Volume 25 — THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XXV., No. 149.—AUGUST, 1877.

THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN FRANCE AND ITS BEARINGS.

I.—QUESTION STATED.

The attention of the world at large is at present fastened on two important movements—the war between Russia and Turkey and the recent political changes in France. Both of these have the same origin, but the aspect of each is different. No one will dispute that both are fraught with most momentous interests, that their development will be watched with great concern, and that it is not impossible that their final issue may change the religious features no less than the territorial limits of Europe.

Our purpose in this article is to confine the attention of our readers to the affairs of France; not with the design of narrating the successive events which brought about the present crisis,^[93] but with a view to the principles involved in the struggle and their bearing on the great interests of Europe, actual and prospective.

What agitates France at this moment is not an “ultramontane” and “clerical intrigue” to restore “the temporal princedom of the Pope,” or an “anti-republican” plot of legitimists to place Henry V. on the throne of his ancestors, as our daily newspapers of all political parties and the weekly Protestant journals of every sect would have the public believe. The real political leaders in France today are representative of none of these parties, nor are they champions of their distinctive principles or advocates of their cherished measures. They have other fish to fry. Some of the newspaper writers and correspondents would persuade their readers that the change of front in France by the government is owing to the influence exerted by Madame MacMahon over the President of the Republic, her husband. Drowning men catch at straws, and men who lack common sense clutch at any flimsy pretext to bolster up a foolish project.

The day of the supremacy of such influence in great state affairs is gone by; and, even were it not, the character of the men engaged 578in this weighty piece of political strategy is not made of stuff that would incline them to be led by the nose by a woman, whatever may be her reputation for piety or her supposed or declared inclinations for legitimacy. We venture the opinion that the most estimable Christian wife of the Marshal-President of the Republic of France is not wasting her time in fruitless political intrigues, but employs it better in telling her beads, in taking care of her children, and in works of charity to her neighbor. All these are random shots.

The raising of such false issues, however, serves the purpose of their inventors in throwing the public attention off the true scent, and thereby prolonging the opportunity for them to invent new schemes against public order and society under the restored leadership of the octogenarian, M. Thiers. This was their manœuvre in 1871, and “Prince Bismarck regretted the fall of M. Thiers, because he would have infallibly thrown France into the arms of M. Gambetta and anarchy.”^[94] They also afford them additional chances of escape from the due and certain punishment which is impending over them.

These pretexts show also the craft of those who make them and the simplicity of their dupes. For they are well aware that there is a large class of persons, especially in Protestant communities, whose prepossessions are stronger than their attachment to Christianity, and there are no absurdities too great for them to swallow, provided only you bait them with the cry of “Popery!” “Vaticanism!” “Clericalism!” As for those who are caught by the cry of “anti-republicanism,” they appear not to understand that a king without the popular instincts of a people in his favor is a mere cipher, and that the age is past and never again to return, at least in Europe, when, as an Eastern despot, the king dare say: “L’Etat, c’est moi.”

The transformation that has taken place in the nations of Europe, the expansion of their narrow lines of policy into broader political principles, has been so rapid and powerful that its force in our day has passed beyond all possible human control. These principles have become profound convictions, and for not heeding them the people of France dethroned Charles X. and Louis Philippe; and were Henry V. placed to-day upon the throne of France with the intention of attempting to restore the ancient régime, it would be as vain, even though he should have Marshal MacMahon and the army at his command to back him, as an effort to stem and throw back the mighty torrents that pour their waters over the precipice of Niagara.

The tendency of modern society to a political equality, without distinction of the privileges of birth or rank, has its root in the spirit of Christianity. The Catholic Church, in this sense, is the most democratic institution that has ever existed upon this earth. There is no barrier in the path for its humblest member to become its chief in power and dignity. It is not seldom, too, that those who have risen from the lowest walk in life have been elected to this high position. The spirit of an age, rightly interpreted, is the breath of the Almighty stirring within men’s souls, which finds its utterance in their voices, even in spite of themselves. Nowhere has the Catholic Church 579been given such fair play, though this is yet imperfect, as in the democratic republic of the United States. This fact has been recognized by the supreme pastor of the faithful, Pius IX., and again and again he has called the attention of the world to it.

France has the opportunity under the presidency of Marshal MacMahon, if she only knew how to profit by it, of forming a political government adapted to the genius and character of her people and in harmony with her present wants and future greatness; to govern herself, if she wishes it, independently of an emperor or a hereditary monarch; and this task will be accomplished, unless hindered by that enemy of all rational liberty—a destructive radicalism. If the young Napoleon, or the Count of Paris, or Henry V. ascends the throne of France, it will be due to the Thierses, the Simons, and the Gambettas and their abettors.

II.—TWO MOVEMENTS IN THE WORLD.

There have been from the beginning only two fundamental movements in this world, and these are becoming in Europe more and more distinct, powerful, and antagonistic. The one has its source in the Catholic Church, which is the concrete form of the direct action of God on society in view of man’s true destination. The other consists in rebellion against this divine action, and finds on earth its headquarters and expression in heresies, in despotisms, and, more particularly in recent days, in organized secret societies.

III.—FIRST MOVEMENT.

The order and stability of modern society and civilization are based upon the truths which find their root and support in the doctrines unswervingly taught and uncompromisingly upheld by the Catholic Church. Among these great truths are the divinity of Christ and the divine establishment and perpetuity of his church upon earth; the unquestionable responsibility of both kings and peoples to the law of God; the indissolubility of the marriage tie and the sacredness of the family; the reign of the law of justice between man and man, and, when violated, the strict obligation of restitution; the sacredness of oaths and the equality of all men, without distinction of rank, color, or race, before God. By the undeviating application of these and other great first truths of divine revelation and of human reason, at the cost of the lives of millions of her children; by withstanding the fierce attacks of the barbarians of the northern forests of Europe; by her contest with Mahomet and his followers; and by her resistance to the errors and vices of her inconsistent and disobedient children, the Catholic Church formed the conscience of modern society, founded the nations of Europe, united them in a universal commonwealth called Christendom, in view and as the means of establishing the reign of God in men’s souls and upon earth, as preliminary to the kingdom of heaven hereafter, issuing finally into the Christian cosmos.

Such has been the work of the first movement.

IV.—SECOND MOVEMENT.

All heresies, all despotisms, all secret societies have this postulate in common: that the overthrow of the Catholic Church is a sine qua non to their attaining ultimate success. 580Hence there is an instinctive and unanimous sympathy among their adherents whenever there is an attack aimed against the Catholic Church—an unmistakable sign of their common origin and an unquestionable proof of their parentage. Peoples of countries distinguished for their profession of universal toleration and championship of the right of every individual to the enjoyment of his own religious convictions will applaud to the skies the violation of these principles, provided the persecuted be only Catholics! Every right guaranteed by constitutional law, every principle of divine and human justice, may be trampled under foot—yea, with sympathy and applause—provided those who do so are animated with hatred for the Catholic Church! Witness the public sympathy, both in England and the United States, with the war of imprisonments, fines, and banishments waged against Catholics, with murderous intent against their church, by the “iron and blood” chancellor of the Hohenzollern Empire; witness the confiscations and sacrilegious spoliations by the crew of infidels of Italy, led by a Mancini, against the church; witness the banishment of all the Catholic priests without exception from its district, in violation of the federal constitution, by the canton of Berne, and the robbery of the churches built by the sacrifices of loyal Catholics, which are given over to the use of a rebellious and insignificant faction by the authorities of the Swiss so-called republic; witness, to come nearer home, the assassination, by the agents of secret societies, of the President of Equador, and, within a few weeks, the poisoning of the Archbishop of Quito at the altar! There are none to raise a voice, not to say a cry of horror or indignation, among these sticklers for liberty and justice, in condemnation of this wholesale tyranny, these cruel persecutions, and this secret and deadly violence. This is well known by the atheists, who aim at the ruin of all Christian institutions: that to delude a large class in these so-called liberty-loving countries, and gain their sympathy, material aid, and the use and support of their press, all that is required to make them run like an enraged bull at a red rag is to shout lustily, “Ultramontanism!” “Vaticanism!” “Popery!”

Herein lies also the interpretation of the assertion of the governments actuated by an anti-Christian spirit and under the influence of members of secret societies, to whom they are bound to trim, that the present attitude of France is dangerous to the peace of Europe. That is, the secret designs of radicalism are detected, and their plots are in danger of being checkmated. “Let the galled jades wince.” At the same time it gives the explanation of the motives of Marshal MacMahon, which is nothing else than to head off the efforts of these anti-Christian conspirators, and prevent France from falling into their hands and the civilized world from witnessing the repetition of the atrocities of the Commune of the petroleuse notoriety of 1871. A large portion of the people, and with them the press, of England and the United States, is duped by cunning and designing men; and probably, if all were known, a portion of Bismarck’s Reptile Fund has found its way to their shores and done some service.

The present crisis in France is fraught with her deliverance as well 581as that of Europe from the most desperate and wide-spread organized conspiracy that has ever existed in the world. They fail to interpret rightly public events and to discern the signs of the times who take it to mean anything less than the saving of Christianity and modern civilization in Europe.

“Let order die!

Let one spirit of the first-born Cain

Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set

On bloody courses, the rude scene may end

And darkness be the burier of the dead.”

Such is their aim, and it is also their undisguised and outspoken word; for these men “know not how to blush.”^[95]

And these are the chief characteristics of the second movement.

V.—THE LINES OF BATTLE.

