet, clasped her forehead in both hands, and an inarticulate cry broke from her: “It would be easier to die!… If I had anything to forgive, that would help me! But I have nothing to forgive!” It would not have helped her, though she fancied so; it would have turned the bitterness of the cup into poison. But she could not realize this now. It seemed harder to renounce what was good and beautiful than to cast away what was unworthy. If the idol had uttered one false oracle, demanded anything base, betrayed itself before betraying her, it would have been easier, she thought, to overturn it. Indignation would have nerved her to the deed, and she would have dealt the blow without compunction. But it had done nothing to forfeit her love and trust, and nevertheless she must dash it down and cast the fragments into the fire, and not preserve even the dust as a precious thing. What a merciful doom his death would have been compared to this!

How was she to do it? Who would help her to so ruthless a demolition? Did any one speak in the silence, or was it only the unspoken cry of her own soul that answered? She had fancied herself alone; she had forgotten that a Presence was close to her, waiting to be invoked, patient, faithful, and protecting even while forgotten. The voice sounded sweet in its warning solemnity, and filled the lonely chamber with a more benign ray than ever shone from midnight sky or blazing noon. Franceline stretched out her arms to meet it, and with a loud sob fell upon her knees. “O my God! forgive me! Forgive me, and help me! I have sinned, but my punishment is greater than I can bear!” The floodgates were thrown back; the tears fell in hot showers, the sobs shook her as the storm shakes the sapling. She knelt there crouching in the darkness, her head leaning on her folded arms, and gave herself up to the passionate outburst, like a child weeping itself to sleep on its mother’s breast. But this could not last. It was only a truce. The real battle, the decisive one, had only now begun; what had gone before were but the preliminaries. Hitherto she had thought only of her grief and humiliation; she was now brought face to face with her sin--the sin of idolatry. She had made unto herself an idol of clay, and placed it on the altar of her heart, and burned incense before it with every breath she drew; the smoke had made a mist before her eyes, but it was dissolving. She looked into the desecrated sanctuary, and struck her breast with humility and self-abasement. Her tears were flowing copiously, but they were not all brine; she was drawing strength from their bitterness. Victory was not for “the days of peace,” but for such an hour as this. She had been trained from childhood in the hope of heaven, in the firm belief that this life was but the transitory passage to the true home; that its sorrows and joys were too evanescent, too unreal to be counted of more importance than the rain and wind that scatter the sunshine of a summer’s day; she had been taught, too, that the bliss of that immortal home is purchased by suffering--a thing to be taken by violence, a crown to be grasped through thorns. Hitherto her adherence to this creed had been entirely theoretical; she accepted it, but in some vague way felt that she, personally, was beyond its action. Her father had suffered; her mother, too, cut off in her happy bloom, had won the crown by a lingering illness and an early death; but she, Franceline, enjoyed, it would seem, some privileged immunity from the stern law. Such had unawares been her reasoning. But now she was undeceived; her hour had come, and she must meet it as a Christian. Now was the time to prove the sincerity of her faith, the strength of her principles; if they failed her, they were no better than stubble and brass that dissolve at the first breath of the furnace.

A duel to the death is always brief: the foes close in mortal conflict; the thrusts come fast and sharp; one or other falls. When Franceline lifted her head from her arms, the expression of the tear-stained face showed which way the battle had gone: the victor stood erect with his foot upon the victim’s neck, unscathed, serene, and pitiless. Love lay bleeding and maimed, but Conscience smiled in triumph. “I will not let thee go until thou hast blessed me,” the wrestler had said, and the angel had blessed her before he fled.

The night was nearly spent when Franceline rose up from her knees, numbed and shivering, although the weather was not cold. She walked rapidly up and down for a few moments to warm herself; there was a spring in her step, a light in her eyes, that told of recovered energy and unshaken purpose; her nerves might tingle, her heart might grieve, but they would neither faint nor quail. She dropped on her knees again for one moment and uttered a prayer, more of thanksgiving this time than supplication, and then lay down and soon fell asleep.

