Adele lifted her eyes with a glitter in them that for a moment was almost serpent-like; then, as if regretting her show of vexation, and with an evasive reply, bowed her head again to brood over the strange suspicions that haunted her. Miss Johns, totally unmoved,—thinking all the grief but a righteous dispensation for the sin in which the poor child had been born,—next addressed the Doctor, who had run his eye with extraordinary eagerness through the letter of his son.

"What does Reuben say, Benjamin?"

"His 'idols,' again, Eliza; 't is always the 'flesh-pots of Egypt.'"

And the Doctor reads: "There is just now rare promise of a good venture in our trade at one of the ports of Sicily, and we have freighted two ships for immediate despatch. At the last moment our supercargo has failed us, and Brindlock has suggested that I go myself; it is short notice, as the ship is in the stream and may sail to-morrow, but I rather fancy the idea, and have determined to go. I hope you will approve. Of course, I shall have no time to run up to Ashfield to say good by. I shall try for a freight back from Naples, otherwise shall make some excuse to run across the Straits for a look at Vesuvius and the matters thereabout. St. Paul, you know, voyaged in those seas, which will interest you in my trip. I dare say I shall find where he landed: it's not far from Naples, Mrs. Brindlock tells me. Give love to the people who ever ask about me in Ashfield. I enclose a check of five hundred dollars for parish contingencies till I come back; hoping to find you clean out of harness by that time." (The Doctor cannot for his life repress a little smile here.) "Tell Adele I shall see her blue Mediterranean at last, and will bring her back an olive-leaf, if I find any growing within reach. Tell Phil I love him, and that he deserves all the good he will surely get in this world, or in any other. Ditto for Rose. Ditto for good old Mrs. Elderkin, whom I could almost kiss for the love she's shown me. What high old romps haven't we had in her garden! Eh, Adele? (I suppose you'll show her this letter, father.)

"Good by, again.

"N. B. We hope to make a cool thirty thousand out of this venture!"

Adele had half roused herself at the hearing of her name, but the careless, jocular mention of it, (so it seemed at least,) in contrast with the warmer leave-taking of other friends, added a new pang to her distress. She wished, for a moment, that she had never written her letter of thanks. What if she wished—in that hour of terrible suspicion and of vain search after any object upon which her future happiness might rest—that she had never been born? Many a one has given hearty utterance to that wish with less cause. Many a one of those just tottering into childhood will live to give utterance to the same. But the great wheel of fate turns ever relentlessly on. It drags us up from the nether mysterious depths; we sport and struggle and writhe and rejoice, as it bears us into the flashing blaze of life's meridian; then, with awful surety, it hurries us down, drags us under, once more into the abysses of silence and of mystery. Happy he who reads such promise as he passes in the lights fixed forever on the infinite depths above, that the silence and the mystery shall be as welcome as sleep to the tired worker!

"It will be of service to Reuben, I think, Benjamin," said Aunt Eliza; "I quite approve,"—and slipped away noiselessly.

The Doctor was still musing,—the letter in his hand,—when Adele rose, and, approaching him, said in her gentlest way, "It's a great grief to you, New Papa, I know it is, but 'God orders all things well,'—except for me."

"Adaly! my child, I am shocked!"

She had roused the preacher in him unwittingly.

"I can't listen now," said she, impatiently, "and tell me,—you must,—did papa give you the name of this—new person he is to marry?"

"Yes, Adaly, yes," but he has forgotten it; and, searching for the previous letter, he presently finds it, and sets it before her,—"Mademoiselle Chalet."

"Chalet!" screams she. "There is some horrible mistake, New Papa. More than ever I am in the dark,—in the dark!" And with a hasty adieu she rushed away, taking her course straight for the house of that outlawed woman, with whom now, more than ever, she must have so many sympathies in common. Her present object, however, was to learn if any more definite evidence could be found that the deceased lady—mother still, in her thought—bore the name of Chalet. She found the evidence. One or two little books (devotional books they prove to be), which the mistress of the house had thrown by as valueless, were brought out, upon the fly-leaves of which the keen eyes of Adele detected the name,—crossed and recrossed indeed, as if the poor woman would have destroyed all traces of her identity,—but still showing when held to the light a portion of the name she so cherished in her heart,—Chalet.

