Volume 21 — CHAPTER VIII. A STARTLING DISCLOSURE. (continued 2)

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.

“Oh! then, don’t I spend half my time in the church, your honor! A poor body like me can’t work; but sure an’ can’t I pray? I hear three Masses every Sunday and one every week-day. Sure, it’d be a sin if I didn’t. Oh! I don’t mane it’d be a sin on week-days, but it’d be a mortal sin if I didn’t hear one on Sundays. Sure, every one knows that!” …

This was, however, precisely the kind of knowledge in which Harry was utterly deficient. Mortal sin and venial sin were to him, as to most Englishmen, unknown terms, and he gaped with bewilderment as this ragged woman proceeded to develop to him the difference in the clearest possible language. There is no saying to what length the catechetical instruction might have extended, if we had not reached the sacristy door, where, true enough, the clerk, noticing we were strangers, led us into reserved seats beside the sanctuary, though even there but scant room then remained.

S. Saviour’s, built by the Dominicans within the last fifteen years, is an excellent specimen of Gothic, and, filled to overflowing with a devout, earnest congregation, upon whom brilliant gaseliers now shed a flood of light, no sight could be more impressive. The devotions, so fitting in a Dominican church, commenced with the Rosary, which being over, the black mantle, white robe, and striking head of the favorite preacher rose above the pulpit ledge. His text was again on charity; and if anything were needed to show his powers, the versatility with which he treated the same theme would have been all-sufficient. Harry was lost in admiration, especially as it was extempore, in contradistinction to the Protestant habit of reading sermons; nor could he believe, on looking at his watch, that we had once more been listening for an entire hour. He could have remained there for many more quarters; and, to judge from their countenances, so could the whole congregation, even to the very poorest. Benediction followed, and, as deeply impressed as in the morning, we pursued our way back with the crowd through Dominic Street into Sackville street and to our “home” at the Imperial Hotel.

Next morning Harry West was a different man. I sought, however, for an explanation in vain. No Times, it is true, was forthcoming; but then it was Monday, and in his Buckinghamshire retreat this likewise happened on the first day of the week. The Irish papers doubtless irritated him by their paucity of English news—not even “a bishop killed!”—and their volubility on topics quite unfamiliar to him was very vexatious. Still this was not sufficient to account for the change which had come over the spirit of his dream. At length, by a slight hint, I discovered that he thought he had allowed himself to be carried away giddily by the excitement of the previous day, and that he must look at matters more soberly if he really were to be an impartial judge. This was the day of our departure for Westmeath, and he would not be influenced by any one. Our train did not leave until three P.M., and I urged a ramble through the town; but in his present mood he viewed everything askance, and would not even smile at the many witticisms and pleasant answers which I found it possible to draw forth from the guides, porters, and cabmen, almost unconsciously to themselves.

At last we started from the Broadstone station. The afternoon was cloudy, and, as we advanced, the country became dull and uninteresting. The line ran beside a canal—on which there seemed but poor traffic—bordered by broad fields of pasture, so thinly stocked with cattle, however, and so deserted-looking, though in the vicinity of Dublin, that the effect was even depressing upon me. Two ladies in our compartment, certainly, noticed it as something unusual, saying some mysterious words about Ballinasloe fair and how different it would be when that event took place; but they left the carriage immediately, so we had no opportunity of cross-questioning them. In the course of two and a half hours we reached our terminus at Athboy, and the porter, asking if we were the friends expected by Mrs. Connor, handed me a note just brought from her. It explained that one of her horses being laid up and she likewise ailing, she could neither come herself nor send her carriage; she hoped, therefore, that we might be content with the “outside car,” a cart going at the same time for our luggage. Content I certainly was, for I loved the national vehicle; but Harry had never tried one, and in his present temper nothing pleased him. The civility of the coachman even provoked him, and made him whisper something about “blarney” in my ear. However, putting our cloaks and bundles in the “well,” we got up back to back, one on each side and the coachman on the seat in the middle.

Athboy, too, known to Harry from the debates as a focus of Ribbonism, was an unlucky starting-point, and the number of barefooted though well-made, handsome children running about its streets, greatly shocked him.

Whether the coachman really urged on the horse faster than on subsequent occasions, or the turnings were sharper, or that Harry was startled by the difficulty every novice experiences in holding on, I have never since been able to ascertain; but, looking around at him in less than five minutes after we left, his piteous expression convulsed me with laughter. From him, however, it met with no response, and he either could not or would not admire the brilliant sunset sky, which in autumn is often so exquisite in this part of Ireland. With every step the road grew prettier, thickly overshadowed by the large, spreading trees of the beautiful gentlemen’s seats in this district; though here and there a wretched roadside cabin startled Harry from his revery, and the recurrence of a black cross now and again on a wall attracted his attention.

“O sir! that’s only where some one was killed,” answered Dan, the coachman, most innocently, making Harry shudder meanwhile; though in the same breath he added: “This is where Mr. W—— was killed by a fall from his horse, and the last one was put up where poor Biddy Whelan was thrown out of the cart when returning from market at Delvin two years last Michaelmas, by the old horse shying. She died on the spot in a few minutes, and these crosses are painted that way on the wall to remind us to say a prayer for the poor souls. God be merciful to them!”

Harry’s sidelong glances towards me, however, plainly proved that he mistrusted the man’s words and gave them a very different meaning. By degrees—as always does happen on these cars, which amongst their many advantages cannot boast their adaptation for conversation—we grew silent, and no one had spoken for the next ten minutes, when we turned down a long, straight road, rendered still darker by the magnificent elms which stretched across it as in a high arch. Suddenly a feeble shot was heard not far off, and at the same moment Harry jumped off the car, put his hand to his heart, and cried out: “I’m killed! I’m killed!” What words can express my horror? To this day I know not how I too jumped off; I only know that I found myself standing beside him in an agony of mind. Had all my vain boasting, all my obstinacy, resulted in this? Was poor Harry West thus to be sacrificed to my foolhardiness? But the agony though sharp was—must I betray my cousin’s weakness, and confess it?—short. I looked for blood, for fainting, for anything resembling my preconceived notions of a “roadside murder”; when, as quickly as he had jumped off the car, so quickly he now seemed to recover. Ashamed of himself he certainly was, when, taking away his hand, he was obliged to admit “it was all a mistake!” After all, he had never been touched! But the shot had been so unexpected, and he had at the time been brooding so deeply over all the stories he had read of “agrarian outrages,” that he had positively thought he had been hit; and very natural it seemed to him, as no doubt he had been already recognized as a land agent by the Irish population![178] Quite impossible is it to describe my mingled feelings of vexation at the needless fright and of uncontrollable amusement at my English friend’s unexampled folly. Dan, the coachman, underwent the same process, only in an aggravated form; for, while he felt indignant at the implied insult to his countrymen, every feature in his face betrayed the most uncontrollable amusement, mixed with supreme contempt; for he declared that the shot was fired by his own son running in search of hedge-sparrows, as was his wont at that hour, and he pointed him out to us in the next field, which belonged to Mrs. Connor. The gate of her avenue was only a few yards further on.

If I had wished to break the ice on our arrival at Mauverstown, this incident would effectually have accomplished it. But the party consisted of Mrs. Connor; her son, a youth of twenty; Katie, a daughter of twenty-nine, and a handsome, black-eyed, fair-complexioned young lady, Miss Florence O’Grady, come on a visit “all the way from Kerry.” Poor Harry! At a glance I saw that he was in my power, and he gave me such an imploring look that my lips were sealed, in the hope of saving him from the tender mercies of the merry young ones. Not a word did I say of the adventure. It was not to be expected, however, that Dan would show him equal mercy; and young Connor’s roguish expression next morning, when he came in late to breakfast after a visit to the stables, told me that he had heard the story, and, moreover, that it had lost nothing in the telling. Fortunately Harry, who was by nature the kindest and most amiable of men, had thoroughly recovered his ordinary good temper, and joined in the laugh against himself so cordially that the hearts of all were at once gained. Had he by chance done otherwise, his life would have been made miserable; but now one and all declared that they would only punish him by making him acquainted with every hedge and bush in the country, and that he should not leave until he “made restitution” by singing the praises of “ould Ireland.” Charlie Connor would help him in the shooting, the young ladies could take him across country—for “cub-hunting” had begun, though it was too early yet for the regular hunt—while Mrs. Connor mentioned a list of gentlemen’s places far and near which she would show him, that he might tell his English friends it was not quite so barbarous a land as they evidently imagined.