* * * * *

When Franceline came down next morning, after breakfasting in her room as if she had been ailing, there was scarcely any trace in her aspect of the conflict of the night. Eyes do not retain the stains of tears very long at eighteen, and if she was a trifle paler than usual, it was accounted for by the over-exertion which had brought the fainting fit. She expressed a wish to go home as early as was convenient to her hosts, and they consented with reluctance, but without offering any resistance. Lady Anwyll said the child was weary and dull, and that the next time she came to Rydal they should make it livelier for her.

With what a feeling of regaining a haven of rest did Franceline enter the little garden at The Lilies, where her father, warned by the sound of the wheels, hastened out and stood waiting to clasp her!--Angélique graciously letting him have the first kiss, before she claimed her turn.

“We have been like fishes out of water without thee!--have we not, ma bonne?” was Raymond’s joyful exclamation, as he gathered his child to his heart, and then held her from him to look wistfully into the sweet, smiling face.

“Yes, we were dull enough without our singing bird, though I dare say she didn’t miss us much!” was Angélique’s rejoinder. Franceline declared she would go away very soon again to teach them to value her more.

But the singing bird was not the same after this. The spirit that had found utterance in its joyous voice was dead. A lark rises from the clover-field, and pours out its sweet, “harmonious madness” over the earth; swiftly it soars away--away--into fathomless space, and while, spell-bound, we strain after the fading notes, lo! the sportsman’s arrow hisses by, a cry rends the welkin, the songster is struck--he will never sing again.

Perhaps you despise Franceline for allowing the loss of an imaginary possession to put the light out of her life in this way. As if our lives were not made desolate half the time by the loss of what we never had! You will say that self-respect and pride ought to have come to her aid, and enabled her to quench in blood, if needs be, the fire that her conscience pronounced guilty. But is the process so quickly accomplished, think you? Franceline was doing her best; she was concentrating all the energies of her mind and soul in the struggle, but it was not to be done in a day; the very purity of her love constituted its strength. If there had been the smallest element of corruption in it, it would have died quicker; but its fibres were enduring because they were pure.

Yet she was not forgetful of her father and of all that he had hitherto been to her, and she to him; far from it. The effort to conceal her sufferings from him was a great help to her in controlling them, though it often taxed her strength severely. Sometimes, when the feeling of isolation pressed on her almost beyond endurance, when she felt that she must have the solace of his sympathy, cost what it might, she would steal into his study, determined to speak and let the murder out; but the sight of the venerable head bowed over his books, absorbed, and happy in his unconsciousness, would arrest her words and choke them back into silence. The strain was hard, but was it not a mercy that she had as yet only her own burden to bear? What a price would she not have to pay for the momentary relief of leaning it on him! What might not be dreaded from the effect of the revelation on his sensitive pride, and still more sensitive love? And then the inevitable breach between him and his oldest, almost his only friend, Sir Simon! They would leave The Lilies and go forth she knew not where. No; silence indubitably was best. To speak might be to kill her father.

This state of things lasted for a week, and then there was granted an alleviation. Father Henwick had been called to a distance to see his mother, who was dying; he arrived in time to assist her with his filial ministry in the last passage; remained to settle all that followed, and then came back to resume the even tenor of his life at Dullerton.

Father Henwick was one of those men whom you may know for a lifetime, and never find out until some special circumstance reveals them. There was no sign in his outward man of anything remarkable in the inner man. He had not acquired, or at any rate retained, any French polish or grace from his early sojourn at the French seminary. His manners were very homely, and abrupt almost to brusqueness; he was neither tall nor small, but of that height which steers between the two, and so escapes notice; his voice had the unmistakable ring of refinement and early education, yet he seldom associated with his equals, his intercourse being confined chiefly to the poor. These and their children were his familiars at Dullerton. The latter looked on him as their especial property, and took all manner of liberties with him unrebuked--hanging on to his coat-tails, and plunging their audacious little paws into the sacred precincts of his pockets, whence experience had taught them something might turn up to their advantage: penny whistles, Dutch dolls, buns, lollypops, and crackers were continually issuing from those mysterious depths which the small fry sounded behind Father Henwick’s back, and apparently unbeknown to him, while he administered comfort of another description to their elders.