The explosion of the first mine laid by secret societies has been heard in the outbreak of the war between Russia and Turkey, if we are to credit Disraeli, than whom no man is in a position to be better informed of the decisions gone forth from their secret revolutionary headquarters. Unless thwarted by a counter movement, prompted by the instincts of self-preservation on the part of all the Christian and conservative elements of European society, we may expect to hear, as in 1848, the successive explosions of revolution in Paris, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, and Berlin; and being more skilfully planned, and more extensively spread, and more powerful, a revolutionary upheaving of the populations in St. Petersburg and London as well as in the lesser centres of Europe, is not improbable.

Men who read in consequences their causes will not fail to see the significance of the position taken by the President of the Republic of France; for, whatever may be his reputation as a politician, his military sagacity and strategical genius are unquestioned. President MacMahon’s change of cabinet is the first declared, earnest, and decided step taken to avert from France and all Europe this great and threatening catastrophe. For Jules Simon surreptitiously attempted to insert the edge of the radical wedge, whose butt end is made up of socialism, communism, and anarchy, into the Republic of France, which M. Gambetta, his aspiring and designated successor, would have energetically and logically driven home and riven her asunder, to the delight of her enemies and to the advantage of her foes. Let us hope that the President of France has taken time by the forelock.

The die is cast; there can no longer be any neutrality or secondary motives to divide one’s allegiance between these two distinctly-drawn camps. He is a traitor to Christ and a renegade Christian who stands aloof or hesitates which side to take when a battle is fairly drawn between Christianity and atheism. Every Christian, whatever may be his peculiar tenets, will make common cause when the primary truths of divine revelation and the first principles of morality are at stake. All political party designations will be sunk into oblivion by men who intelligently and disinterestedly love their country and their race, when both society and civilization are endangered.

The present crisis in France is a 582call to both religion and patriotism, in their best and widest sense, to unite in a common defence of their truest and highest interests.

There is no alternative, and he who does not see this battle imminent in Europe is like an officer on board of a ship, lulled in a dream of false peace or disputing about the rigging of his vessel when the enemy is fastening a torpedo to its bow that will in a few seconds blow them all into atoms and send their vessel to the bottom of the ocean.

The conservative elements, if not from higher motives, will be forced to unite from the instinct of self-preservation to save their property from the petroleurs and their necks from the guillotine.

VI.—THE ISSUE OF THE BATTLE.

This movement in its weak beginnings in France, regarding only impending dangers to the state, will not exhaust itself until it has restored the Catholic Church to her normal position in Europe. This final result is no more intended by the leaders of the movement than it was the design of the Allied Powers to restore the Papacy at the downfall of the first Napoleon. It is a divine law that man acts, but God directs.

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.”

There is, then, this increasing purpose running through the history of God’s dealings with the human race: to bring into clearer light the divine character of his church, his spouse, rendering it less and less possible for men to recognize his existence and not be Christians, and, being Christians, not to be Catholics. This is the key of universal history.

There is not an “ultramontane,” a “clerical,” or a “papist,” in the sense in which these words are used by those hostile to the actual movement in France; and if its final outcome be favorable to the Catholic Church, it is because this is the nature of things.

VII.—ERRORS OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Europe for the past century has been in the state of transition to a new epoch—a renewal of Catholicity. This statement is in flat contradiction with the assertions of some modern thinkers who claim the title of philosophers. They would have us believe that religious motives—or, as they term it, “theological motives,” which is the same thing; for theology is nothing else than the scientific statement of religion—are exhausted. This is equivalent to saying that human nature is exhausted; for religion is what lies deepest in human nature, and consequently all other motives will be exhausted before those of religion.

Religion is the very essence of man’s nature; for it springs from the intellectual sense of his entire dependence for existence on an absolute cause. Religion is, in its last analysis, reason’s recognition of God and man’s fulfilment of his relations to God. Religion and reason are, therefore, correlative.

Men who pretend that religious motives have ceased to have a strong hold upon human nature labor under a complete hallucination. First they fancy that those faculties through which God acts on the soul, and which bring the soul in contact with God, have by some strange freak suddenly become defunct. That religious motives to an almost incredible extent 583have become extinct in some men’s souls we, with pain and pity, admit; that this is the case with the bulk of mankind is an egregious mistake. There has seldom been an age when religious questions occupied so large a share of intellectual attention as our own; and religious motives still influence the bulk of mankind in their conduct.

It is too true, however, that a class of men have fatally succeeded, by a false education and an erroneous philosophy, in paralyzing the action of the noblest faculties of the soul; but this disease is confined to a small class. Deluded men! they would have the rest of mankind to esteem their descent as a privilege and count their defect an honor.

The second form in which the symptoms of this malady manifest themselves is the eschewing of the first principles of sound logic. As “God is a provisionary idea,” or “man’s intuition of himself projected into space,” or “the creation of a wish”—so runs their premise; and the religious faculties of the soul having become extinct, they jump to the most absurd of all conclusions: “God is extinct,” “the soul’s immortality is a fable,” and “religion is a worn-out superstition”! The inspired Psalmist wrote in his day that none but “the fool said in his heart, There is no God.” Were he now to come upon earth, he would be surprised to see the fools of his time dressed in the garb of philosophers and proclaiming from the house-tops as the highest wisdom, “God is extinct!” These delirious minds are like the ostrich, which, when on the point of being captured, blinds its eyes by thrusting its head under the sand, and foolishly fancies, because of its incapacity to see, it has destroyed its pursuers and escaped all danger.

“Le nid n’a pas créé l’oiseau.”

“I tell thee, friend, a speculating churl

Is like a beast some evil spirit chases

Along a barren heath in one perpetual whirl,

While round about lie fair, green pasturing places.”

The eternal God is, and in him is all that lives, moves, and exists, and his providence directs all things to the end for which he called them into existence.

The world is not out of joint, nor is the responsibility of setting it right placed upon the unsteady and feeble shoulders of inventors of absurd religions, the cogitators of false philosophies, or the dreamers of sterile Utopias.

God is not ousted from his creation as easily as these ambitious philosophers, who are so ready to occupy his place in the universe, would have the world believe.

VIII.—MISTAKE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHERS.

The mistake of a class of speculative thinkers consists in regarding the state of transition of society from one epoch to another—in interpreting a phase of religion—as the change and vanishing of the indestructible elements of all religion.

A certain class of truths suits one age, awakens the greatest enthusiasm and profoundest devotion, and in another epoch falls dead almost upon the ears of men and hardly calls forth an audible response. Epochs differ from epochs in their aspirations and instincts, like those of individuals; and this is a law of the providential education and growth of the human race. One race of men differs from another in its capacity to seize hold of, appreciate, and give the proper expression 584to certain truths, and in turn is brought to the front ranks in the providential march of humanity. And this is the intention of the Author of the human family. Men of the same race differ also greatly from each other; for in the wide universe there are no two things in all respects precisely alike, and in this is seen displayed God’s creative power.

These separate epochs, this variety of races, and these differences among men afford to Christianity the opportunities and means of giving expression to the great truths contained in all religions of which she is the adequate representation. For Christianity is the synthesis of all the scattered truths of every form of religion which has existed from the beginning of the world, and the Catholic Church is its complete organic, living form. Christianity is the abstract expression of the Catholic Church, which, in the successive centuries of her existence, has come in contact with every race of men, and has known how to Christianize and retain them in her fold in harmony with their natural instincts. She has met humanity in every stage of its development, from the intellectual and refined Greek to the man-eating savage, and, by working on the foundations of nature, she has captivated them to the easy yoke of Christ. The Catholic Church alone has known how to supply the defects of human nature and correct its vices while giving free play to its instincts and retaining the charm of its native originality—not by a superior human sagacity or a preternatural craft, as sophists would make the world believe, but because in her dwells that divine Spirit which breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and made him a living, rational, immortal soul, and in whom he lives, moves, and has his being.

God is not extinct nor are religious motives effete. The mistake of these theorizers consists in supposing that the present is the finality of Christianity, whereas the hand of God is opening the way by purifying his church, by directing the movements of nations and the issues of the world, in order that she may shape the coming future beyond all past experience in her progressive approach to the perfect realization of her divine Ideal.

“An age comes on, which came three times of old,

When the enfeebled nations shall stand still

To be by Christian science shaped at will.”

IX.—NEW UNITED CHRISTENDOM.

Are the intelligent Christians of our day sufficiently aware of the serious character and the extent of the dangers which are now impending? Do they appreciate the import of the questions which engage and agitate the active intellect of their contemporaries? Are they sensible of the weight of their responsibilities, and ready to lift their minds and hearts to the grandeur of the mission of the age in which their lot is cast?

He who can see things as they are throughout the world where the Christian faith has spread, and appreciate them rightly, cannot help seeing that a fresh unfolding of the great design of Christianity in all its simplicity, vastness, and splendor, and a stricter application of its principles in the several spheres of life, alone are adequate to meet all the genuine aspirations and satisfy the honest demands of this age.

The attack is against the primary truths of reason no less than the essential truths of divine revelation, and the defence, to be adequate 585and victorious, must at least be equal to the attack. Thus the law of reaction is forcing upon the leading Christian minds a reaffirmation of natural and revealed truths with a completeness and a force which the world has not up to this time witnessed. There can be no compromise with the false principles of atheists in religion, revolutionists in the state, and anarchists in society. Their errors must be refuted and their movements counteracted. The positive side of truth must be brought out and clothed in all its beauty. The true picture must be presented and contrasted with the false, so as to captivate the intelligence and enlist the enthusiasm of the active minds of the youth of the age. This is the great work that, in the economy of God, is mainly left to the initiative of individual minds of the members of his church. It is the work of Catholic genius illuminated by the light and the interior inspirations of the working of the Holy Spirit. The Church, in every critical or important epoch in her history, has always given birth to providential men; these are her Gregories, Augustines, Benedicts, Bernards, Francises, Neris, Ignatiuses, Vincents of Paul.

