Volume 5 — Chapter XXXI. America.

Two years have passed since the events happened which we last presented to our readers: it is on the other side of the Atlantic that our view now opens, but the friends we greet are of those we left behind.

The scene is in a beautiful extensive garden, well planted with trees; behind, on an eminence, rises a large white house with numerous piazzas which contrast pleasingly with the green sward and shrubs before it. The slope before the house is covered with groups of children weaving garlands, for it is a holiday, the feast of St. Aloysius; and all the schools have freed their pupils great and small. Feeling the privilege of the day, the children have bounded into the grounds of their patrons, M. and Madame de Villeneuve. They knew that a strawberry festival was preparing for them, and on their parts were anxious to be busy. Festoons were hung from pillar to pillar. The large refectory was opened, and the walls garlanded; merry voices were singing childish hymns and songs, and good humor was visible everywhere.

The grounds were very spacious; far away might be seen grown persons in holiday-trim; lads and lasses preparing the tables, and a band of music sending up, every now and then, cheery notes to gladden all around.

In yonder silent glade too, half hid by the thickness of the foliage, Eugene Godfrey is walking with his young bride; they are not yet past the honeymoon, and are bound for England. To-morrow is the day fixed for their departure, and the lady-bride; formerly Elise de Villeneuve, the youngest and fairest daughter of the house of De Villeneuve, is sentimentalizing very prettily her regrets at leaving, perhaps for ever, the paternal mansion.

Clotilde de Villeneuve, who has already entered as a postulant at the convent which is visible on that eminence to the right—rising majestically above the world and backed in the distance by the interminable forest; from which it is separated by that lovely series of lakes which lie at the foot of the hill on which the building stands—Clotilde de Villeneuve has for this one day consented to break inclosure that she may bid good-by to the young sister she brought up so carefully since her mother died.

There is another lady there, looking fairer and younger than when we saw her last, giving directions in a very pleasing tone; and ever and anon looking back, a little anxiously perhaps, to see what two young girls were doing with a something in a bundle of white muslin, which seemed very animated, and which the nurses are trying to kill with kindness.

The pastor approaches, a fine old man with mild eyes, white hair, and a very benevolent aspect. All the little ones rise and courtesy, and Hester, yes, our old friend Hester, comes forward to greet him affectionately.

"Where is your husband, my dear lady?" asked the good priest, after returning the preliminary greeting.

"Well, I hardly know, he has been on the qui vive all day, here and there and everywhere. I hardly know where he is now. Do you want him particularly, father? You seem uneasy."

"Let us go in out of this hot sun," said the pastor, wiping his forehead.

They adjourned to the parlor, which opened on both sides to a piazza shaded by climbing plants, and thus promised a cool retreat. Hester handed the old gentleman a refreshing drink, for he seemed weary and excited. On setting down the glass, be whispered: "Are we alone here? Is anyone listening?"

"Not that I am aware of." said Hester, glancing in all directions. "I see no one, father, what is the matter?"

"There is mischief brewing in the city yonder; I want to see your husband. For the last six weeks there has been a strange man there, of singular eloquence, fomenting discord about Catholics, getting up a no-popery cry, uttering fearful scandals concerning the convent; to-night the people threaten to burn it down."

"Can this be true? Who is your informant?"

"My man Walter. It seems he knew the stranger in England."

"I know Edward has been annoyed with reports of some plots, but he thought as little about it as he could; he never harmed any body, and cannot imagine any body would harm him."

"This is a religions or rather a fanatical plot. What the purpose is, it is difficult to discover. The designer means something dark, you may be sure, the multitude are but his tools. He has used all the plea he could find; have not your committees refused many applications to receive pupils?"

"Yes, Edward acts on his father's plan, and he says the old marquis always insisted that a child was more formed by his companions than by his teachers; that one dissipated worldly companion would contaminate a school. It seems he loved real children, and hated the little bits of affectation, aping men and women, which we now so often see; so Edward will positively not have a child in the schools unless he knows the home influence they are under. In fact, our schools are not only exclusively Catholic, those we call normal schools are open only to picked Catholics. Edward wants them to turn out good and efficient teachers of practical Catholicity, and before he receives a pupil he not only exacts certain promises from the children, but from the parents also, as to the influence they will exercise from a distance. As long as they attend his schools they are under certain restrictions, at home as well as abroad."