Adele was more than ever incensed at thought of the delusion or the deception of her father. But, by degrees, her indignation yielded to her affection. He was himself to come, he would make it clear; this new mother—whom she was sure she should not love—was to remain; the Doctor had told her this much. She was glad of it. Yet she found in that fact a new proof that this person could not be her true mother. She would have rushed to her arms; no fear of idle tongues could have kept her back. And though she yearned for the time when she should be clasped once more in her father's arms, she dreaded the thought of crossing the seas with him upon such empty pilgrimage. She half wished for some excuse to detain her here,—some fast anchor by which her love might cling, within reach of that grave where her holier affections had centred.

This wish was confirmed by the more cordial manner in which she was received by the Elderkins, and, indeed, by the whole village, so soon as the Doctor had made known the fact—as he did upon the earliest occasion—that Mr. Maverick was speedily to come for Adele, and to restore her to the embraces of a mother whom she had not seen for years.

Even the spinster, at the parsonage, was disposed to credit something to the rigid legal aspects which the affair was taking, and to find in them a shelter for her wounded dignities. Nor did she share the inquietude of the Doctor at thought of the new and terrible religious influences to which Adele must presently be exposed; under her rigid regard, this environment of the poor victim with all the subtlest influences of the Babylonish Church was but a proper and orderly retribution under Providence for family sins and the old spurning of the law. 'T was right, in her exalted view, that she should struggle and agonize and wrestle with Satan for much time to come, before she should fully cleanse her bedraggled skirts of all taint of heathenism, and stand upon the high plane with herself, among the elect.

"It is satisfactory to reflect, Benjamin," said she, "that during her residence with us the poor girl has been imbued with right principles; at least I trust so."

And as she spoke, the exemplary old lady plucked a little waif of down from her bombazine dress, and snapped it away jauntily upon the air,—even as, throughout her life, she had snapped from her the temptations of the world. And when, in his Scripture reading that very night, the Doctor came upon the passage "Wo unto you, Pharisees!" the mind of the spinster was cheerfully intent upon the wretched sinners of Judaea.

LIX.

THE news of Maverick's prospective arrival, and the comments of the good Doctor,—as we have said,—shed a new light upon the position of Adele. Old Squire Elderkin, with a fatherly interest, was not unaffected by it; indeed, the Doctor had been communicative with him to a degree that had enlisted very warmly the old gentleman's sympathies.

"Better late than never, Doctor," had been his comment; and he had thought it worth his while to drop a hint or two in the ear of Phil.

"I say, Phil, my boy, I gave you a word of caution not long ago in regard to—to Miss Maverick. There were some bad stories afloat, my boy; but they are cleared up,—quite cleared up, Phil."

"I'm glad of it, sir," says Phil.

"So am I,—so am I, my boy. She's a fine girl, Phil, eh?"

"I think she is, sir."

"The deuse you do! Well, and what then?"

Phil blushed, but the smile that came on his face was not a hearty one.

"Well, Phil?"

"I said she was a fine girl, sir," said he, measuredly.

"But she's an uncommon fine girl, Phil, eh?"

"I think she is, sir."

"Well?"

Phil was twirling his hat in an abstracted way between his knees. "I don't think she's to be won very easily," said he at last.

"Nonsense, Phil! Faint heart never won. Make a bold push for it, my boy. The best birds drop at a quick shot."

"Do they?" said Phil, with a smile of incredulity that the old gentleman did not comprehend.

He found, indeed, a much larger measure of hope in a little hint that was let fall by Rose two days after. "I wouldn't despair if I were you, Phil," she had whispered in his ear.

Ah, those quiet, tender, sisterly words of encouragement, of cheer, of hope! Blest is the man who can enjoy them! and accursed must he be who scorns them, or who can never win them.

Phil, indeed, had never given over most devoted and respectful attentions to Adele; but he had shown them latterly with a subdued and half-distrustful air, which Adele with her keen insight had not been slow to understand. Trust a woman for fathoming all the shades of doubt which overhang the addresses of a lover!

Yet it was not easy for Phil, or indeed for any other, to understand or explain the manner of Adele at this time. Elated she certainly was in the highest degree at the thought of meeting and welcoming her father; and there was an exuberance in her spirits when she talked of it, that seemed almost unnatural; but the coming shadow of the new mother whom she was bound to welcome dampened all. The Doctor indeed had warned her against the Romish prejudices of this newly found relative, and had entreated her to cling by the faith in which she had been reared; but it was no fear of any such conflict that oppressed her;—creeds all vanished under the blaze of that natural affection which craved a motherly embrace and which foresaw only falsity.