The fact of his having been educated in France, and speaking French like a Frenchman, accounted to the general mind of Dullerton for the eccentric habits and unconventional manners of the Catholic priest, especially for his shyness with his own class, and undue familiarity with those in the humbler ranks. It ought to have established him on the footing of close intimacy at The Lilies; and yet it had not done so. M. de le Bourbonais professed and felt the greatest esteem for him, and made him welcome in his gracious way; but Father Henwick was too shrewd an observer of human nature not to see exactly how far this was meant to go. Franceline’s early instruction had been confided to him, and the remembrance of the pains he had taken with the little catechumen, the fondness with which he had planted and fostered the good seed in her heart, made a claim on Raymond’s gratitude; but it did not remove an intangible barrier between the father in the flesh and the father in the spirit. M. de la Bourbonais was a Catholic; if anybody had dared to impugn by one word the stanchness of his Catholicity, he would have felt it his painful duty to run that person through the body; but, as with so many of his countrymen, his faith ended here; it was altogether theoretical; he was ready at a moment’s notice to fight or die for it; but it did not enter into his views to live for it. For Franceline, however, it was a different thing. Religion was made for women, and women for religion. With that tender reverence for his child’s faith, which in France is so often the last bulwark of the father’s, Raymond had been at considerable pains to hide from Franceline the inconsistency that existed between his own practice and teaching. When the great event was approaching which, in the life of a French child especially, is surrounded by such touching solemnity, he made it his delight to assist Father Henwick in preparing her for it, making her rehearse his instructions between times, or teaching her the catechism himself. Then, to anticipate awkward questions and impossible explanations, he made a point of rising early on Sundays and festivals and going to first Mass before Franceline was out of bed. The habit once contracted, he continued it; so it came about naturally that she took for granted her father did at a different hour what he attached so much importance to her doing. In conversation with Father Henwick she had more than once incidentally let this belief transpire; but he was not the one to undeceive her, or tear away the veil that parental sensitiveness had drawn between itself and those childlike eyes. Neither was he one to broach the subject indiscreetly to M. de la Bourbonais. A day might come for speaking; meanwhile he was content to be silent and to wait.

The day Father Henwick returned to Dullerton after his mother’s funeral, his confessional was surrounded by a greater crowd than usual; his parishioners had a whole week’s arrears of troubles and questions, spiritual and temporal, to settle with him, and it was late when he was able to speak to Franceline. The conference was a long one; by the time it was over the church was nearly empty; only a few figures were still kneeling in the shadows as the young girl, coming out through a side-door, walked through the graves with a quick, light step and proceeded homewards. Tears were falling under her veil, and a sob every now and then showed that the source was still full to overflowing; but her heart was lighter than it had been for many days, her will was strengthened and her purpose fixed. She was bent on being courageous, on walking forward bravely and never looking back. She blessed God for the comfort she had received and the strength that had been imparted to her. Oh! she was glad now that she had resisted the first impulse to speak to her father, and had been silent.

That evening M. de la Bourbonais and Angélique remarked how cheerful she was. She stayed up later than usual reading to Raymond, and commenting spiritedly on what she read; then bade him good-night with almost a rejoicing heart, and slept soundly until long past daybreak.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A VISIT TO IRELAND IN 1874.

“Yes,” said Mr. Bernard at the close of a long discussion, “it _is_ quite marvellous how little Englishmen know about Ireland! And their prejudices are the necessary consequence of such ignorance! I wish they could be _made_ to travel there more!”

No one, perhaps, more heartily agreed with him than I did, taught by my experiences of last autumn, which occurred in the following manner.