"All this is good for the children, but it has made enemies. Those out of the pale pretend something must be wrong in so exclusive a system; they are jealous of advantages from which their children are excluded."

"But a great deal of the influence exerted is purely religious; how can we bring that influence to bear on such as are not Catholics, or who are worldly Catholics, who come merely for secular advantages?"

"I am not saying you are not right; I only say you have made enemies."

"I believe my husband would rather give up the schools than compromise his principles. He has been intimately acquainted with the management of some Catholic schools in which all parties were admitted: the rule was to all alike, it was difficult to make a distinction. Children, non-Catholics, were admitted to religious societies, services, and processions. He has a very firm conviction that the result was that they were led to believe that assisting with due outward decorum, without the internal feeling of reverence, was all that Catholicity required; while the Catholics themselves, seeing others without faith were thus admitted, naturally ceased to regard faith as so essential a matter as the sermons heard in church proclaim it to be, and became liberal Catholics when they retained their faith at all. My husband knows he is called bigoted, but I do not think it has changed his feeling. He thinks the Catholic school a sacred place; and the soul of a little baptized child a thing to be guarded with reverential awe."

"Yes, I know De Villeneuve's reverence: he should have lived in the times when the catechumens were driven out of the church before the sacred mysteries could be performed."

"Indeed, father, I have seen his whole frame quiver with terror when any one, Catholic or non-Catholic, behaved irreverently in the presence of the blessed sacrament. He maintains that the worldliness of the age springs from the want of this reverence."

"He may be right, but meantime we must provide for the present safety. Your brother is not gone?"

"No, he starts to-morrow. I will send for him to come and see you."

M. de Villeneuve was not to be found, for the very cause that brought the priest to his dwelling. He was in earnest conference with the priest's man Walter on the subject of the projected attack. "Are you sure it was your brother that you saw?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"You did not let him see you?"

"I did not; I was very careful on that point."

"And you are sure they fixed tonight?"

"Quite sure, but if disappointed tonight they will try some other night."

"Did you hear of any one person marked out for any special object."

"There will be an attempt made to carry off Lady Conway and her children."

"I suspected as much. Well, we must be prepared; I will row Lady Conway across the lake, and you can drive her up the country to neighbor Friendly's house, without anyone suspecting the matter. Be silent and cautious, I will prepare watches secretly. You get home as quickly as you can from the drive."

"I will, sir."

The fête passed off without any alarm: no one would have dreamed that an attack was expected. The nuns one by one left the convent, which was supposed to be the object aimed at by the attack, and let the watchers guard the dwelling, while they took refuge at M. de Villeneuve's mansion. They dared not alarm the inmates of the school-house, which they thought was left out of the plot, lest their plan of safety should be frustrated. But an armed band watched over its safety in the hovels, and wherever they could be stationed unseen.

It was a dreary watch, though a lovely night; the round, full moon threw its splendid light over hill and and valley, lake and forest glades. Not a sound was heard. The watchers did not trust themselves to speak, lest they should give the alarm outside. Eleven, twelve, one, two; shall we wait longer? Yes, there is a sound outside; the out-houses are already on fire, and the school-house and the convent—all at once. A whole multitude of rioters are in the grounds; they force the convent doors, and, to their surprise, are met by armed men.

"Save, save the children," is the cry; "let everything go, even the prisoners, till they are saved." There is no engine, the city is so far away, and rioters are all around; but ladders had been prepared during the day, and everyone was soon in requisition. But the fire seemed then the least evil, for as each young lady was borne from the flames a mob surrounded her, and a fight ensued for possession. It was a terrible scene, the more terrible as it was impossible to get the children and teachers together to see if all were there. There was no resource but to fire on the assailants, and accordingly a volley was discharged. This sobered the people somewhat; they loosed their hold and fled. One man, with a few followers, lingered awhile, apparently very anxious still to examine the parties saved; he was observed and seized by a strong hand and bound. Alfred Brookbank was the prisoner of his brother Walter.

And now are the pupils all saved? for the house is burning fast. How anxiously they were counted! What a relief to find them all there! There were no lives lost, and but that the building had been fired in many places at once, that could have been saved by the valiant arms who were there to defend it. But the evil work had been done effectually, the convent and school-house were level with the ground. Many of the valuables had been removed the day before; but the furniture was destroyed. The newspapers said it was the work of the mob; yes, but that mob was excited by one man's revengeful soul, which had animated the spirit of that mob to frenzy. Americans are too generous to make war upon defenceless women, unless incited thereto by some false tale of wickedness.