What wonder if her thought ran back, in its craving, to the days long gone,—to the land where the olive grew upon the hills, and the sunshine lay upon the sea,—where an old godmother, with withered hands clasped and raised, lifted up her voice at nightfall and chanted,—

"O sanctissima, O piissima, Dulcis virgo Maria, Mater amata, Intemerata, Ora, ora, pro nobis!"

The Doctor would have been shocked had he heard the words tripping from the tongue of Adele; yet, for her, they had no meaning save as expressive of a deep yearning for motherly guidance and motherly affection.

Mrs. Elderkin, with her kindly instinct, had seen the perplexity of Adele, and had said to her one day, "Ady, my dear, is the thought not grateful to you that you will meet your mother once more, and be clasped in her arms?"

"If I could,—if I could!" said Adele, with a burst of tears.

"But you will, my child, you will. The Doctor has shown us the letters of your father. Nothing can be clearer. Even now she must be longing to greet you."

"Why does she not come, then?"—with a tone that was almost taunting.

"But, Adele, my dear, there may be reasons of which you do not know or which you could not understand."

"I could,—I do!" said Adele, with spirit mastering her grief. "'T is not my mother, my true mother; she is in the graveyard; I know it!"

"My dear child, do not decide hastily. We love you; we all love you. You know that. And whatever may happen, you shall have a home with us. I will be a mother to you, Adele."

The girl kissed her good hostess, and the words lingered on her ear long after nightfall. Why not her mother? What parent could be more kind? What home more grateful? And should she bring dishonor to it then? Could she be less sensitive to that thought than her father had already shown himself? She perceives, indeed, that within a short time, and since the later communications from her father, the manner of those who had looked most suspiciously upon her has changed. But they do not know the secret of that broidered kerchief,—the secret of that terrible death-clasp, which she never, never can forget. She will be true to her own sense of honor; she will be true, too, to her own faith,—the faith in which she has been reared,—whatever may be the persuasions of that new relative beyond the seas whom she so dreads to meet.

Indeed, it is with dreary anticipations that she forecasts now her return to that belle France which has so long borne olive-branches along its shores for welcome; she foresees struggle, change, hypocrisies, may be,—who can tell?—and she begins to count the weeks of her stay amid the quiet of Ashfield in the same spirit in which youngsters score off the remaining days of the long vacation. Adele finds herself gathering, and pressing within the leaves of some cherished book, little sprays of dead bloom that shall be, in the dim and mysterious future, mementoes of the walks, the frolics, the joys that have belonged to this staid New England home. From the very parsonage door she has brought away a sprig of a rampant sweet-brier that has grown there this many a year, and its delicate leaflets are among her chiefest treasures.

More eagerly than ever she listens to the kindly voices that greet her and speak cheer to her in the home of the Elderkins,—voices which she feels bitterly will soon be heard no more by her. Even the delicate and always respectful attentions of Phil have an added, though a painful charm, since they are so soon to have an end. She knows that she will remember him always, though his tenderest words can waken no hopes of a brighter future for her. She even takes him partially into her confidence, and, strolling with him down the street one day, she decoys him to the churchyard gate, where she points out to him the stone she had placed over the grave that was so sacred to her.

"Phil," said she, "you have always been full of kindness for me. When I am gone, have a care of that stone and grave, please, Phil. My best friend lies there."

"I don't think you know your best friends," stammered Phil.

"I know you are one," said Adele, calmly, "and that I can trust you to do what I ask about this grave. Can I, Phil?"

"You know you can, Adele; but I don't like this talk of your going, as if you were never to be among us again. Do you think you can be happiest yonder with strangers, Adele?"

"It's not—where I can be happiest, Phil; I don't ask myself that question; I fear I never can";—and her lips trembled as she said it.

"You can,—you ought," burst out Phil, fired at sight of her emotion, and would have gone on bravely and gallantly, may be, with the passion that was surging in him, if a look of hers and a warning finger had not stayed him.

"We'll talk no more of this, Phil"; and her lips were as firm as iron now.