As in the past, so in the present, a new phase of the church will be presented to the world—one that will reveal more clearly and completely her divine character. “It is the divine action of the Holy Spirit in and through the church which gives to her organization the reason for its existence. And it is the fuller explanation of the divine side of the church, and its relations with the human side, giving always to the former its due accentuation, that will contribute to the increase of the interior life of the faithful, and aid powerfully to remove the blindness of those—whose number is much larger than is commonly supposed—who only see the church on her human side.”^[96]

The reintegration into general principles of the scattered truths contained in the religious, social, and political sects and parties of our day would reveal to all upright souls their own ideal more clearly and completely, and at the same time present to them the practical measures and force necessary to its realization. By this process sects and parties and antagonisms would become as far as possible extinct—not by way of antagonism, but by the power of assimilation and attraction. Just as the lesser magnet is drawn to the greater by cords of attraction identical with its own, only more intense, more powerful, and all-embracing, so the fragmentary truths contained in error, when reintegrated in their general principles, will be drawn to them and their division disappear. Christianity once more will be perfect in one, and, uniting its forces for the conversion of the world, will direct humanity as one man to its divine destination.

X.—THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.

Is not such a consummation the answer to the devout aspiration of all sincere Christian souls? Is it not also the promise of Christianity, and was it not the object of the most earnest prayer of its Founder when upon earth? The Son of God did not pray in vain.

Underneath all the errors and evils found among men of all times 586is the prime desire for the knowledge of the truth and the native hunger for the good. Now, the absolute truth which contains all truth, and the absolute good which contains the supreme good, is God. God is therefore the ideal of the rational soul, the term of all its seeking, and the end of all its wishes. The perfect union of the soul with God is bliss.

Again, Christianity does not confine itself to the reign of God in the soul; it seeks to establish the reign of God upon earth. “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” was the petition of Christ to his heavenly Father. His life was not confined to contemplation and preaching; he “went about doing good.”

Genuine contemplation and action are inseparable. He who sees truth loves truth, and he who loves truth seeks to spread the knowledge and the practice of truth. Divine love is infinitely active, and, when it has entered the human heart and has set it on fire, it pushes man to all outward perfection and visible justice. No men have labored so zealously and so efficiently for their fellow-men, for the establishment of God’s kingdom upon earth, as the saints of God.

The love of God and the love of man are one. God promises his reward not to the ignorant, or to the indolent, or to the indifferent, but to those who visit the prisoner, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, to the doing of good works as the evidence of the true faith.

The Catholic Church teaches to men their true relations to God and to their fellow-men, and by the practical application of the principles which govern these relations are removed the errors and vices which hinder the establishment of the reign of God in men’s souls and everywhere upon earth. The history of civilization since the moment of the church’s institution on the day of Pentecost is nothing else than a record of the several steps of progress of society, under the guidance of the Catholic Church, in reaching this goal. Whatever elements the nineteenth century possesses superior to Judaism, paganism, barbarism, and Islamism are due to the uninterrupted action of Christ upon the world through the Catholic Church. Modern civilization may be defined as the result of nineteen centuries of action of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Catholic Church in establishing the reign of God in men’s souls and the kingdom of heaven upon earth. “God is now taking the dross out of the crucible, so as to render his people free from all alloy, and once more to clothe the church for which our Lord delivered himself up with beauty resplendent with glory. And when God shall have accomplished this, he will remove the rod of his justice from the church, and, that his divine name may no longer be blasphemed, he will give her victory, a victory far more brilliant than her sufferings have been terrible. May this triumph not be delayed!”^[97]

XI.—THE CATHOLIC IDEA OF HEAVEN.

The Catholic Church teaches that the road to a blessed hereafter is by striving to establish the kingdom of heaven upon earth; it is after a life spent in practical good works that the soul merits to hear the words, 587“Well done, good and faithful servant: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” But then do all the soul’s interests cease the moment it has left this world and entered upon its future life? Is it true that the only thought of a true Christian is to get well out of this world and all that belongs to it, and give it no further concern? Is this the Catholic idea?

Not at all. The Catholic idea is that as our transformation in God is perfected, so do all the faculties of the soul increase. The soul knows more, loves more, and does more infinitely in the blessed land than when upon this earth. The lives of most of us while here are only a little better than a sleep. The soul’s vision of the divine Essence, and its participation in the divine Nature, render it, like the angels, “God’s coadjutor” in the realization of his ideal in the vast universe. So far from the knowledge of this globe, and the affection towards its inhabitants or interests in its concerns, being lessened or lost by the citizens of heaven, the knowledge acquired and the affections formed during their life upon earth are essentially retained, and are enlarged and intensified; and on this truth is based the Catholic doctrine of the communion and invocation of saints. Hence to this knowledge and affection and constant interest taken by the souls in heaven in the welfare of this world, and of those from whom they are corporally but not really separated, and to their power to aid them, is owing the adoption of angels and saints as patrons by Catholic nations, cities, villages, towns, and by every individual Catholic. He who is ignorant of the Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints, and who is not within the Catholic fold, can have no conception of the intimate and intense, uninterrupted spiritual intercourse between the soul of a truly devout Catholic and the angelical and saintly inhabitants of heaven. The church militant and the church triumphant are substantially one, form one communion, and their action is inseparable. The Catholic idea, then, is this: that the power of the soul, on entering into heaven, to aid man upon earth in the realization of his true destiny is redoubled; and that this power is most efficaciously employed in our favor by the souls of the eternally blessed. The retrospective action of the inhabitants of the other world on the welfare of this world greatly accelerates its progress, and, compared with their direct action while upon earth, it is immeasurably greater and free from all alloy.

XII.—FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF MODERN INFIDELS.

The Catholic Church places no gulf between God and humanity, or divorce between heaven and earth, or antagonism between revelation and reason, or religion and science; and she repudiates the doctrine which emphasizes faith at the expense of good works. Hence the accusation of modern infidels against Christianity, as confining itself exclusively to man’s happiness hereafter—“a post-mortem happiness”—while ignoring his actual, present good—“ante-mortem happiness”—may have some show of reason as against Protestant sects, especially of the Calvinistic sect; but it is altogether false, and must be set down to defective knowledge, when made against the Catholic Church.

It is through the faithful reception of the divine action of the 588Catholic Church by individuals and society that the highest good possible for man here and hereafter can be surely attained; and this needs only clearly to be seen to restore to her true and visible fold all the descendants of the members separated from the Catholic Church by the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, who are in good faith.

And it is the bringing out into a clearer light the divine side of the church, and to the front those truths which eliminate the errors rife in our day and their stricter application to present evils, that, by the instinct of the Holy Spirit, now preoccupies the active intelligent mind of Catholics throughout the world, especially in countries where the dangers are most imminent, such as France, Germany, and Italy.

XIII.—PROMISES, FALSE AND TRUE.

There are two controlling forces, explain their origin as we may, visible in the conflicting movements of human affairs in this world. The one places man in possession of the Supreme Good, and makes him a co-worker with his Creator in the realization of the ideal for which God called this great universe into existence. The other is instigated by the enemy of God and the human race, seeking by false promises to lead man astray.

“You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,” was Satan’s promise to our first parents. This promise contained what was desirable for man; God had implanted in the human soul the aspiration for its fulfilment. But what the enemy promised he had not the power to perform, and the road that he pointed out as leading to the fulfilment of the promise led in a wrong direction.

The right answer of our first parents to Satan would have been: “We know that God has made our souls in his own image and likeness, and that we shall be made participators of his divine Nature, and thereby deified; and as our Creator has endowed us with the gift of intelligence, we shall also gain the knowledge of good and evil—for this is its proper object. And we know also with certitude that we shall gain these great rewards by following the paths which God has pointed out to us.” Had they thus spoken, they would have, in the strength of their innocence and conscious rectitude, added: “Begone, tempter! Thou art a liar; for what thou dost promise it is not thine to give; and instead of wishing our elevation, thou seekest to accomplish our fall and utter ruin!”

As in the beginning, so now, Satan seizes hold of the noblest aspirations of the soul, and, by deceiving men under the guise of a real good, leads them quite astray. For what underlies the promises of Protestantism and its innumerable sects; and rationalism, so-called, and its different phases; and the secularists, positivists, scientists, atheists, radicals, materialists, spiritists, revolutionists, evolutionists, socialists, pessimists, free-religionists, communists, internationalists, optimists, theists, nihilists, kulturkämpfer, agnostics, intuitionists, transcendentalists, and other sects and parties too numerous to mention—for their name is legion, and their confusion of tongues is as great as that of Babel—what underlies their promises is in one aspect true and in a sense desirable. The right answer to all their fine promises is this: “You affirm undoubted truths 589and you hold out a desirable good; but the way that you point out for realizing the one and attaining the other is subversive of all truth and the supreme good, and it will not reach even what you aim at, but end in entire disappointment and anarchy. Put together the fragmentary truths affirmed by each of your different religious sects, and you will find them all contained in Catholicity. Make a list of all the honest demands for ameliorations and reforms in man’s social, industrial, and political condition—it will not be a short one—and you will discover that they have their truth in the spirit, and are justified by the teachings and the practice, of the Catholic Church.” O sincere seeker after truth! did you but know it, the path lies open before you to a perennial fountain of truth, where you can slake to the full that thirst which has so long tormented your soul. O sincere lover of your fellow-men! there is a living body which you may see and co-operate with, whose divine action is realizing a heavenly vision for the whole human race, brighter and more beautiful than the ideal which so often haunts your lonely dreams!

The divine ideal is a God-given aspiration to your soul, but the way to realize it is not by building up a tower of Babel.

XIV.—CONCLUSION.

The evolution of Catholicity which is now coming slowly to the light will gather up all the rich treasures of the past, march in response to every honest demand of the interests of the actual present, and guide the genuine aspirations of the race in the sure way to the more perfect future of its hopes.