I had been sometime absent from that country, a resident in London, when I unexpectedly received a pressing invitation last September, from a friend living in the County Westmeath, to cross St. George’s Channel and pay her my long-promised visit. “Westmeath!” exclaimed my London circle--“Westmeath! You must not dream of it! You’ll be shot, my dear!” said one old lady. “Taken up by the police!” said another. “It’s ridiculous, absurd!” cried a third. “Remember the Peace-Preservation Act and all that implies--murders, Fenians, Ribbonmen, police! Don’t risk your precious life amongst them, or we shall never lay eyes upon you again!” And they all looked as solemn as if they had received an invitation to attend my Requiem, and were meditating what flowers to choose for the wreaths each meant to lay upon my coffin.

Nothing, however, made me hesitate. Go I would, in defiance of all their remonstrances; for, I argued, if my friend, who herself owned land in Westmeath, could live there and see no impropriety in asking me, as a matter of course I should run no risk in accepting her invitation. At length, finding me obstinate, my cousin, Harry West, came forward, and, volunteering to escort me, promised my relatives that he would judge for himself, and if he saw danger would insist on my returning with him. He was a middle-aged man, land agent of an estate in Buckinghamshire--one of the most peaceful counties in the United Kingdom--had never set foot in Ireland, but, having been studying the Irish question--as he thought--and poring over the debates on this same Peace-Preservation Act last session, held even gloomier views concerning Ireland than any of my other numerous acquaintances. In consequence, I looked upon this as the most self-sacrificing act of friendship he could possibly offer. At the same time, I accepted it.

Accordingly, we started by the night mail which leaves Euston Square at twenty-five minutes past eight P.M.

For the first two hours I was haunted, I confess, by the dread of the Scotch limited mail running into us, as I knew it was to leave the same spot only five minutes later; and both trains being express, if any hitch should occur to us between the stations, we might “telescope” each other without any means of preventing it. At least, so it seemed to my ignorant mind. Harry fortunately knew nothing of this; but his thoughts were none the less running upon danger, remembering some terrible accidents to this same Irish mail--notably the one some four years ago, when Lord and Lady Farnham, Judge Berwick and his sister, and others we knew, were reduced to a heap of ashes in a few minutes by an explosion of petroleum which caught fire in a collision. Luckily, Harry fell asleep on quitting Chester, and never noticed the fatal spot, nor awoke until we drew up at five minutes past three A.M. alongside the mail packet _Leinster_ some way out on the pier at Holyhead.

The night was fine, the sea calm, the passengers tired; so every one slept tranquilly until the stewardess, rushing into the ladies’ cabin, announced that we had passed the Kish light some time, and should be “in” in half an hour.

Without conveying any meaning to an English lady close by, the word quickly roused me; for it was full of memories--sad, yet happy. Many and many an evening, when living once on the Wicklow shore, had I sat watching on the far horizon the sparkling light which marked the well-known light-ship nine miles off the Irish coast. Of a summer’s night it shone like a twinkling star, suggestive of cool, refreshing breezes far away upon the calm waters, when perchance a hot breeze hung heavily over the land; but in winter the simple knowledge of its existence, with two men living there on board in a solitude that was broken only once a month, while the winds and waves raged fiercely around the ship, often haunted my dreams and made the stormy nights doubly dreary all along the Wicklow sea-board.

“The Kish light! Has not that a delightful, pleasant home sound?” said a middle-aged woman near, looking at me as if she had divined my thoughts. “And these boats--there are no others to be compared to them! The English have no excuse for not coming to Ireland,” she continued, “with vessels of this kind, that are like true floating bridges, so steady, swift, and large. Who could be ill in them? No one!”

I was puzzled to think who she could be; for though the face was not unfamiliar, I could give it no name. It was that of a lady, certainly, with a bright, intelligent, happy expression; but I saw that her garb was coarse as she bent and rummaged for something in her bag. In a moment, however, the mystery was solved by her lightly throwing a snow-white piece of linen over her head, which, as if by magic, took the form of the cornet of a Sister of S. Vincent de Paul.

“Sister Mary!” I exclaimed, “whom I knew at Constantinople!”

“The same,” she answered. “I thought I knew you!” And shaking hands cordially, we sat down to talk over the past.