Both of them serious and silent for a while; until at length Adele, in quite her old manner, says: "Of course, Phil, father may bring me to America again some day; and if so, I shall certainly beg for a little visit in Ashfield. It would be very ungrateful in me not to remember the pleasant times I've had here."

But Phil cannot so deftly change the color of his talk; his chattiness has all gone from him. Nor does it revive on reaching home. Good Mrs. Elderkin says, "What makes you so crusty, Phil?"

LX.

Maverick arrives, as he had promised to do, some time in early July; comes up from the city without announcing himself in advance; and, leaving the old coach, which still makes its periodical trips from the river, a mile out from the town, strolls along the highway. He remembers well the old outline of the hills; and the straggling hedge-rows, the scattered granite boulders, the whistling of a quail from a near fence in the meadow, all recall the old scenes which he knew in boyhood. At a solitary house by the wayside a flaxen-haired youngster is blowing off soap-bubbles into the air,—with obstreperous glee whenever one rises above the house-tops,—while the mother, with arms akimbo, looks admiringly from the open window. It was the home to which the feet of Adele had latterly so often wandered.

Maverick is anxious for a word with the Doctor before his interview with Adele even. He does not know her present home; but he is sure he can recall the old parsonage, in whose exterior, indeed, there have been no changes for years. The shade of the embowering elms is grateful as he strolls on into the main street of the town. It is early afternoon, and there are few passers-by. Here and there a blind is coyly turned, and a sly glance cast upon the stranger. A trio of school-boys look wonderingly at his foreign air and dress. A few loiterers upon the tavern steps—instructed, doubtless, by the stage-driver, who has duly delivered his portmanteau—remark upon him as he passes.

And now at last he sees the old porch,—the diamond lights in the door. Twenty and more years ago, and he had lounged there, as the pretty Rachel drove up in the parson's chaise. The same rose-brier is nodding its untrimmed boughs by the door. From the open window above he catches a glimpse of a hard, thin face, with spectacles on nose, that scans him curiously. The Doctor's hat and cane are upon the table at the foot of the stairs within. He taps with his knuckles upon the study-door,—and again the two college mates are met together. At sight of the visitor, whom he recognizes at a glance, the heart of the old man is stirred by a little of the old youthful feeling.

"Maverick!" and he greets him with open hand.

"Johns, God bless you!"

The parson was white-haired, and was feeble to a degree that shocked Maverick; while the latter was still erect and prim, and, with his gray hair carefully brushed to conceal his growing baldness, appeared in excellent preservation. His coquettings for sixty years with the world, the flesh, and the Devil had not yet reduced his phisique to that degree of weakness which the multiplied spiritual wrestlings had entailed upon the good Doctor. The minister recognized this with a look rather of pity than of envy, and may possibly have bethought himself of that Dives who "in his lifetime received good things," but "now is tormented."

Yet he ventured upon no warning; there is, indeed, a certain assured manner about the man of the world who has passed middle age, which a country parson, however good or earnest he may be, would no more attempt to pierce than he would attempt a thrust of his pen through ice.

Their conversation, after the first greetings, naturally centres upon Adele. Maverick is relieved to find that she knows, even now, the worst; but he is grievously pained to learn that she is still in doubt, by reason of that strange episode which had grown out of the presence and death of Madame Arles,—an episode which, even now, he is at a loss to explain.

"She will be unwilling to return with me then," said Maverick, in a troubled manner.

"No," said the Doctor, "she expects that. You will find in her, Maverick, a beautiful respect for your authority; and, I think, a still higher respect for the truth."

So it was with disturbed and conflicting feelings that Maverick made his way to the present home of Adele.

The windows and doors of the Elderkin mansion were all open upon that July day. Adele had seen him, even as he entered the little gate, and, recognizing him on the instant, had rushed down to meet him in the hall.

"Papa! papa!" and she had buried her face upon his bosom.

"Adele, darling! you are glad to welcome me then?"

"Delighted, papa."

And Maverick kissed, again and again, that fair face of which he was so proud.

We recoil from the attempt to transcribe the glowing intimacy of their first talk.

After a time, Maverick says, "You will be glad to return with me,—glad to embrace again your mother?"

"My own, true mother?" said Adele, the blood running now swift over cheek and brow.

"Your own, Adele,—your own! As God is true!"