This sublime mission is not the self-imposed work of any man or party of men, but the divinely-imposed task of religion, of the present, visible, living body of Christ, the church of God. None other has the power to renew the world, unite together in one band the whole human race, and direct its energies to enterprises worthy of man’s great destiny. Marshal MacMahon, Duke de Broglie, or any one else, legitimists, imperialists, Orleanists, republicans, anti-republicans, these men and these parties in France may contribute more or less as instruments to the initiation of the new order of things in Europe, but that is all. They will betray the cause of God and the interests of humanity, if they should attempt to turn it to any individual account or to any partisan triumph, whether called religious or political. The enemies of the church may place hindrances in her way, but they cannot stop her in reaching her goal. God alone rules and reigns.

God has spoken his “thus far shalt thou go, and no further” to his enemies and to all the persecutors of the church of Christ. When God arises, his enemies will flee and be scattered. Their strength, compared with that of his children, is as the strength of a rope of sand. Their power is gained by secrecy, and their influence by threats and deeds of violence; for their real numbers constitute but a small fraction of the French, German, Italian, and Spanish or any other people. The present struggle will render this fact evident to all the world.

Strange destiny that of France, to be the leader of Europe both for good and for evil! France was the first nation converted to Christianity in western Europe, and the first to proclaim herself, as a nation, infidel. France will be the first to 590recover from her errors and give the initial blow that will end in the overthrow of the enemies of modern civilization and Christianity.

The Marshal-President of the Republic of France, the brave soldier, the man without fear or reproach, is not the man to betray his high trusts through any personal ambition, or to any party, legitimist, Orleanist, imperialist, Gambettist, or whatever may be the name which it bears on its banner.

The mission of the President of France is to keep ambitious men and partisans at bay, and afford the best elements and the truest interests of all France a fair expression and the opportunity of forming a stable and suitable political government. The Catholic Church has been made to suffer too much and too long from crowned emperors, royal dynasties, and political factions in France and elsewhere to identify her great cause with theirs.

France, under the providence of God, is slowly being taught to stand on her own feet, to assert her true manhood, and to practise self-government. The political virtues the French people have practised, and the self-control they have displayed, since the formation of the republic, have discomfited their enemies, increased the admiration of their friends, and won the applause of the civilized world. France never was so really great as she is at this moment.

The purity of the motives of the President of the Republic, the disinterested love of his country, and his undaunted valor have never been impeached, nor has his escutcheon ever borne the slightest stain. His sagacity and prudence have never been at fault. That he has a will Jules Simon has learned to his cost. Patrick MacMahon, the marshal of the armies of France and the first President of her Republic, possesses evidently all the distinguishing qualities of the first commander-in-chief of the American army and the first President of the Republic of the United States—George Washington. The French people can safely trust for one term, and not unlikely for a second, their liberties, their interests, and their honor to the keeping of such a man.

France will find in her president a providential man, and his name will go down to posterity with the title of our own great patriot, the noblest of all titles—“MacMahon, the Father of his Country.”

The turning point of a new era for Europe and of the renewal of Catholicity is entrusted by divine Providence to the hands of the eldest daughter of his church—France! In the answer of France to the present issue lies the secret of the weal or the woe of the future of Europe.

591

PHIL REDMOND OF BALLYMACREEDY.

“Whisht!” exclaimed the blind hostler attached to the Derralossory Arms. “There’s a car rowlin’ along the Bray Road, an’, from the sperrit that’s in the baste, it’s Luke Finnigan that’s dhrivin’ him. Ay, faix,” he added with a self-satisfied chuckle, “an’ that’s Luke Finnigan’s note. I’d know it from this t’ Arklow.”

A wild whoop and a sound of wheels in the direction indicated announced the approaching vehicle, and, ere the sightless hostler could grope his way from the snug corner in which he had been ensconced by the roaring kitchen fire—it was the middle of July—an outside car dashed up to the principal door of the hotel, stopped with a jerk as if on the edge of a precipice, and the driver, throwing the reins upon the neck of the panting horse, cried out as he gaily entered the hostelry:

“Now, thin, Misther Murphy, be nimble wud the liquor. There’s a rale gintleman goin’ for to stand, an’ I’m as dhry as a cuckoo.”

Upon the vehicle sat a young man whose exquisitely-fitting frock-coat, faultless linen, diamond studs, soft hat, and square-toed boots bespoke the American. He was fair, with soft and expressive eyes, and wore a Henri Quatre beard which admirably became his long and pensive face.

“Yer welkim to the County Wicklow, sir,” cried the hostler, who had approached the car and was engaged in giving a drink to the jaded animal. “It’s an illigant place for rocks an’ rivers an’ threes an’ scenery. Sorra a forriner that cums into it but is loath for to lave it. It takes a hoult av thim.”

“It is a very, very beautiful place,” exclaimed the new-comer enthusiastically, as he sprang to terra firma. “So green, so fresh, so—but you cannot enjoy it, my poor fellow!” suddenly perceiving the sightless orbs which were turned toward him.

“It’s many a day sence I seen it, sir,” responded the man, with a weary moan in his utterance—“many an’ many a day.”

“Thrue for him,” added the driver, emerging from the hotel and swabbing his mouth with the back of a bronzed and blistered hand, while bright beads twinkled like fallen stars in his merry eyes. “He’s dark sence he was a gossoon! An’ it’s a sight for to see him along wud the horses in the stable; he’ll go into stalls, an’ the bastes kickin’ thim to smithereens, but sorra a word they’ll say to him, though they’d be afther knockin’ sawdust out av any other tin min. He thravels the roads day an’ night. To be sure it’s all wan to him in regard to his bein’ dark, but he’ll work his way down to Lake Dan below—ay, an’ to the Sivin Churches, begor.”

“God is good to me, sir,” said the hostler; “an’ whin it plazed him for to take me eyesight, he gev me sight in me ears an’ hands.”

“Here, my poor fellow.” And the stranger placed a coin in the other’s horny palm.

“A five-shilling bit! Och, thin, may the saints light ye to glory, an’ 592may ye never die till they sind for ye! It’s lonely they’ll be till ye go to thim.”

By this time the car was surrounded by a motley group of tatterdemalions of all ages, sizes, and sexes, in every stage of decrepitude and every variety of raggedness.

“Throw a few coppers to an ould widdy, an’ the Lord reward ye!” exclaimed one.

“Ye’ll never miss a fourpenny bit,” added another.

“A sixpince to an orfin will take a bag o’ coals from undher ye in purgathory,” chimed in a third.

“Give us the price av an ounce av tay,” droned a fourth.

“More power to the stars an’ sthripes! Three cheers for Ameriky, boys!” roared a leathern-lunged dwarf, throwing a rabbit-skin cap into the air. This appeal was responded to with an enthusiasm that brought the fire into the stranger’s eye. Turning round upon the steps of the hotel—along, thatched, whitewashed, two-storied building—he made a sign as if desirous of addressing the assemblage.

“Be jabers! he’s going for to spake.”

“I riz him wud the stars an’ sthripes,” joyously chuckled the dwarf.

“Faix, it’s more nor a speech we want,” wheezed a little old fellow on crutches.

“The Home-Rulers has stuffed us like turkeys.”

“Ordher! Ordher in the coort!” yelled the dwarf. “Be aisy, Billy McKeon. Lave off scroogin’ me, Mary Nayle, an’ let the cripples in front.”

A few additional facetiæ, and the silence became complete.

The new-comer had removed his hat, and his massive white forehead stood out from beneath his soft brown, curly hair.

“I thank you for the cheer which you have given for the country of my birth.” (“That’s half a crown to me, anyhow,” muttered the dwarf.) “I hope that cheer was an honest one. It was not my intention to bestow ten cents among you, as I do not encourage mendicants; and once a beggar, always a beggar.”

This was received with very audible manifestations of dissatisfaction.

“Musha, but ye’ve come far enough for to tell us that,” growled the old man with the crutches.

“I have come a long way to tell it to you,” retorted the stranger, “and I’ll tell you more. It is positively sickening to travel through this beautiful country, on account of you and the like of you. From Cork to Killarney, from Killarney to Dublin, from Dublin to—”

“Boys, let’s make up a subscription for him,” interrupted a little fellow whose rags depended for support upon a straw rope—technically termed a “suggawn”—fastened around his waist.

“Th’ hostler 'll hed it wud five shillin’s,” observed a bystander with a droll, malicious grin.

“Begorra, we’ll tell the landlord for to put it in the bill.”

“Are ye goin’ for to give us anything?” demanded the dwarf. This query was backed up by a unanimous murmur of approval.

“I am.”

“Well, that’s raysonible, anyhow.”

“I’m going to give you some sound, wholesome advice,” said the stranger.

A yell of anger, disappointment, dissent, and derision followed this announcement. Crutches were 593brandished, sticks flourished, fists shaken, and general denunciations upon this “nagurly” conduct were indulged in, in terms as pungent as they were personal.

“You won’t hear me?” he resumed during a lull in the storm.

“Sorra a hear.”

“Well, good-afternoon.” And making them a low bow, he turned into the house, whither execrations loud, prolonged, and deep rapidly followed him.