Good-natured though he was, Harry’s face lengthened at a prospect which would involve a longer stay than he had intended; but there was no time for reflection, for Charlie led him off to inspect the farm, the young ladies took him through the pleasure-grounds on his return, and in the afternoon we all drove to a croquet party more than eight miles off.

Henceforward most faithfully did they carry out their resolutions, leaving no morning or afternoon unappropriated to some pleasure. Of all counties in Ireland, Westmeath is remarkable for its many handsome seats, well-timbered parks, and the pleasant social intercourse maintained amongst their owners. At this season, too, every one was at home, and croquet parties, matinées musicales, or dinner parties were countless. The shooting filled a certain place in the programme for the gentlemen, no doubt; still, Harry, announcing that he saw more of the country by following the ladies, always managed to accompany us. The gardens and conservatories interested him, he said; and the luxuriance of the shrubs and evergreens always attracted his admiration, and was an invariable excuse for a saunter with the young ladies, though oftener with only one of the party. When we had inspected those in our immediate vicinity, a flower-show at Kells, in the bordering county of Meath (also under the Peace-Preservation Act!), displayed to us in addition the “beauty, gallantry, and fashion” of both neighborhoods. Nothing, perhaps, on these occasions is more striking to a stranger than the sort of family life which seems to exist in Irish counties, every one knowing the other from boyhood intimately—nay, from generation to generation. Above all is it remarkable how every one can tell at once by the family name what part of Ireland a new-comer springs from, or whether Celtic, of “the Pale,” or Cromwellian, with most unerring accuracy. The majority of land-owners in Meath and Westmeath belong to the latter—Cromwellian—class; but this in no way hinders their living on the best terms—unlike what occurs in the “Black North”—with their Catholic neighbors, few and far between though these undoubtedly are.

One of the prettiest and most interesting places in this neighborhood—Ballinlough Castle—belongs to the descendants of the very ancient sept of O’Reilly, although within the present century they have taken the name of Nugent, in consequence of a large property having been left to them by one of that family. As the word implies, it is situated on a lough, or small lake, and the house consists of an old building to which several large rooms have been added within the present century. The northwest front is now completely covered with ivy, thickly intermingled with Virginia creepers, the deep-red leaves of which amidst the dark green of the ivy made a beautiful picture at this autumnal season. Embedded in the foliage, a tablet over the door records the date, 1614—thirty-five years before the invasion of Ireland by Cromwell. In the dining-room are two deep recesses, still called by the family Cromwell’s stables; for tradition relates that in one his horse, in the other his cow, rested during the one night he slept in the castle. Early on the following day he left the place to continue his march; but before he had proceeded far, having repented that he had not seized so fine a property, he sent back one of his officers with an order to the O’Reilly, the owner, to surrender at once, giving the officer permission—as was his wont on such occasions—to take and keep the castle for himself. Not so easy was this, however, as they had imagined from their previous day’s experience; for “forewarned is forearmed,” and the instant Cromwell departed the house had been barricaded. His messenger, therefore, seen returning along the avenue, was communicated with now only from behind closed doors. Yet the owner did not refuse in so many words. He merely presented the house-key hanging on the end of a pistol, through an opening over the door, desiring the man to seize it if he dared! Not of a daring character, however, was the officer, and he took a few moments to consider; then, throwing a would-be contemptuous look at the coveted house and land, he turned away, was soon out of sight, and no Cromwell or Cromwellian ever troubled Ballinlough again.

The castle contains, besides some most beautiful carvings from Spain, Aubusson tapestries from France, marble chimney-pieces and paintings from Italy, collected in his travels by Sir James Nugent some fifty years since; also many relics of past times—for example, one very fine Vandyke; a full-length portrait of Lady Thurles, widow of the Duke of Ormond’s son, and afterwards allied to the O’Reillys; another, of the famous Peggy O’Neil, only daughter of Sir Daniel O’Neil, the hero at the battle of the Boyne, who is said to be the one who exclaimed when the day was over: “Change kings, and we will fight the battle over again.” He then accompanied King James to France, but, being subsequently pardoned by William and recalled to take possession of his estates, he died at Calais on his road home. King William, strange to relate, is stated notwithstanding, in a fit of generosity, to have given a large dower to this his only daughter Peggy when she soon afterwards married Hugh O’Reilly, of Ballinlough Castle, and thus became the ancestress of the present family. A satin quilt embroidered by her hands still exists amongst the castle treasures; but most interesting of all the relics is an old chalice dating from that period.

On our road thither we had passed by the ruins of a small chapel carefully preserved, standing in a field still called Cromwell’s field, because there the priest was saying Mass when a scout returned and gave the alarm that the invader and his troops were speedily advancing. In consternation, the congregation fled; but the priest neither could nor would interrupt the Holy Sacrifice, and he had just time to finish it when the enemy’s soldiers appeared in sight. Then, and then only, he took flight across the fields; but his foot slipped as he was crossing the nearest hedge, and the chalice which he held in his hand was bent by his fall. And this same chalice, notched and bent, we now saw carefully preserved by the gracious Dame-Châtelaine of Ballinlough. And here it may be noticed that similar relics and traditions are found all over Ireland. Another family of our acquaintance possesses the diminutive, plain chalice used by a priest of their blood—his name being engraven on the base—for saying Mass behind a hedge when even this was penal both for priest and people. In that particular case, too, this steadfastness to his duty did end fatally; for this same priest was one of those killed at Drogheda. In the grounds of another friend a small, thickly-wooded eminence is shown, with a grotto which served to shelter the priest when officiating, whilst the congregation knelt in groups around, with scouts outside ready to give warning of any unfriendly approach. Elsewhere the “priest’s hill,” enclosed within the demesne walls, bears its name from the sad fate of another of the sacred ministry killed there whilst caught in the act of saying Mass. Two hundred years and more have elapsed since Cromwell’s day, but it is no wonder that the memory of these events is still fresh in the minds of a faithful posterity, or that they should delight to speak of deeds which would honor any people.

Deeply impressed as Harry West was by traditions which until then had been unknown to him, he was further edified by the manner in which the Irish poor flock from far and near on Sunday mornings to the parish church, often walking thither many a long mile in hail, rain, and snow. Sometimes it stands at a central point, on a hill or in the middle of a field, no village even near; but many handsome new churches are in course of erection from contributions gathered chiefly amongst the poor. Some of these collections are wonderful, considering the localities, seven and eight hundred pounds—nay, a thousand—being often the result of the “laying the foundation-stone,” or “opening day,” in a district solely inhabited by farmers and peasants—especially, be it added, if the favorite Father Burke be the preacher. Many and many a time, however, large sums are sent on such occasions back from America from some old parishioner whose fortune has increased since he left the “dear ould country,” but whose heart still clings to it faithfully and tenderly. Most remarkable, too, is the correspondence kept up by emigrants with their families, and the large presents in money “sent home” from sons to fathers, brothers to sisters. It was our friend’s custom—as it is at Ballinlough Castle and many other houses—to let the poorer cottagers come up to the hall-door for doles of bread, or presents of clothes at certain seasons, and at all times for medicine, of which the ladies have knowledge just sufficient for all minor wants. One morning I was watching Mrs. Connor’s distribution, when old Biddy Nolan produced a letter which she begged her honor to read for her. The postmark was Chicago, and it came from her son Mike, who had not written since he left home; but now he gave a full account of his adventures, winding up by enclosing his mother, who was bathed in tears of joy, a draft for twenty pounds—his savings during the last few months!