Adele grows calm,—an unwonted calmness. "Tell me how she looks, papa," said she.

"Your figure, Adele; not so tall, perhaps, but slight like you; and her hair,—you have her hair, darling (and he kissed it). Your eye too, for color, with a slight, hardly noticeable cast in it." And as Adele turned an inquiring glance upon him, he exclaimed: "You have that too, my darling, as you look at me now."

Adele, still calm, says: "I know it, papa; I have seen her. Do not deceive me. She died in these arms, papa!"—and with that her calmness is gone. She can only weep upon his shoulder.

"But, Adele, child, this cannot be; do not trust to so wild a fancy. You surely believe me, darling!"

Had she argued the matter, he would have been better satisfied. She did not, however. Her old tranquillity came again.

"I will go with you, papa, cheerfully," said she.

It was only too evident to Maverick that there was a cause of distrust between them. Under all of Adele's earnest demonstrations of affection, which were intensely grateful to him, there was still a certain apparent reserve of confidence, as if some great inward leaning of her heart found no support in him or his. This touched him to the quick. The Doctor—had he unfolded the matter to him fully—would have called it, may be, the sting of retribution. Nor was Maverick at all certain that the shadowy doubt which seemed to rest upon the mind of Adele with respect to the identity of her mother was the sole cause of this secret reserve of confidence. It might be, he thought, that her affections were otherwise engaged, and that the change to which she assented with so little fervor would be at the cost of other ties to which he was a stranger.

On this score he consulted with the Doctor. As regarded Reuben, there could be no doubt. Whatever tie may have existed there was long since broken. With respect to Phil Elderkin the parson was not so certain. Maverick had been attracted by his fine, frank manner, and was not blind to his capital business capacities and prospects. If the happiness of Adele were in question, he could entertain the affair. He even ventured to approach the topic—coyly as he could—in a talk with Adele; and she, as the first glimmer of his meaning dawned upon her, says, "Don't whisper it, papa. It can never be."

And so Maverick—not a little disconcerted at the thought that he cannot now, as once, fathom all the depths of his child's sensibilities—sets himself resolutely to the work of preparation for departure. His affaires may keep him a month, and involve a visit to one or two of the principal cities; then, ho for la belle France! Adele certainly lends a cheerful assent. He cannot doubt—with those repeated kisses on his cheek and brow—her earnest filial affection; and if her sentiment slips beyond his control, or parries all his keenness of vision, what else has a father, verging upon sixty, to expect in a daughter, tenderly affectionate as she may be? Maverick's philosophy taught him to "take the world as it is." Only one serious apprehension of disquietude oppressed him; the doubts and vagaries of Adele would clear themselves under the embrace of Julie; but in respect to the harmony of their religious beliefs he had grave doubts. There had grown upon Adele, since he had last seen her, a womanly dignity, which even a mother must respect; and into that dignity—into the woof and warp of it—were inwrought all her religious sympathies. Was his home yonder, across the seas, to become the scene of struggles about creeds? It certainly was not the sort of domestic picture he had foreshadowed to himself at twenty-five. But at sixty a man blows bubbles no longer—except that of his own conceit. The heart of Maverick was not dead in him; a kiss of Adele wakened a thrilling, delicious sensation there, of which he had forgotten his capability. He followed her graceful step and figure with an eye that looked beyond and haunted the past—vainly, vainly! Her "Papa!"—sweetly uttered—stirred sensibilities in him that amazed himself, and seemed like the phantoms of dreams he dreamed long ago.

But in the midst of Maverick's preparations for departure a letter came to hand from Mrs. Maverick, which complicated once more the situation.

LXI.

The mother has read the letter of her child,—the letter in which appeal had been made to the father in behalf of the "unworthy" one whom the daughter believed to be sleeping in her grave. The tenderness of the appeal smote the poor woman to the heart. It bound her to the child she scarce had seen by bonds into which her whole moral being was knitted anew. But we must give the letter entire, as offering explanations which can in no way be better set forth. The very language kindles the ardor of Adele. Her own old speech again, with the French echo of her childhood in every line.