The accommodations at the “Derralossory Arms”—for so the hostelry was named—were somewhat pretentious. Opening a door with the word “coffee-room” imprinted thereon in brazen letters, the new-comer found himself in a long, low-ceilinged apartment. A cracked mirror, the surface of which was scratched from frame to frame, like an ice rink, by amorous owners of diamond rings, stood over the mantel-piece, and above it a smoke-dried card containing the announcement of the meets of the Wicklow Harriers of the preceding season. Upon a mahogany sideboard shone a brave array of glassware interspersed with pickle-jars and some mysterious specimens of the ceramic art. Facing the sideboard was a huge antiquated sofa whose springs revealed themselves like the ribs of a half-starved horse, and opposite the sofa an ancient but uncompromisingly upright pianoforte. But not upon the mirror, sideboard, sofa, or piano did the eyes of the stranger continue to rest. The window had been lowered, and a young girl was leaning her arms upon the sash, gazing out upon the tatterdemalion crowd beneath. Her figure was petite, but of that faultless outline which no amount of drapery can conceal. A long plait of lustrous brown hair hung down her back. She was attired in black, and a huge Puritan cambric collar and cuffs adorned her wrists and neck.

“If her face is as her figure, she must be enchanting,” thought the new-comer.

“He should have given them something,” she murmured half aloud. “Poor creatures! hoping and fearing is weary, weary work.” And she slowly faced him.

He gazed at features as regular as the classic model, and whose paleness almost imparted to them the calm, impassive beauty of marble. She flushed and was about to withdraw when he blurted forth:

“I—I beg your pardon, but I overheard what you said. I am not so mean as you think.” And striding to the window and attracting the attention of the mob, who received him with a yell of derisive defiance, he flung a handful of silver among them.

A scarlet flush mantled over her face and throat. “I was but speaking to myself, thinking aloud—and—but nevertheless on the part of those poor miserable people, I beg to thank you, sir. I am sorely to blame, and your generosity only rivets the fetters that bind them to beggary.” And with a low courtesy, old-fashioned but witching grace itself, she swept from the apartment, leaving the stranger lost in admiration.

“What is that young lady’s name who was here just now?” he asked.

“Her name is Miss O’Byrne—wan av th’ ould anshint O’Byrnes that fought hard agin’ the Danes an’ Crummle—bad cess to thim, body an’ bones!” replied the waiter.

“Does she live near this place?”

“Beyant four mile, over be the side o’ Lake Dan. It’s an illigant place, wid no ind av ruins, an’ a darlin’ 594ghost that walks whinever sorra is comin’ to the race; an’ be me song, they’ve supped lashins av it.”

“Is Mr. O’Byrne wealthy?”

“Well, now”—here the waiter scratched a very shock head—“he’s not rowlin’ in goold, but he’s warm and”—brightening up—“as proud as a paycock. But there, I’m forgettin’ me message to ye.”

“To me? exclaimed the stranger with a start, half hoping it might be from Miss O’Byrne.

“Yes, sir. There’s two gintlemin cum here in regard o’ the fishin’, though sorra a haporth they ketch; an’ they cum regular wud rods an’ hooks an’ nets, an’ all soarts av cumbusticles. Wan av them is an attorney, a gay man, an’ th’ other houlds a situation in the Four Coorts beyant in Dublin, an’ he’s as nice a mannered man as there’s in the four walls o’ Wicklow this blessed minit.”

“But the message?” interrupted the stranger.

“That’s it. Yer to dine wud thim—no less. Misther Minchin tould me to prisint his respects an’ to hope ye’d favor him wud yer company; an’ don’t be hesitatin’, mind ye”—here the waiter winked an indescribable wink, such as an augur might have indulged in consequent upon a successful omen; “there’s lovely chickens, an’ the elegantest bacon, wud a filly av cabbage, an’ a dancing leg o’ lamb.”

“But I don’t know these gentlemen, and—”

“Permit me to introduce myself, sir,” exclaimed a small, elderly man with a merry eye, a bulbous nose, a very stiff, old-fashioned stock, and a stiffer rim of shirt-collar which kept his head as erect as though he was hung up by the chin, entering and bowing very courteously. “Minchin—Dominick Minchin. Hearing from this shock-headed retainer that you were a stranger, and having experienced on more occasions than one, especially during piscatorial excursions, the thrice-accursed loneliness of an inn, I beg, sir, that you will favor us by coming where glory waits you and—a bit of dinner.”

This was uttered with a quaint cheeriness that bore everything before it.

“Really, sir, I am quite impressed by your consideration, and accept your invitation most gratefully. My name is Philip Redmond.” And he handed the other his card.

“Redmond is not an American name, sir?”

“No, sir; my father was Irish.”

“Anything to the Redmonds of Ballymacreedy?”

“I am Redmond of Ballymacreedy.”

Mr. Minchin seized him warmly by both hands and shook them repeatedly. “By Jupiter, sir! this is positively glorious—sublime, sir! I knew your father well; and when he thought fit to part with his property—”

“His property parted from him, Mr. Minchin. It is gone, and I am now here to try and repurchase it at any cost. However, we’ll talk of that by and by. I feel that dinner is not very far off, and that you are only half as anxious about it as I am.”

Mr. O’Hara, Mr. Minchin’s companion, was a tall, handsome, florid-faced man of about five-and-thirty, with a profusion of sandy hair which stood out from his head like quills upon the fretful porcupine, and a smile like sunlight. In five minutes Redmond was as much at home with the two anglers as if he had known them all his life, and had planned two excursions with them.

595“I’m afraid you’ll have some trouble about getting back this property,” observed O’Hara. “It’s now in the possession of a man who doesn’t want money, and who would call you out if you proposed to purchase it.”

“Every man has his price, has he not, Mr. O’Hara?” asked Redmond.

“True; but there are exceptional circumstances connected with this case which hedge it round with an impenetrable chevaux de frise.”

“Of what nature?”

“Family pride, which will never consent to confiscate the old acres.”

“But the lands of Kilnagadd and Derralossory belonged to our family.”

“That may be, Mr. Redmond, but they were part and parcel of other territory before the Redmonds came north of Vinegar Hill. I know all about them, as I rented a fishing lodge from one of the tenants, and, being anxious to purchase it, inquired into the title.”

“I made my dying father a solemn promise that I would get back the old place. Money is no object, Mr. O’Hara. My father operated both in real estate and in gold, and died wealthy, so that a few thousands will not balk me.”

“You can try it,” was the rejoinder, accompanied by a shake of the head.

It was late when they separated, Minchin warbling “The young May moon,” and insisting upon shaking hands with the “young boss,” as he designated him, over and over again.

The summer’s morning was bright and balmy, and Redmond, after a yeoman’s breakfast—consisting of trout fried with bacon, fresh eggs, and tea in which the cream was pre-eminent—started out into the glorious sunlight which was irradiating hill and dale, mountain and valley. The forget-me-nots told their tale to the crystal pools, the graceful ferns languidly embraced the lichen-covered stones, an occasional cur basking in the heat and glow opened a lazy eye as Phil passed along the road, and compromised a bark with a prolonged yawn. The hawthorns threw their shadows across the path, and the “blossoming furze unprofitably gay” sent forth that fresh, quaint, and delicious perfume that tells us with speechless eloquence that we are out in the bright green country and away from the heat and turmoil and loathsomeness of the over-crowded human hive. Having promised to join his newly-found friends at Lough Dan, Phil took the steep and romantic road that leads to the lake direct from the village of Roundwood. Far away to the left in the summer haze lay the picturesque village of Annamoe, and farther still the sweet, sad valley of Glendalough, guarded by the giant Lug na Culliagh, while the deep-tinted groves of Castle Kevin lent a delicious contrast to the purple heights of the heather-covered Derrybawn; on his right the grim gray crags of Luggelaw, and, as he gained the crest of the hill, the blue waters of Lough Dan lay mirrored beneath him, reflecting the giant shadows of Carrig-na-Leena. The exquisite loveliness of the scene fell upon the young American like a dream or a perfume. It was refreshing, yet almost intoxicating. He thought of the color glories of the Hudson in the fall, of the blood-reds and orange-yellows and wine hues of the autumn foliage, and they seared his mental vision when he came to contemplate the soft, cloudy 596green, the odor-laden atmosphere, pure yet filmy as a bridal veil, and the delicious completeness of the coup d’œil, so satisfying, so soothing, and so enravishing. Somehow or other he associated all this perfection with the fair young girl whose pale face and mantling blush still haunted his imagination like a sweet strain of music. These scenes were a suitable setting for her beauty. She would comprehend them, she would commune with nature in this wild, secluded spot, so lonely and yet so lovely. As his ideas glided in this rosy channel, his revery was suddenly disturbed by the sound of wheels, and close upon him came a basket-phaeton attached to a very diminutive pony. His heart gave one violent bound—the object of his immediate and gushing thoughts was the occupant of the vehicle. Would she pass without noticing him? There had been no introduction. He could expect no recognition, and yet—

Chance fills up many a gap in life, solves many riddles, and hastens many dénoûments.

The pony, evidently a wilful, over-petted, hand-fed little brute, took it into its stubborn head that a rest at this particular spot in the road would admirably suit his inclinations; and as he feared no whip, and, save a gentle chuck upon the reins and a solemn admonishment from his fair mistress, his whim could be indulged in with comparative impunity, he proceeded forthwith to carry his idea into execution, and stopped with a jerk right opposite where Philip Redmond stood.

“Do go on, Doaty!” exclaimed Miss O’Byrne, shaking the reins. “Do go on, there’s a pet. You shall have a lump of sugar when we get to stable.”

Doaty shook his head and stolidly gazed at the lake beneath him.

“Permit me to try and persuade him,” said Phil, stepping forward and lifting his hat, which, by the way, doubled up in his hand, clumsily concealing his face and utterly destroying his bow.

“Oh! thanks; I seem destined to give you trouble, sir.”

This was a delicate recognition.

“I have to thank you for making me the most popular man in Roundwood,” retorted Redmond. “I feel like the lord lieutenant. I held quite a levée this morning.”

“And your courtiers, instead of looking for place, were seeking for pence.”

“A distinction without much difference.”

“Except in the viceroy,” she laughed.

Doaty was as good as gold—at least so thought one of the party—and manifested no intention of budging an inch.