Another characteristic of the County Westmeath consists in its many pretty lakes; and as picnics, fishing and boating excursions, were not forgotten in the Connor hospitalities, these—Lough Derrevarra in particular—could not be omitted. The road to the lakes lay across a bog, moor, and wild, deserted-looking tract, the exact reverse of the neighborhood we were living in. Dismal enough it was returning sometimes in the dark without meeting a human being perhaps for miles, and difficult to me now and then to resist a shudder. Strange, however, is the world, and in nothing did it appear to me stranger than in Harry West’s air of tranquillity and perfect security.

He never dreamt of jumping off of the car (he would have left a pretty neighbor if he had!), nor seemed to remember the existence of the police, Ribbonmen, or Peace-Preservation Act! He heard no one mention them, and he had given up thinking about them.

Truly, a second change had come over the spirit of his dream. And in proportion to his aversion to my Irish visit, so now he was the one that experienced difficulty in ending it. Not days but weeks passed by; yet there he lingered, to the inconceivable surprise of his friends at home. Not to mine, however. The cause was patent to every one on the spot; nor could I wonder when, one morning, throwing off his customary reserve, he asked me to welcome as a cousin his Irish fiancée, the beautiful Florence O’Grady. Short had been the wooing, he said, but none the less thorough his conversion. A curious mixture of love and religion those outside-car excursions must certainly have been (these two never would avail themselves of carriage or other vehicle); for not only had she conquered his Saxon, but even his religious prejudices so fully that he voluntarily offered to place himself at once under some able teacher.

Christmas was not long in coming round under these circumstances, nor Harry West in returning as a Catholic to claim his Kerry bride, blessing me for having accepted his escort, whilst I regarded the event as a reward for that act of self-denial on his part. Nor could he, at the joyous wedding breakfast, resist describing the scene of his leap from the car on the evening of his arrival, giving a cheer at the same time for the Peace-Preservation Act, which, to him at least—although only from the terror it had inspired—had been the primary cause of so much happiness.

THE LEGEND OF FRIAR’S ROCK.

The thing long hoped for had come to pass (though, alas! by what a way of grief) and I was visiting my school friend, Anne d’Estaing, in Bretagne. It was six years since we had met, but we had kept up a constant correspondence; and by letter when absent, as well as by word when together, I had become so familiar with her home and her family that I did not go there as a stranger.

They lived in an old castle partly fallen into picturesque decay. In the eastern tower was a small chapel, which they had put into complete repair, and there daily they had service, and Anne found her great delight in decking the altar with flowers, and keeping everything in exquisite order and neatness with her own hands. They had had great sorrows in the six years of our separation. Only Anne and her parents were left of the loving family that once numbered eleven. Two of the sons fell in battle, a contagious disease swept off the three youngest children in one week; Anne’s favorite brother Bertrand became a missionary priest, and went to China under a vow never to return; and her twin sister faded away in consumption.

It had seemed to me, in my Irish home, as if such sorrows could scarcely be borne; but I had never been able to come to my friend with visible, face-to-face, heart-to-heart consolation, for my daily duty was beside a couch where my precious mother lay, suffering from an incurable disease. When her long trouble was at last over my strength and spirits were much shattered, and I longed to accept Anne’s pressing invitation. My father was very unwilling that I should go—he thought it would be so sad and dreary there; but Anne’s letters had revealed to me such a life of peace and prayer and happy service that it seemed to me that Château d’Estaing must be a very haven of rest.

And so I found it. From the moment that I looked on Anne’s pale but placid face; from the time that her mother’s arms held me as those other arms, which I had missed so sorely, used to do; from the first words of fatherly welcome that the old count gave me, I was at home and at peace. And when at sunset I went to Vespers, and the dying light shone in through the lancet windows, along the aisle, and on the richly-decorated altar, and Anne’s voice and fingers led the soothing Nunc Dimittis, it was as if the dews of healing fell on my bruised heart.

They made no stranger of me; they knew too well what sorrow was, and how its sting for them had been withdrawn. So together, in the early dawn, we knelt for the holiest service, beginning the day in close intercourse with Him whose “compassions fail not,” and finding that they are indeed “new every morning.” Together we kept the Hours, and did plain household duties, and visited in the village, dispensing medicines, reading to old women, caring for the sick. Two afternoons in the week classes came to the castle for instruction; every Wednesday evening the children came to practise the church music—and, oh! how sweet that music was; and on one afternoon we used to mount our shaggy ponies and ride to a distant hamlet, to teach the children there. Together we took care of the garden, where grew the flowers for the altar and for weddings and funerals; and of the trellis of rare grapes, from which came the sacramental wine. Every pleasant day we went out upon the bay in Anne’s boat, rowed by two strong-armed Breton girls, visiting the rocky coves and inlets, startling the sea-fowl from their nests, and enjoying the sea-breeze and crisp waves.

Where the bay and the sea join is a headland, which commands the finest view for miles around; yet, much as we loved that view, we were oftenest to be found at the base, where we sat idly, while the boat rocked on the water, which lapped with lulling sound against the rock. It was a pretty sight, the face of that cliff, where wild vines crept and delicate wild flowers bloomed, and an aromatic odor rose from the herbs that grew there, and some small, weather-beaten firs found footing in the crevices. On the summit were a few ruins. But the chief natural point of interest, and that from which the Head derived its name, was a curious rock which stood at its base. It was called the Friar. At first I saw little about it which could lay claim to such a name; but the more I watched it, the more the likeness grew upon me, till it became at times quite startling. It was a massive stone, some thirty feet above the water at low tide, like a human figure wrapped in a monk’s robe, always facing the east, and always like one absorbed in prayer and meditation, yet ever keeping guard. One day I asked Anne if there was not some legend about it, and she replied that the country people had one which was very interesting, and partly founded on fact. Of course I begged for it, and she was ready to tell me.

As I write, I seem to see and hear it all again—the rocking boat; the two girls resting on their oars and talking in their broad patois; the twittering, darting birds; the butterfly that fluttered round us; the solemn rock casting its long shadow on the water, that glittered in the light of a summer afternoon; Anne’s pale, thin, sparkling face, and earnest voice. I see even the children at play upon the shore, acting out the old Breton superstition of the washerwomen of the night, who wash the shrouds of the dead; and their quaint song mingles with Anne’s story:

and the little bare feet are dancing through the water, and the little brown hands wash and wring the sea-kale for the shrouds, and it all seems as yesterday to me. But it was years and years ago.

“You know that this is a very dangerous coast,” Anne said. “The tide runs fast here, and the rocks are jagged and dangerous. Row out a few strokes, Tiphaine and Alix, and let Mlle. Darcy see what happens.”

A dozen strokes of the oars, and we were in an eddy where it took all the strength of our rowers to keep back the boat; and beyond Friar’s Rock the tide-race was like a whirlpool, one eddy fighting with another.

“We would not dare go further,” Anne said. “No row-boats venture there, and large sailing-vessels need a cautious helmsman. In a storm it is frightful, and the men and the boats are not few that have gone down there. But never a board or a corpse has been found afterwards. There is a swift under-current that sweeps them out to sea. Now, Tiphaine, row back again.”

A white, modern lighthouse stands on a rock on the outer shore; its lantern was visible above the Head. Anne pointed to it.

“That has been there only a century,” she said. “Before it we had another and a better light, we Bretons. Where those ruins are, Joanne dear, there was a small chapel once, and on the plain below the Head was a monastery. It was founded hundreds of years ago, by S. Sampson some say, and others by the Saxon S. Dunstan himself, or, as they call him here, S. Gonstan, the patron of mariners. I do not know how long it had been in existence at the time of the legend, but long enough to have become famous, quite large in numbers, and a blessing to the country round about. The monks were the physicians of the place; they knew every herb, and distilled potions from them, which they administered to the sick, so that they came to the beds of poverty and pain with healing for soul and body both. They taught the children; they settled quarrels and disputes; on Rogation days they led the devout procession from field to field, marking boundary lines, and praying or chanting praises at every wayside cross.