To bring the poor frightened children into the house, and to send to the city for police, occupied nearly all the night, and part of the next day; and then they took time to examine the prisoner who had been cast bound into the cellar. He was crest-fallen and terror-smitten at last! He knew the tale of terror his brother would have to tell; the quarrel about the estate; the offer to compromise; the attempt to drown him by throwing him over-board near the falls; and, finally, the belief on Alfred's part that the crime had been consummated when a body, disfigured and shapeless, had been picked up below the falls. He did not wait long in jail to have this and a long catalogue brought out against him—he died by his own hand.

Walter Brookbank wandering, restless, and dissipated, had been seized with fever in a wretched hovel, where he was found by some poor Catholics, who brought the priest (then on a mission in that district) to see him. The priest had him tended and cared for till he was well, then invited him to his house, and converted him to a Christian life; redeemed him doubly, first from the death of this life, then from that of the next. Walter had been grateful, and preferred to live henceforth as servant of the church, than to re-encounter the perils of the world by claiming his inheritance; it passed by default to his mother and sisters.

Our tale draws to its conclusion.

The multitude who, deceived by Alfred Brookbank's inflammatory tongue, had fired the convent, slunk away to their homes, ashamed, at length, of having expended all their energy in a cowardly attack on defenceless women and children. Would I could say they repented and endeavored to repair the mischief; but it was not so, the convent was rebuilt, but it was by Catholic money, by Catholic hands, and by Catholic hearts; and save the ring-leader, who, as we have seen, judged himself, the perpetrators of the dastardly deed remained unsought for by the authorities, undiscovered and unpunished.

This event checked for a while the work of the good society which M. de Villeneuve had founded, and of which he was the president and the "animus." This society was composed of enlightened Catholic fathers and mothers, who were fervent in their desires of establishing high Catholic education on a firm and practical basis. It was a committee formed to aid the practice of those precepts delivered by the zealous pastors of the church; to examine the books put into the hands of children, and to have them written, if none suitable were found, on the subjects required; to discuss all points of discipline recommended to them by the teachers, and provide that the financial department should not harass those who had charge of the intellectual department. They were outside co-operators in the good work of education; valuable coadjutors in a matter in which it concerns every good Catholic to interest himself, for society is made up of individuals, and on the good training of those individuals depends the public welfare.

Their schools comprised both sexes; I will now speak of the girls only, as it was the matter in which our friend Hester most interested herself, for the reason that she thought that the formation of good women, wives and mothers, is lost sight of in the fashionable circles of our large cities. She had discovered that the fathers and husbands (men of large wealth and of thriving business) were, through the extravagance and non-domesticity of their families (more particularly of their wives and daughters), leading a life of torture under the appearance of prosperity; and that young men, with incomes of from $1,500 to $2,000 a year, shrank from marrying, because of the extravagance and selfishness they daily witnessed among the ladies. "Now," said Hester, with something of her old positiveness, "if this is so, the responsibility of the shame and degradation of so many unfortunate women lies at the door of the rich and honored ladies who turn aside from them in disgust, and the education of true women must be the basis of the renovation of society: for to woman's influence is confided the happiness of the family, as to family influence is committed the guardianship of the state. Where the family is out of joint, the state will be out of joint too. O my dear Edward! I now comprehend the prophecy you think so much of: 'That the worship of the blessed mother of God will be in after times one such as is not dreamed of in the present age of disruption. The blessed Virgin is the example of all womanhood; the family of Nazareth the true type of the Christian family; labor, purity, intelligence, submission, such must be the watchwords of all womanly training; such will form happy households and forward true progress.'"

The objects of the educational institutions at Villeneuve were in strict accordance with these views; they comprised several classes, and in each class were several departments.

The highest was that of a boarding-school, regulated by the nuns themselves; it was within the enclosure, though apart from the convent, and having its own allotted grounds. It was a normal school, the object of which was to prepare efficient school teachers for the parochial schools throughout the country. No pupil could enter this establishment under fifteen years of age, or for a shorter period than three years; and if at the end of that time she had won her diploma, she was expected for the two years following to place herself at the disposal of the church, to teach any parochial school that might require such assistance. Besides the thorough course of instruction given during these three years, to enable the pupils to fulfil their duties efficiently as school-teachers, and to keep pace with the secular knowledge required by the age, the pupils were required to do all their own work: they took it by turns to provide for the household; the cooking, washing, every part of the household work, and making their own clothes, were all done by themselves; so that at the end of the five years, when their term of teaching had expired, they were ready to become either efficient members of society, fit to perform the duty of wife, mother, or teacher, or to enter religion, should such prove to be their vocation.