“What a tiresome pony!” exclaimed Miss O’Byrne. “I shall have to beat him.”

“Let me try and get him along.” And Phil, taking hold of the shaggy mane, lugged the unwilling Doaty along in the direction of the lake.

“This is really too bad, sir,” remonstrated Miss O’Byrne. “I cannot tax you in this way.”

“It is no tax, I assure you. I have nothing on earth to do but to revel in the especial sunshine of this moment.”

This was said with ever so slight an emphasis; nevertheless it bore a scarlet blossom in the rich blush which came whispering all over the young girl’s charming pallor.

“You—you are a stranger here?”

“I am, and yet I ought not to be.”

“This savors of a riddle.”

“Very easily solved. My fore-fathers 597hunted these hills and fished that lake. My father was reckless, extravagant, and new men came into possession of the old acres. My father emigrated, and made a great deal of money in New York, and—”

“I have been in New York,” interposed the young lady.

Here was a bridge for thought-travel. Here was a market for the disposal of mutual mental wares.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

“Like it!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “Who could dislike it? It is the most charming city, perhaps excepting Paris, that I have ever lived in. And how are Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and the ash-boxes?” she added with a ringing laugh.

Doaty made another stop, and no earthly inducement would stir him until he so willed it himself. His fair mistress relinquished the idea and the reins, and, stepping from the vehicle, clambered, with the assistance of Redmond, to a moss-grown bank, from which she pointed out some objects of special interest in the scenery.

“That is Billy Doyle’s cottage at Shinnagh, down far in the valley by the edge of the lake. See the amber thatch glowing in the sunlight, and the red flag. That flag shows that poor Mr. Fenler is on the lake fishing.”

“Who is poor Mr. Fenler?” asked Phil.

“He is a man who was a great merchant in Dublin, but who lost all his property, and his wife and all his children. He saved as much from the wreck as enabled him to purchase one-half of that cottage—the slated half—and to support himself. He came here seven years ago, having made a vow never to leave the valley again.”

“And has he kept it?”

“Religiously. He goes nowhere, and spends his whole time in fishing. Do you see that golden strand at the head of the lake?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there is a legend about that which you should hear. Any old crone in the valley will do it ample justice.”

“I should prefer to hear it from a fairy on the hill,” said Redmond gallantly.

“Pas des compliments, although yours was nearly French.”

“You beat me at my own weapons,” laughed Redmond. “But whose palatial residence is that right over in the cleft between those two hills?”

The fire lighted up in the young girl’s eye, the delicate nostril expanded, the rich, ripe lips quivered, as she proudly replied: “That is my home.”

Her home—the nest in which she had been nurtured. What a precious flower in that gloomy valley! What a world of love and joy and beauty in that lone and sequestered spot!

“I envy you,” murmured Phil. “The tranquil loveliness of your home is—” he was going to send the words from his heart to his lips, but luckily they encountered Prudence upon the road, and altered themselves to suit that cold, passionless, interfering busybody—“is—just as it ought to be. You have made no vow to leave this valley?” he added.

“No, but I have often thought it.”

“Such a determination would be a calamity, Miss O’Byrne.”

“How do you know my name?” she quickly demanded.

“I asked the waiter after you had left.”

598“Now for an exchange,” she laughed. “Let us trade. What is your name?”

“Philip Redmond, son of Redmond of Ballymacreedy.”

“Why, that is Ballymacreedy,” exclaimed the young girl, pointing to a fir-covered mountain, upon the side of which, as though perched on a shelf, stood a gaunt, uncompromising-looking, square-built mansion, all roof and windows.

Phil Redmond’s feelings, as he gazed on the home which he had never known save by hearsay, were of a very varied and conflicting nature. He had pictured it a feudal stronghold towering over an extensive lake such as America boasts of—a diminutive ocean—a battlemented castle, with keep and moat and drawbridge, ivy-grown in the interests of the picturesque, and plate-glassed in the interests of modern sunlight.

“Good heaven!” he exclaimed involuntarily, “how unlike what I conceived it to be. What a cruel disappointment!”

So rudely were his ideas shattered, and so bitterly the pride of baronial halls mortified, that the poor fellow’s heart felt quite crushed. Whether Miss O’Byrne saw this or whether Doaty saw it is not the question here; but certes, that admirable little brute gave a loud neigh as a trumpet-call to Redmond’s scattered senses, and evinced for the first moment during the preceding half-hour a desire to proceed upon his homeward journey.

“Papa does not visit, Mr. Redmond,” said Miss O’Byrne as she grasped the reins upon resuming her seat in the basket upon wheels, “but I shall ask him to call upon you, when I may hope for something like a formal introduction. How half an hour flies upon the wings of sans cérémonie!” And with a delicious inclination of the head, half-saucy, half-dignified, and wholly piquante, she disappeared at a turn of the road leading into the valley.

“Heigh-ho!” sighed Philip Redmond of Ballymacreedy.

While all this—shall we say nonsense?—was going on upon the hill, Mr. Minchin and his fidus Achates, O’Hara, were busily occupied upon the lake; and although not a single rise greeted their longing vision, like true sportsmen they lived in hope.

“That’s a very good style of man,” observed O’Hara.

“Redmond?”

“Yes.”

“The son of an Irish king, sir. By Jupiter! a fine fellow. A noble fellow!” exclaimed Minchin, whacking the lake with his line in emphasis.

“He’ll go back to New York without as much of his father’s property as would sod a lark.”

“You are still of opinion that the O’Byrne will not sell?”

“He’d burn the land first,” was the sententious rejoinder.

“Well, sir, the next best thing that Redmond can do is to purchase Glenasluagh. It adjoins Ballymacreedy, and he will enjoy the right of fishing the Clohogue—an enjoyment fit for the gods. Yes, by George! fit for the gods.”

“I never thought of that. Are you sure it’s for sale?”

“A scoundrelly attorney, one of those pitiful miscreants with whom it is my bane to be officially associated, knowing that I loved the gentle sport, endeavored to curry favor with me by mentioning this. I listened to the scoundrel and made inquiries elsewhere—in fact, 599I own I felt my way towards the Clohogue myself, but the figure was too high, sir.”

“We must put Redmond on to it at once.”

“There’s our man crossing the bridge. George! how I envy him his sensations upon beholding this cherished spot, 'where all save the spirit of man is divine.’” And Minchin glowed again in the summer light.

Redmond instinctively paused upon the quaint old lichen-covered bridge, in the worn interstices of which dainty little ferns of emerald green toyed with the pale blue loveliness of the forget-me-not, and gazed across the sheening waters of the tranquil lake. All was sleeping in sunlight, even the deep, clear shadows of the purple-covered mountains, while the melodious hum of glowing insect-life lent its peculiar charm to the peaceful surroundings.

The boat, by direction of Mr. Minchin, was turned for the bridge, and a few lazy strokes from the oar of the ragged urchin who acted as waterman brought it bump against a projecting bowlder which served as a landing-place.

“The top of the morning to you, Mr. Redmond!” cried Minchin. “You are just in the nick of time. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we were about to pass the rosy. This, sir, is a very dry country.” And the cheerful old biped laughed until the crags of Shinnagh re-echoed his jovial hilarity. At this moment a cart attached to a donkey appeared upon the bridge, and two formidable-looking hampers jostled each other for supremacy.

“Jump in, Mr. Redmond. We shall take our pick on that lovely little neck of land just under the stronghold of the O’Byrnes yonder.”

“Have you room for two friends of mine?” asked Phil.

“Any friend of yours is my friend, sir,” exclaimed Minchin with the pompous mannerism of the old school.

“Then lend a hand,” to the boat-boy, “to get these hampers on board.”

“What does all this mean?” asked Minchin as the baskets were safely stowed away.

“A liberty I have taken,” said Philip. “I want you and Mr. O’Hara to lunch with me to-day, as I dined with you yesterday.”

“O’Hara,” exclaimed Minchin, “what shall we do with this dog? Pitch him into the lake, hampers and all?”

“I should say not,” laughed the other.

“'My foot is on my native heath,’” cried Redmond; and, taking an oar, a pull of twenty minutes keel-grated them upon a silvery strand beneath the shady foliage of a gigantic horse-chestnut tree.

“A lobster-salad, George!” cried Minchin, unloading the basket. “A chicken-pie, Jupiter! A magmain of salmon! Why, hang it, man! this never was raised at the Derralossory Arms.”

“How was it done?” asked O’Hara.

“I sent a man into Dublin for it.”

“Ah!” with a long-drawn breath of admiration. “You Americans do things in the right way.”

“By the nine gods! champagne,” ejaculated Minchin as he extracted the golden-necked bottles from their wicker cradles. “Heidsieck extra dry. I am extra dry too. Per Bacco, Redmond! you are the son of an Irish king.”

600Where is the mortal who does not enjoy a picnic?—that picnic where the food is laid upon the grass, and with the green leaves or the sky for a canopy; where fingers do service for forks, and the wild flowers for napkins; where the food is ambrosia and the drink nectar. Ay de mí, we have changed all that, and now we must have silver and cutlery and napery, and servants to wait upon us, and hot dishes ad nauseam. We must don our best and encase our sweltering hands in delicate-hued gloves, and icy etiquette now reigns where nature’s happy freedom heretofore presided.

They were busily engaged with the chicken-bones, and Redmond, as host, was uncorking the second bottle of champagne, when Minchin exclaimed: “Jupiter Olympus! here’s the O’Byrne and his daughter.”