“But that which was their special work was the guarding of this coast. Instead of that staring white lighthouse, there was on the top of the chapel’s square tower a large lantern surmounted by a cross, and all through the night the monks kept it burning, and many a ship was saved and many a life preserved by this means. At Vespers the lamp was lighted, and one monk tended it from then till Nocturns, giving his unoccupied time to prayer for all at sea, both as to their bodily and spiritual wants, and to every one in any need or temptation that night. At Nocturns he was relieved by another monk, who kept watch till Prime. Such for three centuries had been the custom, and never had the light been known to fail.

“It must have been a strange sight—that band of men in gown and cowl engaged in the never-omitted devotions before the altar, then departing silently, leaving one alone to wrestle in prayer for the tried souls that knew little of the hours thus spent for them. O Joanne! what would I not give to have it here again; to know that this was once more the Holy Cape, as it used to be called; and that here no hour went by, however it might be elsewhere, that prayers and praises were not being offered to our dear Lord, who ever intercedes for us!”

Anne was silent for a while, and I felt sure that she was praying. When she roused herself, it was to bid the rowers pull home fast, as it was almost time for Vespers.

“You shall hear the rest, dear,” she said, “when we go up-stairs to-night.” So after Compline, and after Anne and I had played and sung to her parents, as we were wont to do, she came into my room and lighted the fire and the tall candles, and we settled ourselves for a real school-girl talk. Anne showed me a sketch which her brother Bertrand had made, partly from fancy, and partly from the ruins, of the monastery and chapel.

“It looks like a place of peace and holiness, where one might be safe from sin for ever,” I said; but Anne shook her head.

“The old delusion,” she sighed. “As if Satan would not spread sore temptations just in such abodes as these. Don’t you remember how often we have spoken of it—the terrible strength and subtlety of spiritual temptations, simply because they are less obvious than others? The legend of the Friar witnesses to that, whether you take the story as true or false. I am going to give myself a treat to-night, and I am sure it will be one to you. Bertrand wrote out the legend after he made the sketch. Will you care to hear it?”

“Indeed I would,” I answered; and Anne unfolded her precious paper.

“It is only a fragment,” she said, “beginning abruptly where I left off this afternoon; but perhaps it will show you more of what Bertrand is.”

“Anne,” I asked suddenly, “don’t you miss him—more than any of the others?”

“No—yes,” she answered, then paused thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said at last, “I suppose I do. Because, so long as I know he is living somewhere on this earth, it seems possible for my feet to go to him and my eyes to see his face. But, after all, none of them seem far away. We are brought so near in the great Communion, in prayers—in everything. In fact, Joanne—does it seem very cold-hearted?—oftenest I do not miss them at all; God so makes up for every loss.”

I was crying by this time, for my heartache was constant; and Anne came and kissed me, and looked distressed. “I ought not to trouble you,” she said. “Did I? I did not mean to hurt you.”

“Oh! no,” I answered. “Only why should I not be as resigned as you?”

“Joanne darling!” she exclaimed, “you are that much more than I am. Can’t you see? You feel—God causes you to feel it—keenly. That is your great cross; and so, when you do not murmur, but say, ‘God’s will be done,’ you are resigned. But that is not the cross he gives to me. Instead, he makes bereavement light to me by choosing to reveal his mercies; and I must take great care to correspond to his grace. Bertrand warned me solemnly of that. And yet this is not all I mean. Perhaps you will understand better when you have heard the legend.”

She sat on the floor close beside me, and held my hand. I thanked God for her, she comforted me so. I was always hungry then for visible love; but by degrees, and partly through her, he taught me to be content with a love that is invisible.

“There was once a monk,” she read, “the youngest of the brotherhood, who was left to keep the watch from midnight until dawn. Through the windows the moonbeams fell, mingling with the light that burned before the tabernacle, and with the gleam of the monk’s small taper. Outside, the sea was smooth like glass, and the stars shone brightly, and a long line of glory stretched from shore to shore. Lost in supplication, the monk lay prostrate before the altar. His thoughts and prayers were wandering far away—to the sick upon their beds of pain, to travellers on land and sea, to mourners sunk in loneliness or in despair, to the poor who had no helper, to little children, to the dying; most of all, to the tempted, wherever they might be.

“He was intensely earnest, and he had a loving temperament and a strong imagination which had found fitting curb and training in the devout practice of meditation. The prayers he used were no mere form to him; he seemed actually to behold those for whom he interceded, actually to feel their needs and sore distress. This was nothing new, but to-night the power of realization came upon him as never before. He saw the dying in their final anguish; he suffered with the suffering, and felt keen temptations to many a deed of evil, and marked Satan’s messengers going up and down upon the earth, seeking to capture souls. Sharper than all else was the conflict he underwent with doubts quite new to him—doubts of the use or power of his prayers. Still he prayed on, in spite of the keen sense of unworthiness to pray. He would not give place for a moment to the suggestion that his prayers were powerless. Again and again he fortified himself with the Name of all-prevailing might. And then it seemed to him, in the dim candle-light and among the pale moonbeams, that the Form upon the crucifix opened its eyes and smiled at him, and that from the lips came a voice saying, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.’

“The hour came to tend the light; he knew it. But he knew, too, that the sea without was calm, even like the crystal sea before the Throne, save where the wild currents that never rested were surging white with foam and uttering hoarse murmurs. He knew that the night was marvellously still; that there was no wind, not even enough to stir the lightest leaf. What mariner could err, even though for once the light of the monks grew dim—nay, even if it failed? Could he leave that glorious vision, in order to trim a lantern of which there was no need; or cease his prayers for perishing souls, in order to give needless help to bodies able to protect themselves? These thoughts swept through his mind, and his choice was hastily made to remain before the altar; and even as he made it the vision faded, yet with it, or with his decision, all temptation to doubt vanished too. If devils had been working upon him to cause him to cease from intercession, they left him quite free now to pray—with words, too, of such seeming power as he had never used before.

“Suddenly a sound smote upon his ear—such a sound as might well ring on in one’s brain for a lifetime, and which he was to hear above all earthly clamor until all earthly clamor should cease. It was the cry of strong men who meet death on a sudden, utterly unprepared; the crash of timbers against a rock; the groan of a ship splitting from side to side. He sprang to his feet and rushed to the door. Already the great bell of the monastery was tolling, and dark, cowled figures were hastening to the shore. He looked up. In the cross-topped tower, for the first time in man’s knowledge, the lamp of the monks was out. Just then the prior hurried by him and up the stairs, and soon, but all too late, the beacon blazed again.

“With an awful dread upon his heart he made his way to the coast. The water foamed unbroken by aught save rocks; but pallid lips told the story of the vessel that had sailed thither, manned by a merry crew made merrier by drink, careless of their course, depending on the steadfast light, and sure, because they did not see it, that they had not neared the dangerous whirlpool and hidden rocks. Only one man escaped, and, trembling, told the story. He had been the only sober man on board; and when he warned the captain of their danger, he was laughed and mocked at for his pains, and told that all true mariners would stake the monks’ light against the eyes of any man on earth. It was not the Holy Cape that they were nearing, but Cape Brie, they said, and every one knew it was safe sailing there. With jests and oaths instead of prayers upon their lips, with sin-stained souls, they had gone down into that whirling tide, which had swept them off in its strong under-tow to sea. There were homes that would be desolate and hearts broken; there were bodies drowned, and souls launched into eternity—perhaps for ever lost—for lack of one little light, for the fault of a single half-hour. And still the stars shone brightly, and the long line of glory stretched from shore to shore, and the night was marvellously still; but upon one soul there had fallen a darkness that might be felt—almost the darkness of despair.

“Monk Felix they had called him, and had been wont to say that he did not belie his name, with his sweet young face and happy smile, and his clear voice in the choir. He was Monk Infelix now and while time lasted.