"Mon cher Monsieur,"—in this way she begins; for her religious severities, if not her years, have curbed any disposition to explosive tenderness,—"I have received the letter of our child, which was addressed to you. I cannot tell you the feelings with which I have read it. I long to clasp her to my heart. And she appeals to you, for me,—the dear child! Yes, you have well done in telling her that I was unworthy (mechante). It is true,—unworthy in forgetting duty,—unworthy in loving too well. O Monsieur! if I could live over again that life,—that dear young life among the olive orchards! But the good Christ (thank Him!) leads back the repentant wanderers into the fold of His Church.

'Laus tibi, Christe!'

"And the poor child believes that I am in my grave! May be that were better for her and better for me. But no, I shall clasp her to my heart once more,—she, the poor babe! But I forget myself; it is a woman's letter I have been reading. What earnestness! what maturity! what dignity! what tenderness! And will she be as tender to the living as to the erring one whom she believes dead? My heart stops when I ask myself. Yes, I know she will. The Blessed Virgin whispers me that she will, and I fly to greet her! A month, two months, three months, four months?—It is an age.

"Monsieur! I cannot wait. I must take ship—sail—wings (if I could find them), and go to meet my child. Until I do there is a tempest in my brain—heart—everywhere. You are surprised, Monsieur, but there is another reason why I should go to this land where Adele has lived. Do you wish to know it? Listen, then, Monsieur!

"Do you know who this poor sufferer was whom our child had learned so to love, who died in her arms, who sleeps in the graveyard there, and of whom Adele thinks as of a mother? I have inquired, I have searched high and low, I have fathomed all. Ah, my poor, good sister Marie! Only Marie! You have never known her. In those other days at dear Arles she was too good for you to know her. Yet even then she was a guardian angel,—a guardian too late. Mea culpa! Mea culpa!

"I know it can be only Marie; I know it can be only she, who sleeps under the sod in Ash——(ce nom m'echappe).

"Listen again: in those early, bitter charming days, when you, Monsieur, knew the hillsides and the drives about our dear old town of Arles, poor Marie was away; had she been there, I had never listened, as I did listen, to the words you whispered in my ear. Only when it was too late, she came. Poor, good Marie! how she pleaded with me! How her tender, good face spoke reproaches to me! If I was the pride of our household, she was the angel. She it was, who, knowing the worst, said, 'Julie, this must end!' She it was who labored day and night to set me free from the wicked web that bound me. I reproached her, the poor, good Marie, in saying that she was the plainer, that she had no beauty, that she was devoured with envy. But the Blessed Virgin was working ever by her side. Whatever doubts you may have entertained of me, Monsieur,—she created them; whatever suspicions tortured you,—she fed them, but always with the holiest of motives. And when shame came, as it did come, the poor Marie would have screened me,—would have carried the odium herself. Good Marie! the angels have her in keeping!

"Listen again, Monsieur! When that story, that false story, of the death of my poor child, came to light in the journals, who but Marie should come to me—deceived herself as I was deceived—and say, 'Julie, dear one, God has taken the child in mercy; there is no stigma can rest upon you in the eyes of the world. Live now as the Blessed Magdalen lived when Christ had befriended her.' And by her strength I was made strong; the Blessed Virgin be thanked!

"Finally, it came to her knowledge one day,—the dear Marie!—that the rumor of the death was untrue,—that the babe was living,—that the poor child had been sent over the seas to your home, Monsieur. Well, I was far away in the East. Does Marie tell me? No, the dear one! She writes me, that she is going 'over seas,'—tired of la belle France,—she who loved it so dearly! And she went,—to watch, to pray, to console. And I, the mother!—Mon Dieu, Monsieur, the words fail me. No wonder our child loved her; no wonder she seems a mother to her!

"Listen yet again, Monsieur. My poor sister died yonder, in that heretical land,—may be without absolution.

'Ave Martha margarita In corona Jesu sita, Tam in morte quam in vita Sis nobis propitia!'

I must go, if it be only to find her grave, and to secure her burial in some consecrated spot. She waits for me,—her ghost, her spirit,—I must go; the holy water must be sprinkled; the priestly rites be said. Marie, poor Marie, I will not fail you.

"Monsieur, I must go!—not alone to greet our child, but to do justice to my sainted sister! Listen well! All that has been devotional in my poor life centres here! I must go,—I must do what I may to hallow my poor sister's grave. Adele will not give up her welcome surely, if I am moved by such religious purpose. She, too, must join me in an Ave Maria over that resting-place of the departed.