She was a native of Ireland--her accent alone betrayed her, though she had not seen her native land for years--and I had known her in the East, after which she had been to Algiers and various other parts. Now, to her great joy, she had been ordered for a while to one of the convents of the order in Dublin--a joy which, though she tried, nun-like, to subdue it, burst forth uncontrollably the nearer we approached the land. Coming with me on deck to watch our entrance into Kingstown Harbor, the first person we met was Harry West, who eyed my companion with amazement; for he had never seen a Sister of Charity in living form before, though he entertained that sort of romantic admiration for them which the most rigid Protestants often accord to this order, though they deny it to every other. Turning round again, my surprise was great at encountering the Bishop--the _Catholic_ Bishop--of ----shire, on his way to the consecration of a church in the far west of Ireland. “Quelle heureuse rencontre!” said his lordship playfully; for we were very old friends. “You see I am attracted also to the _dear_ old country! You smile,” he continued, noticing my amused expression as I introduced Harry to him. “Oh! yes, I know I am a Saxon, _pur sang_. But we English bishops and priests always feel as if we were at home the instant we put our foot on shore in the Green Isle. There’s Kingstown and its church, where I shall go to say Mass the moment we land. Watch, now!” he added, as we drew up alongside the jetty; “you’ll see how civil the men will be the instant they perceive I am a bishop.” As he spoke a porter rushed by, and an impulse seized me to give him a hint to this effect. At once the man knelt down, in all his hurry, “for his lordship’s blessing;” nor did he limit his attentions to this, but insisted on carrying his luggage, not only on shore, but up to the hotel, refusing, as the bishop later told us, to accept a penny for his time and trouble--“the honor of serving his lordship and of getting his blessing was quite reward enough!”

Harry, standing by, could not believe his eyes. It was a phase of life quite unknown to him. But there was no time for meditation; the train was on the pier, the whistle sounded, and we were soon on the road to Dublin.

It was Sunday--the one day of all others which, had I wished to show Harry the difference between the two countries, I should have purposely chosen; the one morning in the week when Dublin is astir from early dawn, and London, on the other hand, sleeps. Residents in the latter, Catholic residents especially, are painfully aware of the difficulty of finding cab or conveyance of any kind to take them to early Mass, and know how, in the finest summer weather, they may wander through the parks without meeting a human being until the afternoon. In England church-going commences, properly speaking, at eleven o’clock only, and then chiefly for the upper classes; the evening services, on the contrary, are largely attended by the servants and trades-people, to meet which custom a vast majority of families dine on cold viands, or even relinquish the meal altogether, substituting tea, with cold meat--or “heavy tea,” as it is generally called--for the ordinary social gathering. In Ireland, as in every Catholic country, the whole system is reversed, as the natural consequence of the church discipline, which enjoins the hearing of Mass on the whole community, high and low; and--contrary to the Protestant system--once this obligation fulfilled, the attendance at evening service is necessarily much smaller. Harry never having even been out of England, except for a “run up the Rhine” some years before, and knowing no Catholic but myself, it never occurred to him to think of these distinctions, nor to suppose that he would find anything in Ireland different from English ways, except that unlimited lawlessness the existence of which he believed made life so impossible there.

He was in the process of recovering from his astonishment at the unfamiliar phraseology of the Westland Row railway porters when our passage to the cab was impeded by a crowd suddenly rushing along the footway, met by an advancing one from the opposite direction, composed of the very poorest class, men, women, and children. Harry’s lively imagination and preconceived ideas led him at once to conclude that it must be a Fenian Hyde Park mob _renforcé_; and the bewildered horror of his countenance at thus finding his worst fears realized the instant he arrived at the Dublin terminus was beyond all description comic.

“Ah! sure, your honor, it’s the seven o’clock Mass that’s just over, and the half-past seven that is going to begin,” explained the cabman, pointing to the large church which stands at Westland Row adjoining the railway station. “Sure, this goes on every half-hour until one o’clock. An’t we all obliged to hear Mass, whatever else we do?” And as we proceeded, I cross-questioned him for the benefit of my cousin. We discovered that this same man had been to church at six o’clock that morning, belonged to a confraternity, approached the sacraments regularly, and performed various acts of charity in sickness and distress amongst his fellow-members, in accordance with the rules of the said society; yet he was but poorly clad, and showed no outward signs of the remarkable intelligence with which he answered me on every point.