“In the monastery none saw an empty place; for the man whose life had been the only one preserved in that swift death-struggle had begged, awed and repentant, to be received into the number of these brethren vowed to God’s peculiar service. But in village and in choir they missed him who had gone in and out among them since his boyhood, and under their breath the people asked, ‘Where is he?’ No definite answer was given, but a rumor crept about, and at length prevailed, that Monk Felix had despaired of pardon; that day and night the awful death-cry rang in his ears; and day and night he besought God to punish here and spare there, imploring that he might also bear some of the punishment of those souls that had passed away through his neglect. And a year from that night, and in the very hour, the last rites having been given to him as to the dying, the rock now called the Friar’s had opened mysteriously. Around it stood the brotherhood, chanting the funeral psalms very solemnly; and as the words, “De profundis clamavi ad Te, Domine,” were intoned, one left their number, and, with steady step and a face full of awe and yet of thankfulness, entered the cleft, and the rock closed.

“Years came and went, other hands tended the lantern, till in the Revolution the light of the monks and the Order itself were swept away, and the monastery was laid in ruins. But the legend is even now held for truth by simple folk, that in Friar’s Rock the monk lives still, hearing always the eddying flood about him, that beats in upon his memory the story of his sin; and they say that with it mingles ever the cry of men in their last agony, and the cry is his name, thus kept continually before the Judge. There, in perpetual fast and vigil, he watches and prays for the coming of the Lord and the salvation of souls, and the rock that forms his prison has been made to take his shape by the action of those revengeful waves. What he knows of passing events—what added misery and mystery it is that now no longer the holy bell and chant echo above him—none can tell. But there, they say, whatever chance or change shall come to Bretagne, he must live and pray and wait till the Lord comes. Then, when the mountains fall and the rocks are rent, his long penance shall be over, and he shall enter into peace.”

Anne looked at me. “Was it very hard—too hard?” she asked.

“O Anne!” I cried, “it is not true?”

She smiled. “I have more to read,” she said; “more of fact, perhaps.” So she went on.

“There is, in the archives of this domain, an account of a settlement some twenty miles from here, where a horde of outlaws dwell in huts and caves, their hand against every man, and every man’s hand against them. It was as much as one’s life was worth to go among them, unless one was ready to live as they lived, and sin as they sinned. But it is recorded that in the same year in which is also recorded the loss of a Dutch vessel by reason of the failure of the light of the monks—an event never known before, and never again till the Revolution in its great guilt quenched it and shattered the sacred walls—there came to these men a missionary priest, seeking to save their souls. They say he was a man who never smiled, yet his very presence brought comfort. Little children loved him; and poor, down-trodden women learned hope and patience from him; and men consented to have him there, and not to slay him.

“Yet what he underwent was fearful. He lived in a hovel so mean that the storms drove through it, and the floor was soaked with rain or white with frost or snow. No being in that place poorer, more hungry, more destitute of earthly comfort. Yet his crusts he shared with the beggar, his pallet of straw far oftener held the child turned out from shelter, the sick, the dying, than him. There the leper found a home, and tendance, not only of pity but of love—hands that washed, lips that kissed, prayers that upbore him in the final struggle.

“We read of temptations from devils which the saints have undergone; there are those who presume to doubt them. This man wrestled with temptations from his brother men, who seemed like very fiends, and often, often, the anguish of despair came upon him, and he thought he was already lost, and a wild desire almost overwhelmed him to join them in their evil ways. For, by some horrible instinct, they seemed to divine that pain to the body would be slight to him compared to the tortures which they could invent for his soul. They came to his ministrations, and mimicked him when he spoke, and set their ribald songs to sacred tunes. Before his door they parodied the holiest rites. They taught the children to do the same things at their sports.

“And he—it is said that in the pauses of midnight or noontide rout and wild temptation they heard him praying for them, and praying for himself, like one who had bound up his own life in the bundle of their lives, and believed that he would be lost or saved with them. It is said that at times he rushed out among them like S. Michael, and his voice was as a trumpet, and he spoke of the wrath of God; and, again, he would open his door, and his face would be like death, and he would tremble sorely, as he begged them, like some tortured creature, to cease from sin. What they did was to him as if he did it. He was so of them that their temptations were his also, till he often seemed to himself as sunk in sin as any of them.

“Yet, one by one, souls went to God from that fiend-beleaguered place; babes with the cross hardly dry upon their foreheads; children taught to love the God whom once they had only known to curse; some of those sick made for ever well, some of those lepers made for ever clean. The priest set up crosses on their graves, and sacrilegious hands broke them down; but no hands could stop his prayers and praises for the souls that by God’s blessing he had won. He tried to build a little chapel, and they rent it stone from stone; but none could destroy the temple of living stones built up to God out of that mournful spot.

“A Lent came when as never before he strove with and for these people. It was as if an angel spoke to them. An angel? Nay, a very man like themselves, as tempted as any of them, a sinner suffering from his sin; yet a man and a sinner who loved God, believed in God, knew that he would come to judge, yet knew he was mighty to save. That Lent, Satan himself held sway there; new and more vile and awful blasphemies surged through the place; it was his last carnival, and it was a mad one. Men held women back from church if they wished to worship, but followed them there and elsewhere to darker deeds of sacrilege and revelry than even they had known before. Yet in the gray dawn, when sleep overpowered the revellers, a few people crept to that holy hut round which the sinners had danced their dance of defiance and death and sin, and there sought for pardon and blessing, and knelt before the Lord, who shunned not the poor earth-altar where a priest pleaded daily for souls, as for so long he had done, except on the rare occasions when he would be gone for a night and a day, they knew not where, and return with fresh vigor and courage.

“Thursday in Holy Week he kept his watch with the Master in his agony. Round him the storm of evil deeds and words rose high. In the midst of it the rioters thought they saw a vision. It was a moonlight night, and marvellously still; no wind moved the trees, and the water was like glass. But all the silence of earth was broken by hideous shout and song, and all its brightness turned to darkness by such deeds of evil as Christians may not name. Before those creatures steeped in sin, wallowing in it, one stood suddenly, haggard, spent as beneath some great burden, wan as with awful suffering. The moonbeams wrapped him in unearthly light, he seemed of heaven, and yet a sufferer. He did not speak; how could he speak, who had pleaded with them again and again by day, and spent his nights in prayer, for such return as this? He lifted up his eyes, and spread his arms. He looked to them like one upon a cross. ‘The Christ! The Christ!’ they murmured, awestruck. And then, ‘Slay him!’ some one shouted frantically. There came a crash of stones, of wood, of jagged iron, and in the midst a distinct, intense voice, ‘O Lord Jesus, forgive us.’ They had heard the last of the prayers that vexed them.

“On Good Friday morning, as the brotherhood came from Prime, a strange being, more like a beast than a man,, approached them. ‘Come to us,’ he said in a scarcely intelligible dialect—‘come to the Dol des Fées: The abbot asked no questions, and made no delay. He bade one of the older monks accompany him, and together they sought the place. Before they reached it, sounds of loud, hoarse wailing were borne to them upon the breeze; and their guide, on hearing them, broke forth into groans like the groans of a beast, and beat his breast, and cried, ‘My father, my father! My sin, my sin!’

“They saw hovels and caves, deserted; among the poorest, one still poorer; about it, men, women, and children wrung their hands or sobbed and tore their hair, or lay despairing on the ground. Entering, four bare walls met their view; then a pallet, where an idiot grinned and pointed. Following his pointing finger, they saw an earth-altar where the light still burned. Before it one lay at rest. Wrapped in his tattered robe; his hands clasped, as though he prayed yet, above the crucifix upon his heart; hands, neck, and face bruised and battered and red with blood; his face was of one at peace. The contest was ended. He who lay there dead lay there a victor, by the grace of God. Around him his people, for whom he gave his life, begged for the very help they had so long refused. And soon, where so long he labored, sowing good seed in tears, the reapers went with shouting, bringing their sheaves with them. That which had been the abode of sinners has become years since the abode of saints.

“Thanks be to God!”

“But it was such a little sin,” I said, as Anne put the paper by.