Now, to be caught, under ordinary circumstances, in a stooping posture, wrestling with an infrangible wire, almost black in the face, and with the drumstick of a chicken stuck saltier-wise in your mouth, your hat anywhere, and your hair in the wildest and most elfin disorder, is embarrassing enough in all conscience; but, in the condition of feeling under which our romantic hero labored, to be thus detected was simply horrible. As Redmond beheld the tall and stately form of a man of about fifty, with a pair of fierce black eyes beneath still fiercer brows, advancing towards him, and by his side, gliding with that graceful undulation which is almost exclusively confined to the women of Spain, the young girl for whom the portals of his heart had been cast wide open, his desire to sink beneath the daisies was about the only sensation left to him.

“We have invaded the land of the O’Byrnes,” said Minchin, rising and bowing to the châtelaine.

“You seem tolerably well armed,” observed the O’Byrne, casting a comical glance at the champagne bottles.

“Permit me the honor of crossing swords,” cried Minchin.

At this moment Miss O’Byrne interposed by exclaiming: “That gentleman is Mr. Redmond of Ballymacreedy.”

The O’Byrne took a short, sharp survey of Philip from beneath his shaggy brows, and, advancing with outstretched hand:

“Mr. Redmond, I am glad to meet one of the old stock. You resemble your father very strongly.”

“You knew my father, sir?” asked Redmond eagerly.

“Yes.” The monosyllable spoke for itself. It shut down on the subject like an iron door.

“The old stock are thinning out, like my brown hairs,” laughed Minchin.

“Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto,” was the rejoinder.

“Per Bacco! you must taste the Falernian. I am Dominick—”

“Minchin,” interposed the O’Byrne, “the best angler in Wicklow. We disciples of the rod and reel scarcely need a formal introduction.”

Somehow or other, while the O’Byrne and Dominick Minchin were bandying quaint and courtly compliments, Philip managed to pull himself together and to engage in conversation with the daughter of the house.

“You perceive, Mr. Redmond, how fate is against our being introduced—so dead against as to compel me to make you and my father acquainted as if you and I were old friends.”

601“I do feel as if I had known you for ever so long, and that a void—”

“Do look at the trout jumping. What perfect circles they make in the still water!”

She had interrupted with a woman’s tact. Redmond was unversed in the subtle distinctions which form the rungs of the ladder of love. Most of the girls whom he met in society were as so many agreeable nothings—exquisitely-attired statuettes, whose ideas were bounded by silk, satin, feathers, and lace. With them he had nothing in common save the weather and ice-cream; and being imbued with a feeling of aversive contempt for the whole sex, the revelation of light and love which now burst upon him revolutionized his whole being and begat an enthusiasm that forgot impossibilities. A child of nature sounds very well in poesy, but the article attired in broadcloth is very rapidly put down as a bore, if not a nuisance.

“I drink with you on one condition,” said the O’Byrne to Minchin, who presented a bottle at his head.

“Condition me no conditions, chieftain!”

“I shall; and the condition is this: that you, with Mr. Redmond and Mr. O’Hara”—to whom he had been introduced by Minchin—“will help me to punish a cooper of claret after a seven o’clock dinner.” O’Hara excused himself on the plea of being compelled to reach Dublin by the night mail from Rathdrum. Minchin called a number of the Olympian deities to witness that so superb an offer should not be lightly considered, and Redmond thought of his dress and hesitated to say yes, when his whole soul was in that solitary word.

“I want to have a gossip about New York, and surely you will not refuse me that boon?” urged Miss O’Byrne, and this decided the question.

“Are you of the true faith, Mr. Redmond?” she asked, as some hours later, in acting as cicerone through the old castle, she took him to the private chapel.

“I should be a recreant Redmond if I were not,” was his proud reply.

Coolgreny, the stronghold of the Clan O’Byrne, was as picturesque as a round tower, an ivied keep, a battlemented outer wall, a dry moat, a veritable carpet of bright flowers, solemn old yew-trees whose branches had supplied many a sturdy bow wherewithal to resist the incursions of the O’Tooles, and a rookery, could make it. As he crossed the drawbridge and gazed at the oaken door with its rusty iron rivets, at the massive archway telling an imperishable tale, at the inner quadrangle, its gray stone lighted up by blood-red geraniums and deeply, darkly, desperately blue forget-me-nots, and from thence to the high-bred-looking girl by his side, Philip Redmond felt the old blood in his veins as the old, old story began to whisper itself to his heart.

They passed into the old banqueting-hall, rich in oaken tracery and wainscoted up to the ebon-colored ceiling. Portraits of doughty warriors in the grim panoply of battle-axe and shield, suits of Milan steel, and buff jerkins of the later periods adorned the walls—formidable O’Brinns who stood in many a gap, and fought the rocky defiles of Auchavana inch by inch; who displayed their prowess on many a tented field; who followed the fortunes of the luckless house of Stuart even after the unhappy disaster at the Boyne; and who, 602nobly fighting, fell against the hated usurpation of the Orange William. Here, too, were soft, silken-bearded representatives of the house who attached themselves to the Irish Brigade and covered themselves with glory at Lannes and Fontenoy.

“Now for the ladies, monsieur!” exclaimed Miss O’Byrne. “I see that you are lost in admiration of my male ancestors. Prepare now to be enchanted by the beauty of their wives and daughters.”

“I need no preparation,” said Phil with a low bow. “I see all their perfections concentrated in their charming descendant.”

“Admirably done!” cried the young lady, with heightened color; “but 'bide a wee.’ Look at that little dame. There is fire for you. She was Countess of Ovoca in her own right—a Geraldine. She defended this castle against two attacks of Cromwell’s crop-eared curs, and when it was intimated to her that the defence jeopardized her husband’s life, she naïvely replied: 'I could replace my husband, but I could not replace Coolgreny.’ 'Wasn’t that complimentary to that ill-looking fellow opposite leaning upon his sword? I do believe that he steps out of that frame occasionally for the purpose of upbraiding her, poor dear!”

Redmond laughed heartily as he replied that he thought the cavalier was likely to get the worst of it.

“Here is a Lely—my great, great, great, ever-so-great grandmamma. Isn’t she lovely? Look at her cool blue pastoral drapery, her bright brown hair, her matchless eye, and her ivory complexion.”

“I am looking at her,” said Redmond, gazing earnestly at Miss O’Byrne, “and she is lovely.”

It was as if the portrait had been painted for herself.

“Mr. Redmond, you are incorrigible. I absolutely refuse to act as cicerone. Tyrconnel was madly in love with her.”

“Of course he was; and if he wasn’t he ought to have been,” laughed Philip. “Pray who is that sparkling brunette, with the color glowing beneath her swarthy skin, and with the head and hair of Cleopatra?”

“That is Mistress Lettice O’Byrne, who received King James in this very hall, as, blood-stained and travel-sore, he honored our poor house by resting here after the disaster of the Boyne. He heard Mass in our little chapel before he started at daybreak.”

They wandered from portrait to portrait, she chatting gaily, brilliantly, until they came directly opposite that of a very young man attired in a gorgeous hussar uniform.

“This is a picture of today,” said Redmond. “Who is he?”

A bright diamond-drop welled into her eyes as she replied:

“It is my only brother. He took service with our kinsman, Field-Marshal Nugent, in Austria, and fell at Magenta. God be merciful to him!”

“Amen!” And the response was a prayer, so fervently and reverentially was it uttered.

“Let us go to the chapel and say an Ave Maria for the repose of his soul.” And, leading through a long, dark passage, and thrusting aside a scarlet velvet curtain which hung over the entrance, she ushered Redmond into the church. Pure Gothic, the oaken traceries of its pulpit and chancel rails were worthy of the hand of Verbruggen, while the altar, of white marble, was decorated with constellations of the rarest hot-house flowers and plants.

603As they emerged from the chapel the hideous clamor of a gong announced that dinner would be served in a quarter of an hour, and Redmond was ushered by his host to an apartment to prepare as best he might for the all-important ceremony. For after all “the dine” is a very serious piece of business, and it is only such foolish young fellows as Redmond—who spoiled his appetite at luncheon—or such delicately-nurtured young ladies as Miss Eileen O’Byrne, who can afford to turn up their noses at the mention of the word, and wish with a sigh that the noble institution yclept eating had never been invented.

When Redmond descended to the drawing-room he was formally presented to the Rev. Father O’Doherty, the parish priest “of as wild a district as lies between this and New York,” gaily added his reverence. “I am proud to meet you, sir; and let me tell you that the Redmonds of Ballymacreedy have left a name behind them respected, loved, and honored. Have you come to stop with us?”

“Not—that is, I’m—I’m so enchanted with all that I have seen of Ireland, and with all whom I have met here”—he sought the eye of his hostess (it should be mentioned that her mother had died in giving birth to Eileen)—“that if I do not return to it, it will not be my own fault.”

This was doing pretty well—much better than he could have hoped. It was very prononcé, but Phil liked to be understood. He was straight in everything, and was perfectly prepared to step into the O’Byrne’s library and explain himself right away. But he was not to get the chance. Father O’Doherty took the châtelaine into dinner and presided at the foot of the table. The dinner was not à la Russe, and, although served with extreme elegance, the guests were allowed the privilege of seeing what they were about to partake of, and to make a judicious selection according to palate. The wine was, as Minchin subsequently remarked, “of the rarest and choicest vintage.” To hear her speak, to listen to the music of her laugh, to gaze upon her when her looks were turned in another direction, was rapture to poor Philip, who drank his wine, eating nothing, being wholly and solely absorbed in the radiance of her presence. It was rack and torture to him when she arose to leave the room, and, as he opened the door to permit her egress, the words, “Do not remain too long over your wine,” rang into his senses like a peal of sweet bells.

“Push the claret, Mr. Redmond,” exclaimed his host; “you may get richer but you won’t get softer wine across the Atlantic.”

“Per Bacco! this is bottled velvet,” said Minchin, smacking his lips—“the odor of the violet, and the gentle tartness of the raspberry. By the nine gods! a bottle of this makes a man look for his wings to fly, sir—to fly like a bird.”