As usual on these occasions, the choice of a hotel had been puzzling, the Shelbourne, Morrison’s, Maple’s, each having their distinctive advantages; but at last we decided in favor of the Imperial, a quiet but comfortable establishment facing the General Post-Office in Sackville Street. The streets were alive with people as we crossed Carlisle Bridge, past Smith O’Brien’s white marble statue; and Harry could not help noticing the contrast to England at that early Sunday hour.

Refreshed by our ablutions and clean toilets, we were comfortably seated at breakfast, when sounds of music approaching caused us to rush to the window, and showed us a wagonette full of musicians in green uniform, playing “Garry Owen” and “Patrick’s Day,” followed by half a dozen outside cars full of men and women.

“Fenians!” cried Harry. “I told you I could not be mistaken.”

“Only some trade guild going out for an innocent day’s pleasure in the country; after having been to Mass too, I have no doubt,” observed a gentleman close by, whose accent was unmistakably English. “This is not the only custom that will seem new to you, if you are strangers,” he continued, addressing Harry, and smiling meanwhile. “No two countries ever were more different than England and Ireland. I shall never forget my astonishment on arriving here two years ago. I could not get accustomed to it at all at first. I remember one circumstance particularly which greatly struck me. I arrived on a Sunday morning, as you have done, and taking up the _Freeman’s Journal_--one of the best Dublin papers--on Monday, perceived a short paragraph in a corner, headed, ‘A Bishop Killed,’ so small that it might easily have escaped notice. Nor was there any allusion to it in any other part of the paper; but, reading on, you may conceive my surprise at finding that ‘a bishop’ was no one less than the Bishop of Winchester, _the_ leading bishop in England, whose death by a fall from his horse, you will remember, convulsed that country through its length and breadth. Not one of my acquaintances even--and I had many in Dublin--took the smallest interest in it. They had not followed his career; he had not the slightest influence in Ireland; and few knew his name, or that he was any relation to the great Wilberforce. On the other hand, they were at the time living upon news from the North, where a police officer was on his trial for the murder of a bank manager--a fact which no one in England gave the smallest heed to. I had never heard of it. But that same afternoon the head waiter of the hotel, unable to conceal his excitement, came up and whispered to me, ‘He is condemned, sir! I have got a telegram from Omagh myself this instant.’ I had only been thirty-six hours in Ireland at the time, and, having merely glanced at the newspaper, knew nothing of the trial; so I was electrified and mystified beyond measure, and had no remedy but to sit down and study it. I then discovered it was deeply interesting from its bearing upon all classes, and I could not resist writing to some of the English papers and endeavoring to excite them on the subject. But it would not do! No paper inserted my letter. The similarity of interest is not kept up continuously between the two countries, owing very much, I think, to the little interchange of newspapers between them. I hope you have ordered your _Times_ to be forwarded, sir,” he continued; “for you can’t expect to find one to buy in Dublin. They’ll always give you the _Irish Times_, if you merely ask for the _Times_; they never think about the latter--far less than on the Continent.”

This was a dreadful blow to Harry; for, like all Englishmen, he could not exist without his _Times_ at breakfast, and, though I proposed that he should write for it by that night’s mail, his reviving spirits were sadly checked by the feeling of being in a land which apparently did not believe in _his_ guide and vade-mecum. I felt it would be heartless under such circumstances to leave him alone; yet, I should go to Mass. At length, not liking to let me wander by myself in “such a dangerous city,” he offered to accompany me and give up his own service for the day. A little curiosity, I thought, lurked beneath the kindness; but if so, it was amply rewarded.