“How great a sin lost Eden?” she asked gravely. “Besides, we cannot tell what spiritual pride or carelessness, unknown or hidden, may have led to such a fall. But, dear, it was not anything of that sort I wanted to talk about, but the mercy, and how it explains what we were speaking of.”

“The mercy?” I repeated.

“Yes,” she said fervently. “To be punished, and yet the very punishment to contain the power to pray on still—to speak to God—to plead with him for souls, the souls he died for on the cross. What though one were shut for all time in Friar’s Rock, if one trusted that at the end the Vision of God would be his for ever, and till then could and must ask him continually to have mercy on immortal souls? Or who would not live that living death in Dol des Fées to live it in prayer at the altar, and to die a martyr’s death?

“Joanne, my darling, what, after all, are sorrow and death and separation and loneliness to us who can speak to God? In him we are all brought near. His blood makes each of his children dear to those who love him. Day by day to forget self in them, in him; day by day to let grief or pleasure grow less and less in one absorbing prayer that his kingdom come; day by day to lose one’s self in him—that is living, and that is loving. I cannot mourn much for my precious ones that are only absent from my sight, but safe and present with him; my tears are for souls that are not safe, the wide world over; and I cannot miss much what I have never really lost. A thousand times Friar’s Rock speaks to me, and this is what it says:

“‘If thou, Lord, wilt mark iniquities, Lord, who shall stand it?

“‘For with thee there is merciful forgiveness; and by reason of thy law I have waited—for thee, O Lord.

“‘From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.

“‘Because with the Lord there is mercy, and with him plentiful redemption.

“‘And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.’”

It was years ago, as I have said, that Anne d’Estaing told me this legend. Since then, her parents have died, the château has passed into other hands, she is head of a convent in Bretagne, and I—I lie here, the last of my name, a hopeless invalid, with not a penny to call my own. Rich once, and young, and fair, and proud; sad once, and doubting how to bear a lonely future, I know the meaning of Anne’s story now. “I have waited for thee, O Lord! And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”

While I wait for him, I pray. It does not grieve me that I do not hear from Anne. La Mère Angélique is more to me, and nearer to me, than when, in days long past, we spoke face to face. For I know we meet in the sure refuge of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and that, with saints on earth and saints in glory, and the souls beneath the altar, we pray together the same prayer—“Thy kingdom come.”

DUNLUCE CASTLE. (COUNTY ANTRIM.)

SPACE. III.

Bodies have bulk or volume, whereby they are said to occupy a certain place, and to fill it with their dimensions. Hence, to complete our task, we have now to consider space in relation with the volumes and places of bodies. To proceed orderly, we must first determine the proper definition of “place,” and its division; then we shall examine a few questions concerning the relation of each body to its place, and particularly the difficult and interesting one whether bodies can be really bilocated and multilocated.

Place.—Aristotle, in the fourth book of his Physics, defines the place of a body as “the surface by which the body is immediately surrounded and enveloped”—“Locus est extrema superficies corporis continentis immobilis.” This definition was accepted by nearly all the ancients. The best of their representatives, S. Thomas, says: “Locus est terminus corporis continentis”—viz., The place of a body is the surface of the body which contains it; and the Schoolmen very generally define place to be “the concave surface of the surrounding body: Superficies concava corporis ambientis.” Thus, according to the followers of Aristotle, no body can have place unless it is surrounded by some other body. Immobility was also believed to be necessarily included in the notion of place: Superficies immobilis. Cardinal de Lugo says: “the word place seems to be understood as meaning the real surface of a surrounding body, not, however, as simply having its extension all around, but as immovable—that is, as attached to a determinate imaginary space.”[179] We do not see what can be the meaning of this last phrase. For De Lugo holds that “real space” is the equivalent of “place,” and that space, as distinguished from place, is nothing real: Non est aliquid reale.[180] His imaginary space is, therefore, a mere nothing. How are we, then, to understand that a real surface can be “attached to a determinate imaginary space”? Can a real being be attached to a determinate nothing? Are there many nothings? or nothings possessing distinct determinations? We think that these questions must all be answered in the negative, and that neither Cardinal de Lugo, nor any one else who considers imaginary space as a mere nothing, can account for the immobility thus attributed to place.

The reason why Aristotle’s definition of place came to be generally adopted by the old Schoolmen is very plain. For, in the place occupied by any given body, two things can be considered, viz., the limiting surface, and the dimensive quantity which extends within the limiting surface. Now, as the ancients believed the matter of which bodies are composed to be endowed with continuity, it was natural that they should look upon the dimensive quantity included within the limiting surface as an appurtenance of the matter itself, and that they should consider it, not as an intrinsic constituent of the place occupied, but as a distinct reality through which the body could occupy a certain place. According to this notion of dimensive quantity, the limiting surface was retained as the sole constituent of the place occupied; and the dimensions within the surface being thus excluded from the notion of place, were attached to the matter of the body itself, as a special accident inhering in it.

This manner of conceiving things is still looked upon as unobjectionable by those philosophers who think that the old metaphysics has been carried to such a degree of perfection by the peripatetics as to have nothing or little to learn from the modern positive sciences. But whoever has once realized the fact that the dimensions of bodies are not continuous lines of matter, but intervals, or relations, in space, will agree that such dimensions do not inhere in the matter, but are extrinsic relations between material terms distinctly ubicated. What is called the volume of a body is nothing but the resultant of a system of relations in space. The matter of the body supplies nothing to its constitution except the extrinsic terms of the relations. The foundation of those relations is not to be found in the body, but in space alone, as we have proved in our last article; and the relations themselves do not inhere in the terms, but only intervene between them. Hence the dimensive quantity of the volume is intrinsically connected with the place it occupies, and must enter into the definition of place as its material constituent, as we are going to show.

As to the Aristotelic definition of place, we have the following objections: First, a good definition always consists of two notions, the one generic and determinable, as its material element, the other differential and determinant, as its formal element. Now, Aristotle’s definition of place exhibits at best only the formal or determinant, and omits entirely the material or determinable. It is evident, in fact, that the surface of any given body determines the limits and the figure of something involved in the notion of place. But what is this something? It cannot be a mere nothing; for nothing does not receive limits and figure, as real limits and real figure must be settled upon something real. This something must therefore be either the quantity of the matter, or the quantity of the volume enclosed within the limiting surface. And as we cannot admit that the quantity of the place occupied by a body is the quantity of matter contained in the body (because bodies which have different quantities of matter can occupy equal places), we are bound to conclude that the quantity of the place occupied by a body is the quantity of the volume comprised within the limiting surface. This is the determinable or material constituent of place; for this, and this alone, is determined by the concave surface of the surrounding body. In the same manner as a cubic body contains dimensions within its cubic form, so also a cubic place contains dimensions under its cubic surface; hence the place of a body has volume, the same volume as the body; and therefore it cannot be defined as a mere limiting surface.

Secondly, the definition of a thing should express what every one understands the thing to be. But no one understands the word “place” as meaning the exterior limit of the body which occupies it, therefore the exterior limit of the body is not the true definition of place. The minor of this syllogism is manifest. For we predicate of place many things which cannot be predicated of the exterior limit of the body. We say, for instance, that a place is full, half-full, or empty; that it is capable of so many objects, persons, etc.; and it is plain that these predicates cannot appertain to the exterior limit of the body, but they exclusively belong to the capacity within the limiting boundary. Hence a definition of place which overlooks such a capacity is defective.

Thirdly, to equal quantities of limiting surfaces do not necessarily correspond equal quantities of place. Therefore, the limiting surface is not synonymous with place, and cannot be its definition. The antecedent is well known. Take two cylinders having equal surfaces, but whose bases and altitudes are to one another in different ratios. It is evident by geometry that such cylinders will have different capacities—that is, there will be more occupable or occupied room in the one than in the other. The consequence, too, is plain; for, if the room, or place, can be greater or less while the limiting surface does not become greater or less, it is clear that the place is not the limiting surface.