After some considerable time, during which Minchin and the O’Byrne had indulged in a very serious potation of the Château Lafitte, “Are you here on a pleasure trip, Mr. Redmond?” asked Father O’Doherty.

“Well, my good fortune has made it one of pleasure, but I came originally on business. I came to endeavor to rescue some of my poor father’s property,” replied downright Phil.

“What do you mean by rescue, Mr. Redmond?” asked the O’Byrne, flushing darkly red.

604“I mean, to purchase it from the man who now holds it.”

“Oh!” And his host tossed off a bumper of the wine. “Do you refer to Ballymacreedy?”

“I do, and to the lands of Kilnagadd and Derralossory.”

The beetling brows of the Irish chieftain met in a black scowl.

“And suppose this man who holds these lands were unwilling to sell?”

“Oh! every man has his price,” said the unconscious Philip.

The O’Byrne rose, and, stretching himself to his full height, haughtily exclaimed:

“When I sell one rood of Ballymacreedy, Kilnagadd, and Derralossory, may I be shattered into fragments like that wine-glass,” casting, as he spoke, the crystal goblet upon the oaken floor, where it shivered into ten thousand pieces.

Had a thunderbolt fallen upon the épergne, and, splitting roof and ceiling, descended into their midst, the luckless hero of this narrative could scarcely have been less scared and astonished. The admonitory winkings of Minchin, the ankle-rubs of the good priest, had been lost upon him. He had rushed upon his fate and had impaled himself. Fool that he was, never to have conjectured that the haughty possessor of the land of his ancestors was the fiery, fierce old chieftain who now sat scowling at the ceiling and quaffing goblet after goblet of the rich red wine! Everything pointed to the fact—the conversation of the previous evening, the exclamation of Eileen upon the hill overlooking Lough Dan, the references of Father O’Doherty. He was a senseless idiot, and had planted the thorn of offence where he would have sown the bright seed of friendship. Could he apologize? How? Could he explain? He must.

“The fact is—” he commenced, when his host pulled him up:

“A word of advice to you, Mr. Redmond. When you enter a man’s house do not turn appraiser and play the amateur auctioneer.”

“But-” burst in Phil.

“Pardon me. If you consider that because you have scraped a few greenbacks together—Heaven knows how; I don’t want to inquire—that you can come over here to dictate insulting terms to a man with reference to his own goods and chattels, upon his own hearth, let me tell you, sir, that—”

“Hear me,” exclaimed Father O’Doherty. “I am certain that our young friend had no intention of giving annoyance when he made those observations.”

“On the honor of a man,” roared Redmond, who was in a white heat of mortification, “I meant no offence, and furthermore—”

“Let us drop the subject, sir, and go to the drawing-room for coffee,” said the O’Byrne, rising.

“But I will not drop the subject until I explain myself.”

“Mr. Redmond, do not press my endurance in my own house.” And the haughty host motioned to the door.

“Not a word,” whispered Father O’Doherty. “You can make it all right by and by, and if you fail I will succeed.”

Still, Philip was not satisfied. He was the outraged party. He demanded redress for a cruel wrong. Was he to remain in the pillory and be pelted with the mistrust and dislike of the man whom of all others he was most desirous of conciliating. What would she think of him when her father came to tell her his version of the affair? 605Would he not suffer and stand convicted, however innocent he might be? It was maddening, and Redmond, following his host, brusquely demanded a few minutes’ conversation.

“'Forbid it, Heaven, the hermit cried!’” exclaimed Minchin, playfully seizing our hero by the shoulders and twisting him teetotum-fashion, while the priest engaged the attention of the O’Byrne in another direction.

“Are you mad, Redmond?” said Minchin in a low tone. “On this subject he has a craze. Why, in the name of Jupiter Olympus, did you introduce it?”

“Am I to lie under the imputation of being a peddler, an auctioneer, a blackguard?” asked the other excitedly.

“The thing will be as dead as Queen Anne in five minutes, if you will only let it cross the Styx.”

“But I did not know that Mr. O’Byrne was the present proprietor of Ballymacreedy.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“I would not be listened to.”

“It’s easily explained.”

When Redmond entered the drawing-room the host was speaking to his daughter, and that it was about him he had little doubt from the expression of surprise, pain, and anger which flitted across her face.

Determined not to be baffled in his purpose this time, he strode across the apartment, and, confronting the O’Byrne, said:

“If you will kindly permit me a word of explanation—”

“Do take a cup of coffee, Mr. Redmond,” interrupted Miss O’Byrne; “and—and you will excuse me if I—I wish you good-night.” And courtesying very low, she turned from him and swept out of the room.

A choking sensation seized our hero. A something in his throat—anger, mortification, bitter mortification—clutched him and held him fast.

“I’ll be hanged if I’ll stop here any longer!” he said; and so earnest was his rage that, without waiting to bid his host farewell or to hint his intention to Minchin, he strode out into the quadrangle, through the arched entrance, across the drawbridge, and onwards he knew not in what direction, reckless, hopeless, and hatless.

Why had he met her? His path had been calm and peace. Why had she treated him in this way? What had he done to her? He knew how her father would vamp up his version of the story. Was ever innocent man so deeply wronged? He would leave Ireland next day, and place the broad Atlantic between him and this—ay, this lovely, bewitching girl. Why was she so captivating? Where did the charm lie?

Thoughts all-conflicting, all-contradictory surged through his brain as he marched onward. The summer dew failed to soothe his fevered mind; the soft night-wind sighing across the Shaughnamore mountain did not cool his burning brow. The gray dawn of glorious day still found him plodding onwards, and the sun was high above the horizon when he entered the picturesque little village of Enniskerry. He had left Coolgreny fifteen Irish miles behind him across the mountains.

When he had succeeded in arousing the inmates of the Powerscourt Arms, he demanded writing materials and a messenger.

“Is it pin an’ ink at this time o’ day, sir?” demanded the sleepy handmaiden.

606“Yes; here’s half a crown for you. Open your eyes and hurry up.”

He wrote the following note to the O’Byrne, and despatched it by a ragged gossoon, who started on his errand, up the hill that leads by the Dargle, like a mountain deer. He also forwarded an order for his luggage to the landlord of the Derralossory Arms.

Sir: As you would permit me no explanation last night, I insist upon making it now. I did not know that you were the possessor of the lands of my forefathers until you yourself announced it. In thanking you for your hospitality I cannot refrain from saying that I wish I had never enjoyed it, as it has been a source of intense pleasure and likewise of bitter pain.

I am, sir,

Your obedient servant,

Philip Redmond.

The messenger returned in a few hours with his luggage.

“Did you deliver my letter at Coolgreny?”

“I gev it to wan av the boys, sir.”

“Did you see any of the—family?”

“None o’ them, barrin’ Miss Eileen’s pony that does be dhruv be her in a sthraw shay, yer honner.”

Happy pony! thought Redmond, as he gazed into the past and beheld Doaty coming to a standstill despite the musical remonstrances of his mistress.

“They axed me if your honner’s name was Ridmond, an’ I sed I didn’t know; an’ I was axed if ye cum wudout a hat, an’ I sed yis. 'That’s him,’ sez Luke Byrne, the boy. 'A low-sized man,’ sez he. 'No,’ sez I, 'he’s a cupple o’ yards high anyhow’; an’ Luke tould me they wor draggin’ the lake beyant at Shinnagh for ye, an’ that Miss Eileen was roarin’ an’ bawlin’ the whole mornin’.”

A thrill went through every fibre in Redmond’s body as this last announcement fell upon his ear; and although the idea was coarsely expressed, that the tender girl might be sorrowing for him caused an unutterable sensation of joy. She could not believe him capable of insulting her father beneath the same roof which shut the stars from her; and yet—pshaw! he would shake the whole thing off as a disagreeable yet delightful dream.

His immediate resolve was to proceed to Dublin, and from thence to Queenstown and back to his native shores; but second thoughts, always so sober, so full of judicious counsel, whispered that the long, lonely days and nights upon the Atlantic would but serve to increase his fever, and that his best chance lay in the distracting influence of European travel. Seven o’clock that evening found him on board the mail steamer for Holyhead; and as he gazed at the soft outlines of the Wicklow hills receding from his wistful glance, and thought of her in that secluded, peaceful valley, he would willingly have parted with a moiety of his existence to be once again in the sunlight of her presence.

While our hero was on the road to Enniskerry Father O’Doherty found an opportunity for comparing notes with Minchin, and, fully convinced of the truthfulness of the young American’s statement, proceeded at once to disabuse the diseased mind of the O’Byrne. This he ultimately succeeded in doing, but not without a deal of powerful and full-flavored argument. “I do believe, Father, I took too much wine. Where is Mr. Redmond, until I make the amende honorable?”

607“Strolling about the grounds, I believe.”

“Let us go in search of him.”

“You can go, O’Byrne; I want to have a chat with my fair young child,” said the clergyman, who had witnessed Eileen’s stately courtesy and exit.

Minchin and O’Byrne strolled out into the summer night, making sure of finding Redmond on the terrace overlooking the moat.

“We have bail for his appearance,” said Minchin, “as his hat is decorating the antlers of a lordly stag in the entrance hall.”

The two gentlemen smoked their cigars as they leisurely went in quest of the missing one, and from terrace they proceeded to garden, from garden to pleasaunce, and from pleasaunce to gate-house, but no trace of him could be found. “He is in the stables,” suggested the O’Byrne; and they returned to the enormous quadrangle in which the houses were quartered, but none of the helpers had seen him, and the stables were all locked for the night.

“He is a romantic, hot-headed young dog, and is just taking a cooler. He will turn up by and by, I warrant me; or mayhap he has hied him to my lady’s bower.” And Minchin laughed at the conceit.