Following the porter’s direction of “first to the right and then to the left,” we soon reached the handsome church in Marlborough Street, opposite the National Schools. As at Westland Row, so here an immense crowd was pouring out, but a far larger one pushing in; so that, although long before twelve o’clock, we considered ourselves fortunate in getting any places whatever. Unaware that this was the cathedral, and without any expectations regarding it in consequence, our surprise was great when a long procession moved up the centre, closed by His Eminence Cardinal Cullen, in full pontificals, blessing us as he passed. “Those are the canons who attend on all great occasions, and the young men are the students at Clonliffe Seminary,” whispered a young woman next me in answer to my inquiries, while his eminence was taking his seat on the throne, to Harry’s infinite edification. “And we shall have a sermon from Father Burke after Mass,” she continued--“‘our Prince of Preachers,’ as the cardinal calls him. I came here more than an hour ago, in order to get a place. I promise you it’ll be worth hearing. Oh! there’s no one like him. God bless him!”

And as she said, so it happened. The instant Mass was over, not before, the famous Dominican was seen ascending the pulpit. The centre of the church was filled with benches, and a standing mass in the passage between, while the aisles were so packed by the poorest classes that a pin could not be dropped amongst them. Of that vast multitude not one individual had stirred, and in a few seconds they hung with rapt attention upon every word spoken by the gifted preacher. By their countenances it was easy to see how they followed all his arguments, drank in every sentiment, and--who could wonder at it?--were entranced by his lofty accents. Harry himself was mesmerized. The subject was charity, and the cause an appeal for schools under Sisters of Charity. In all his experience of English preachers--and it was varied--Harry confessed that he had never heard anything like this. Whether for sublime language, beautiful, delicate action, pathetic tone, quotations from Scripture Old and New, or eloquence of appeal, he considered it unrivalled. It lasted an hour, but seemed not five minutes. As we passed out of the door, the plates were filled with piles of those one-pound notes which in Ireland represent the gold. I saw Harry’s hand glide almost unconsciously into his pockets, and beheld a sovereign fall noiselessly amongst the paper.

“One certainly is the better of a fine sermon,” he remarked, as we sauntered back to the hotel; “and I never heard a finer. Altogether, it was a remarkable sight, and the people looked mild enough. But we must not trust to appearances nor be deceived too easily, you know,” he added after a few moments.

I knew nothing of the kind, but thought the best reply would be a proposal to follow the multitude who were now crowding the tram-carriages that start from Nelson’s Pillar to all the suburbs. “In half an hour the streets will be deserted until evening,” said our English acquaintance, whom we again met accidentally, and who recommended a walk on the pier at Kingstown as the least fatiguing trip, volunteering, moreover, to accompany us part of the way, as he was going to visit friends on that line at the “Rock,” as Blackrock is usually called. It was contrary to Harry’s customs on the “Sabbath”; yet, after all the church-going he had seen that morning, he could not deny that air and exercise were most legitimate. Accordingly, entering a crowded train to Westland Row, we soon found ourselves retracing the route we came a few hours before.

Most truly has it been said that no city has more varied or beautiful suburbs than Dublin, and no population which so much enjoy them. Hitherto we had seen few but the lower and middle classes; for the wealthier side of Dublin is south of the Liffey. Moreover, being autumn, the “fashionables” were not in town. They were either travelling on the Continent or scattered in the vicinity. The train, however, was full of smart dresses and bright faces, “wreathed in smiles” and brimming over with merriment. Every one, too, seemed more or less to know every one else, and even our English friend was acquainted with many. “That is Judge Keogh,” he said, as he bowed to a short, square-built man waiting on the platform near us--“Keogh, of the celebrated Galway judgment--a man of first-rate talent, as you may guess from his broad forehead and long head; but he has ruined himself by his violence on that occasion. He is quite ‘broken’ since then, and his spirits gone; for he knows what his fellow-countrymen think of him, and he rarely appears in public except upon the bench. He is probably going to Bray now, where he is spending the summer quietly and unnoticed. And that is Judge Monahan getting into the next carriage with those ladies--he who presided at the Yelverton trial; also of great legal capacity and a most kindly, tender-hearted man, always surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Sir Dominic Corrigan, the eminent physician, is in that corner yonder; his fame has doubtless reached you too,” he continued, addressing Harry, who had been contemplating the two legal celebrities, well known to him through his oracle, the _Times_, which, from their connection with the above-named events, had noticed them on both occasions. “I could point out many others, if I could escort you to Kingstown”; but as we halted at the Blackrock Station a smart carriage was awaiting and carried him off inland, whilst we dashed onwards, the blue waters of Dublin Bay, bounded by the hill of Howth, on our left, and rows of terraces and pretty villas along the shore on our right.