Fourthly, what Aristotle and his school called “the surface of the surrounding body,” is now admitted to be formed by an assemblage of unextended material points, perfectly isolated; and therefore such a surface does not constitute a continuous material envelope, as it was believed in earlier times. Now, since those isolated points have no dimensions, but are simply terms of the dimensions in space, the so-called “surface” owes its own dimensions to the free intervals between those points, just as the dimensions also of the volume enclosed owe their existence to similar intervals between the same points. Therefore the same terms which mark in space the limit of place, mark also its volume; and thus the volume under the surface belongs to the place itself no less than does the limiting surface.

Fifthly, a body in vacuum would have its absolute place; and yet in vacuum there is no surface of surrounding bodies. Therefore an exterior surrounding body is not needed to constitute place. In fact, the body itself determines its own place by the extreme terms of its own bodily dimensions. This the philosophers of the peripatetic school could not admit, because they thought that the place of the body could not move with the body, but ought to remain “attached to a determinate imaginary space.” But, in so reasoning, they confounded the absolute place with the relative, as will be shown hereafter. Yet they conceded that a body in vacuum would have its place; and, when asked to point out there the surface of a surrounding body, they could not answer, except by abandoning the Aristotelic definition and by resorting to the centre and the poles of the world, thus exchanging the absolute place (locus) for the relative (situs), without reflecting that they had no right to admit a relative place where, according to their definition, the absolute was wanting.

Sixthly, the true definition of place must be so general as to be applicable to all possible places. But the Aristotelic definition does not apply to all places. Therefore such a definition is not true. The major of our argument needs no proof. The minor is proved thus: There are places not only within surfaces, but also within lines, and on the lines themselves; for, if on the surface of a body we describe a circle or a triangle, it is evident that a place will be marked and determined on that surface. Its limiting boundary, however, will be, not the surface of a surrounding body, but simply the circumference of the circle, or the perimeter of the triangle.

For these reasons we maintain that place cannot properly be defined as “the surface of the surrounding body.” As to the additional limitation, that such a surface should be considered as “immovable”—that is, affixed to a determinate space (imaginary, of course, according to the peripatetic theory, and therefore wholly fictitious)—we need only say that even if it were possible to attach the surface of a body to a determinate space, which is not the case, yet this condition could not be admitted in the definition of place, because the absolute place of a body is invariably the same, wherever it be, in absolute space, and does not change except as compared with other places. Absolute place, just as absolute ubication, has but one manner of existing in absolute space; for all places, considered in themselves, are extrinsic terminations of the same infinite virtuality, and are all equally in the centre, so to say, of its infinite expanse, whatever be their mutual relations.

True Notion of Place.—What is, then, the true definition of place? Webster describes it in his Dictionary as “a particular portion of space of indefinite extent, occupied, or intended to be occupied, by any person or thing, and considered as the space where a person or thing does or may rest, or has rested, as distinct from space in general.” This is in fact the meaning of the word “place” in the popular language. The philosophical definition of place, as gathered from this description, would be: “Place is a particular portion of space.” This is the very definition which all philosophers, before Aristotle, admitted, and which Aristotle endeavored to refute, on the ground that, when a body moves through space, its place remains intrinsically the same.

We have shown in our last article that space considered in itself has no parts; but those who admit portion of space, consider space as a reality dependent on the dimensions of the bodies by which it is occupied—that is, they call “space” those resultant relative intervals which have their foundation in space itself. If we were to take the word “space” in this popular sense, we might well say that “place is a portion of space,” because any given place is but one out of the many places determined by the presence of bodies in the whole world. On the other hand, since space, properly so called, is itself virtually extended—that is, equivalent in its absolute simplicity to infinite extension, and since virtual extension suggests the thought of virtual parts, we might admit that there are virtual portions of space in this sense, that space as the foundation of all local relations corresponds by its virtuality to all the dimensions and intervals mensurable between all terms ubicated, and receives from them distinct extrinsic denominations. Thus, space as occupied by the sun is virtually distinguished from itself as occupied by the moon, not because it has a distinct entity in the sun and another in the moon, but because it has two distinct extrinsic terminations. We might therefore admit that place is “a virtual portion of space determined by material limits”; and we might even omit the epithet “virtual” if it were understood that the word “space” was taken as synonymous with the dimensions of bodies, as is taken by those who deny the reality of vacuum. But, though this manner of speaking is and will always remain popular, owing to its agreement with our imagination and to its conciseness, which makes it preferable for our ordinary intercourse, we think that the place of a body, in proper philosophical language, should be defined as “a system of correlations between the terms which mark out the limits of the body in space”; and therefore place in general, whether really occupied or not, should be defined as “a system of correlations between ubications marking out the limits of dimensive quantity.”

This definition expresses all that we imply and that Webster includes in the description of place; but it changes the somewhat objectionable phrase “portion of space” into what people mean by it, viz., “a system of correlations between distinct ubications,” thereby showing that it is not the absolute entity of fundamental space, but only the resultant relations in space, that enter into the intrinsic constitution of place.

By “a system of correlations” we mean the adequate result of the combination of all the intervals from every single term to every other within the limits assumed, in every direction. Such a result will therefore represent either a volume, or a surface, or a line, according as the terms considered within the given limits are differently disposed in space. Thus a spherical place results from the mutual relations intervening between all the terms of its geometric surface; and therefore it implies all the intervals which can be measured, and all the lines that can be traced, in all directions, from any of those terms to any other within the given limits. In like manner, a triangular place results from the mutual relations intervening between all the terms forming its perimeter; and therefore it implies all the intervals and lines of movement which can be traced, in all directions, from any of those terms to any other within the given limits.

In the definition we have given, the material or determinable element is the system of correlations or intervals which are mensurable within the limiting terms; the formal or determinant is the disposition of the limiting terms themselves—that is, the definite boundary which determines the extent of those intervals, and gives to the place a definite shape.

Thus it appears that, although there is no place without space, nevertheless the entity of space does not enter into the constitution of place as an intrinsic constituent, but only as the extrinsic foundation. This is what we have endeavored to express as clearly as we could in our definition of place. As, however, in our ordinary intercourse we cannot well speak of place with such nice circumlocutions as are needed in philosophical treatises, we do not much object to the common notion that place is “space intercepted by a limiting boundary,” and we ourselves have no difficulty in using this expression, out of philosophy, owing to the loose meaning attached to the word “space” in common language; for all distances and intervals in space are called “spaces,” even in mechanics; and thus, when we hear of “space intercepted,” we know that the speakers do not refer to the absolute entity of space (which they have been taught to identify with nothingness), but merely to the intervals resulting from the extrinsic terminations of that entity.

Most of the Schoolmen (viz., all those who considered void space as imaginary and unreal) agreed, as we have intimated, with Aristotle, that the notion of place involves nothing but the surface of a surrounding body, and contended that within the limits of that surface there was no such chimerical thing as mere space, but only the quantity of the body itself. Suarez, in his Metaphysics (Disp. 51, sect. 1, n. 9), mentions the opinion of those who maintained that place is the space occupied by a body, and argues against it on the ground that no one can say what kind of being such a space is. Some have affirmed, says he, that such a space is a body indivisible and immaterial—which leads to an open contradiction—though they perhaps considered this body to be “indivisible,” not because it had no parts, but because its parts could not be separated. They also called it “immaterial,” on account of its permeability to all bodies. But this opinion, he justly adds, is against reason and even against faith; for, on the one hand this space should be eternal, uncreated, and infinite, whilst on the other no body can be admitted to have these attributes.

Others, Suarez continues, thought that the space which can be occupied by bodies is mere quantity extending all around without end. This opinion was refuted by Aristotle, and is inadmissible, because there cannot be quantitative dimensions without a substance, and because the bodies which would occupy such a space have already their own dimensions, which cannot be compenetrated with the dimensions of space. And moreover, such a quantity would be either eternal and uncreated—which is against faith—or created with all other things, and therefore created in space; which shows that space itself is not such a quantity.