The second class of schools were named the probation schools; these, in their various departments, received children of all ages under fifteen, but Catholics only. The parents of the children attending these schools were required to give a guarantee that, during the children's attendance at these schools, they should not be allowed to read either novels or any other books not approved by the committee, nor attend any place of amusement disapproved by the church. In fact, during their attendance at school, it was a part of the labor of the directors to provide suitable relaxation within the school grounds, that they might the more easily discourage all dissipation outside. There were also regulations concerning deportment and dress, which formed very efficient aids in inculcating Christian manners, but the details of which it is not necessary to give here.

These schools are supposed to be the Christian schools par pre-eminence. The young ladies of the first-named schools were much sought as wives, when their excellence became known; most of them could have married rich men, had they chosen to marry out of the church, but this, I need hardly say, they refused to do. Many entered teaching sisterhoods, and proved very efficient members of the society which they joined.

The children of the second series were, on the other hand, simple, joyous, affectionate, pious, and obedient. The age for childhood was renewed, and the results were very pleasing.

Besides these, the committee prevailed on M. de Villeneuve to establish (after the incendiary fire) general schools open to the community at large. In these schools the routine was Catholic; none but Catholic books were admitted, and as much Catholic training was introduced as the public mind would bear. These institutions were thronged, for the teachers were efficient, and the discipline much approved of. These were the best remunerating schools of the series. But M. de Villeneuve could never be brought to be satisfied with the results, and only in deference to the wishes of his friends did he tolerate them at all. His chief care was to prevent children from these schools being admitted to serve in the church or to take part in religious processions, until they had been well proved, and then he wished them removed to the Christian schools before he presented them to the pastor. Many thought the man a monomaniac, he had so great a horror of sacrilege, or indeed of witnessing any irreverence in the church at all. Strangely enough, his wife Hester saw in this only an additional virtue, which she endeavored to assist her husband in enforcing, as indeed she did in all his regulations.

A week or two after the fire, when the excitement had somewhat subsided, Eugene took his young wife to England. He found that Adelaide had been so busy during the past two years in providing orphan asylums, refuges, and hospitals, and so forth, that Mr. Godfrey had been very frequently alone, and this rendered him very glad to welcome his pretty, gentle daughter-in-law, and he persuaded Eugene to establish himself at Estcourt Hall, that he himself might have a home for his old age. In due time he learnt to amuse himself with his, little grand-children, utterly forgetful that they were members of a hated church. I never heard that be became a Catholic himself.

Eugene soon found interest and employment in aiding the Catholic movement which first agitated for emancipation, and then employed earnest minds in co-operating with the declared will of the church, to give efficiency to the measures which soon after provided a Catholic hierarchy for England.

As soon as Mr. Godfrey's comfort was provided for in Eugene's household, Adelaide united her efforts to those of Ellen, and together they established a society, which in after years developed itself as one of the many orders of Mercy which bless the great city of London. Without a uniform, though living under a rule, these ladies and their associates perform countless deeds of charity and kindness, the origin of which is often unknown to the recipients. Few among that saintly community are more anxious to obey, or to humble themselves, than the once proud duchess. Generous to all, to herself alone she became sparing and non-indulgent, and if the voice of praise, often publicly lauding her, met her ear in private, she would say, with a sigh, "Ah! how easy is all this, to give when we have more than we want, and to love those who spend their life in toil for the comfort and luxury of the wealthy. But to love God as Bridget Norton loved him; to trust him when nothing but clouds and darkness were around; to face starvation, disgrace, and all, in trust that God would bring up those dear little ones for himself—this is heroism. Oh! talk not of the goodness of the rich; they are great people in this world of false show, but Bridget Norton called down the angels to witness her death and bear her noble martyr soul to heaven."

. . . .

Annie's children rewarded her care; the boy became a worthy priest, and the girl, after witnessing the consecration of her brother, requested permission to enter the convent in which she was brought up. Mother and daughter received the veil on the same day. All efforts to recover the property for the children proved fruitless. But they had long since learned that happiness does not consist in wealth.