It was a bright afternoon, with a cool, refreshing breeze, and the pier was one gay mass of pedestrians. The whole of Dublin might have been there, so great was the gathering; but we afterwards found that every other side of the capital was equally frequented. Fully an English mile in length, it is of substantial masonry, which on the outer side slopes by large blocks of granite into the sea, while a broad road skirts the inner line next to the harbor, terminated by a lighthouse at the extreme point. Old and young were here congregated; children playing amongst the granite rocks; clerks and shop-girls, mixed with whole families of the professional classes of the capital, perambulating in groups, dressed in their prettiest and brightest, looking the very pictures of enjoyment and friendly intercourse. A man-of-war was anchored in the harbor, which was also full of graceful yachts and alive with boating parties rowing about in all directions. A more healthful, innocent afternoon it were difficult to conceive, and even Harry admitted the general _brio_ which seemed to pervade the air. Nor could he any longer deny the proverbial beauty of the Dublin maidens; and I found him quite ready to linger on a seat and watch the clear complexions and faultless features that passed in such constant succession before us.

After some time that tinge of melancholy common to strangers in a crowd began imperceptibly to steal over us, as we awoke to the recollection that we alone seemed without acquaintances in that throng, and we moved to the station on our way Dublin-ward. Suddenly the one defect to us was repaired; for on the platform we found the Bishop of ----shire going to Dalkey to dine with some old friends. Harry had made rapid strides since the morning; for his face brightened as he recognized our fellow-passenger, and the next moment, undisguisedly admitting that he had spent a charming day, he dwelt with earnestness on the splendid sermon of the morning.

“Oh! yes,” observed a priest who accompanied his lordship, “even a Protestant clergyman told me lately that he considered the only orators in the true sense of the word now in the United Kingdom to be Gladstone, Bright, and Father Burke. But Father Burke has something more than mere oratory,” said he, smiling. “You ought to hear him at his own church in Dominic Street, where he is to preach again to-night. He is more at home there than anywhere else. If you want a real treat in the matter of preaching, I recommend you to go there.”

The remark was dropped at random; but, to my excessive surprise, Harry caught fire, and, finding me willing, he hurried through his dinner in a manner that was perfectly astounding. Then, in feverish haste, we made our way to S. Saviour’s. It was not yet eight o’clock, but still the church was so full that entrance was quite impossible. There was no standing room even, said those at the door, and we were turning away, to Harry’s deep disappointment, when a beggar-woman accosted us with “Won’t your honor give me something for a cup of tea? Sure, I dreamt last night that your honor would give me a pound of tea and her ladyship a pound of sugar. Ye were the very faces I saw in my drame. And may God reward ye!”

“Dreams go by contraries,” replied Harry testily, so vexed at missing the sermon that he was in no humor to be teased.

“Indeed! then, that’s just it,” answered the woman, an arch wink lighting up her wizened features. “It’s just your honor, then, that’s to give me the sugar and her ladyship the tea; so it’ll be good luck for me anyhow! And may God bless you and his holy Mother watch over you!” she continued, as Harry, unable to resist a hearty laugh at the woman’s readiness, drew out his purse and handed her a shilling. “And now, sure, I’ll show ye how to get in to hear his riverence! There’s no one all the world over like Father Burke!--the darlin’. It would be a sin for you to go away without hearing him; so I’ll bring ye round to the sacristy door, and you’ll get in quite comfortable!”

“You must be very much at home here, if you can manage that,” observed Harry, amused at the whole performance, as we meekly followed our tattered guide.