Others finally opine, with greater probability, says he, that space, as distinct from the bodies that fill it, is nothing real and positive, but a mere emptiness, implying both the absence of bodies and the aptitude to be filled by bodies. Of this opinion Toletus says (4 Phys. q. 3) that it is probable, and that it cannot be demonstratively refuted. Yet, adds Suarez, it can be shown that such a space, as distinct from bodies, is in fact nothing; for it is neither a substance nor an accident, nor anything created or temporal, but eternal.

Such is the substance of the reasons adduced by Suarez to prove that the space occupied by bodies is nothing real. Had he, like Lessius, turned his thought to the extrinsic terminability of God’s immensity, he would have easily discovered that, to establish the reality of space, none of those old hypotheses which he refuted were needed. As we have already settled this point in a preceding article, we will not return to it. It may, however, be remarked that what Suarez says regarding the incompenetrability of the quantity of space with the quantity of the body is based entirely on the assumption that bodies have their own volume independently of space—an assumption which, though plausibly maintained by the ancients, can by no means be reconciled with the true notion of the volume of bodies as now established by physical science and accepted by all philosophers. As all dimensive quantity arises from relations in space, so it is owing to space itself that bodies have volume; and therefore there are not, as the ancients imagined, two volumes compenetrated, the one of space, and the other of matter; but there is one volume alone determined by the material terms related through space. And thus there is no ground left for the compenetration of two quantities.

S. Thomas also, in his Commentary to the Physics of Aristotle (4 Phys. lect. 6), and in the opuscule, De Natura Loci, argues that there is no space within the limiting surface of the body, for two reasons. The first is, that such a quantity of space would be an accident without a subject: Sequitur quod esset aliquod accidens absque subjecto; quod est impossibile. The second is, that if there is space within the surface of the body, as all the parts of the body are in the volume of the same, so will the places of all the parts be in the place of the whole; and consequently, there will be as many places compenetrated with one another as there can be divisions in the dimensions of the body. But these dimensions admit of an infinite division. Therefore, infinite places will be compenetrated together: Sequitur quod sint infinita loca simul; quod est impossibile.

These two reasons could not but have considerable weight in a time when material continuity formed the base of the physical theory of quantity, and when space without matter was considered a chimera; but in our time the case is quite different. To the first reason we answer, that the space within the surface of the body will not be “an accident without a subject.” In fact, such a space can be understood in two manners, viz., either as the foundation of the intervals, or as the intervals themselves; and in neither case will there be an accident without a subject. For, the space which is the foundation of the intervals is no accident; it is the virtuality of God’s immensity, as we have proved; and, therefore, there can be no question about its subject. Moreover, such a space is indeed within the limits of the body, but it is also without, as it is not limited by them. These limits, as compared with space, are extrinsic terms; and therefore they do not belong to space, but to the body alone. Lastly, although without space there can be no place, yet space is neither the material nor the formal constituent of place, but only the extrinsic ground of local relations, just as eternity is not an intrinsic constituent of time, but only the extrinsic ground of successive duration. Whence it is manifest that the entity of space is not the dimensive quantity of the body, but the eminent reason of its dimensions.

If, on the other hand, space is understood in the popular sense as meaning the accidental intervals between the limits of the body, then it is evident that such intervals will not be without their proportionate subject. Relations have a subject of predication, not of inhesion; for relation is a thing whose entity, according to the scholastic definition, consists entirely of a mere connotation; cuius totum esse est ad aliud se habere. Hence all relation is merely ad aliud, and cannot be in alio. Accordingly, the intervals between the terms of the body are between them, but do not inhere in them; and they have a sufficient subject—the only subject, indeed, which they require, for the very reason that they exist between real terms, with a real foundation. Thus the first reason objected is radically solved.

To the second reason we answer, that it is impossible to conceive an infinite multitude of places in one total place, unless we admit the existence of an infinite multitude of limiting terms—that is, unless we assume that matter is mathematically continuous. But, since material continuity is now justly considered as a baseless and irrational hypothesis, as our readers know, the compenetration of infinite places with one another becomes an impossibility.

Yet, as all bodies contain a very great number of material terms, it may be asked: Would the existence of space within the limits of place prove the compenetration of a finite number of places? Would it prove, for instance, that the places of different bodies existing in a given room compenetrate the place of the room? The answer depends wholly on the meaning attached to the word “space.” If we take “space” as the foundation of the relations between the terms of a place, then different places will certainly be compenetrated, inasmuch as the entity of space is the same, though differently terminated, in every one of them. But, if we take “space” as meaning the system of relative intervals between the terms of a body, then the place of a room will not be compenetrated with the places of the bodies it contains; because neither the intervals nor the terms of one place are the intervals or the terms of another, nor have they anything common except the absolute entity of their extrinsic foundation. Now, since place is not space properly, but only a system of correlations between ubications marking out the limits of the body in space, it follows that no compenetration of one place with another is possible so long as the terms of the one do not coincide with the terms of the other.

S. Thomas remarks also, in the same place, that if a recipient full of water contains space, then, besides the dimensions of the water, there would be in the same recipient the dimensions of space, and these latter would therefore be compenetrated with the former. Quum aqua est in vase, præter dimensiones aquæ sunt ibi aliæ dimensiones spatii penetrantes dimensiones aquæ. This would certainly be the case were it true that the dimensions of the body are materially continuous, as S. Thomas with all his contemporaries believed. But the truth is that the dimensions of bodies do not consist in the extension of continuous matter, but in the extension of the intervals between the limits of the bodies, which is greater or less according as it requires a greater or less extension of movement to be measured. The volume of a body—that is, the quantity of the place it occupies—is exactly the same whether it be full or empty, provided the limiting terms remain the same and in the same relation to one another. It is not the matter, therefore, that constitutes its dimensions. And then there are, and can be, no distinct dimensions of matter compenetrating the dimensions of place. But enough about the nature of place. Let us proceed to its division.

Division of Place.—Place in general may be divided into real and imaginary, according as its limiting terms exist in nature or are only imagined by us. This division is so clear that it needs no explanation. It might be asked whether there are not also ideal places. We answer, that strictly ideal places there are none; for the ideal is the object of our intellect, whilst place is the object of our senses and imagination. Hence the so-called “ideal” places are nothing but “imaginary” places.

Place, whether real or imaginary, is again divided by geometers into linear, superficial, and cubic or solid, according to the nature of their limiting boundaries. A place limited by surfaces is the place of a volume or geometric solid. A place limited by lines is the place of a surface. A place limited by mere points is the place of a line.

The ancients, when defining place as “the surface of the surrounding body,” connected the notion of place with the quantity of volume, without taking notice of the other two kinds just mentioned. This, too, was a necessary consequence of their assumption of continuous matter. For, if matter is intrinsically extended in length, breadth, and depth, all places must be extended in a similar manner. But it is a known fact that the word “place” (locus) is used now, and was used in all times, in connection not only with geometric volumes, but also with geometric surfaces and with geometric lines; and as the geometric quantities have their counterpart in the physical order, it is manifest that such geometric places cannot be excluded from the division of place. Can we not on any surface draw a line circumscribing a circle or any other close figure? And can we not point out the “place” where the circle or figure is marked out? There are therefore places of which the boundaries are lines, not surfaces. And again, can we not fix two points on a given line, and consider the interval between them as one of the many places which can be designated along the line? The word “place” in its generality applies to any kind of dimensive quantity in space. Those who pretend to limit it to “the surface of a volume” should tell us what other term is to be used when we have to mention the place of a plane figure on a wall, or of a linear length on the intersection of two surfaces. It will be said that the ancients in this case used the word Ubi. But we reply that Ubi and Locus were taken by them as synonymous. The quantities bounded by lines, or terminated by points, were therefore equivalently admitted to have their own “places”; which proves that the definition of place which philosophers left us in their books, did not express all that they themselves meant when using the word, and therefore it was not practically insisted upon. With us the case is different. The Ubi, as defined by us, designates a single point in space, and is distinct from locus; hence we do not admit that our ubi is a place; for there is no place within a point. But the philosophers of the old school could not limit the real ubication of matter to a mere point, owing to their opinion that matter was continuous.