"I shall send this letter by the overland and British mail, that it may come to you very swiftly. It will come to you while you are with the poor child,—our Adele. Greet her for me as warmly as you can. Tell her I shall hope, God willing, to bring her into the bosom of his Holy Church Catholic. I shall try and love her, though she remain a heretic; but this will not be.

"If I can enough curb myself, I shall wait for your answer, Monsieur; but it is necessary that I go yonder. Look for me; kiss our child for me. And if you ever prayed, Monsieur, I should say, pray for

"Votre amie,

"JULIE."

The letter is of the nature of a revelation to Adele; her doubts respecting Madame Arles vanish on the instant. The truth, as set forth in her mother's language, blazes upon her mind like a flame. She loves the grave none the less, but the mother by far the more. She, too, wishes to greet her amid the scenes which she has known so long. Nor is Maverick himself averse to this new disposition of affairs, if indeed he possessed any power (which he somewhat doubts) of readjusting it. Seeing the kindly intentions toward Adele, and the tolerant feeling (to say the least) with which Mrs. Maverick will be met by these friends of the daughter, he trusts that the mother's interviews with the Doctor, and a knowledge of the kindly influences under which Adele has grown up, may lessen the danger of a religious altercation between mother and child, which has been his great bugbear in view of their future association.

A man of the world, like Maverick, naturally takes this common-sense view of religious differences; why not compound matters, he thinks; and he hints as much quietly to the parson. The old gentleman's spirit is stirred to its depths by the intimation; like all earnest zealots, he recognizes one only unswerving rule of faith, and that the faith in which he has been reared. They who hold conflicting doctrines must yield,—yield absolutely,—or there is no safety for them. In his eye there was but one strait gate to the Celestial City, and that any wearing the furbelows of Rome should ever enter thereat could only come of God's exceeding mercy; for himself, it must always be a duty to cry aloud to such to strip themselves clean of their mummery, and do works "meet for repentance."

Adele, after her first period of exultation over the recent news is passed, relapses—perhaps by reason of its excess—into something of her old vague doubt and apprehension of coming evil. The truth—if it be truth—is so strange!—so mysteriously strange that she shall indeed clasp her mother to her heart; the grave yonder is so real! and that fearful embrace in death so present to her! Or it may be an anticipation of the fearful spiritual estrangement that must ensue, and of which she seems to find confirmation in the earnest talk and gloomy forebodings of the Doctor.

Maverick effects a diversion by proposing a jaunt of travel, in which Rose shall be their companion. Adele accepts the scheme with delight,—a delight, after all, which lies as much in the thought of watching the eager enjoyment of Rose as in any pleasant distractions of her own. The pleasure of Maverick is by no means so great as in that trip of a few years back. Then he had for companion an enthusiastic girl, to whom life was fresh, and all the clouds that seemed to rest upon it so shadowy, that each morning sun lifting among the mountains dispersed them utterly.

Now, Adele showed the thoughtfulness of a woman,—her enthusiasms held in check by a more calm estimate of the life that opened before her,—her sportiveness overborne by a soberness, which, if it gave dignity, gave also a womanly gravity. Yet she did not lack filial devotion; she admired still that easy world-manner of his which had once called out her enthusiastic regard, but now queried in her secret heart if its acquisition had not involved cost of purity of conscience. She loved him too,—yes, she loved him; and her evening and morning kiss and embrace were reminders to him of a joy he might have won, but had not,—of a home peace that might have been his, but whose image now only lifted above his horizon like some splendid mirage crowded with floating fairy shapes, and like the mirage melted presently into idle vapor.

It was a novel experience for Maverick to find himself (as he did time and again upon this summer trip in New England) sandwiched, of a Sunday, between his two blooming companions and some sober-sided deacon, in the pew of a country meeting-house. How his friend Papiol would have stared! And the suggestion, coming to him with the buzz of a summer fly through the open windows, did not add to his devotional sentiment. Yet Maverick would follow gravely the scramble of the singers through the appointed hymn with a sober self-denial, counting the self-denial a virtue. We all make memoranda of the small religious virtues when the large ones are missing.

Upon the return to Ashfield there is found a new letter from Madam Maverick. She can restrain herself no longer. Under the advices of her brother, she will, with her maid, take the first safe ship leaving Marseilles for New York. She longs to bring Adele with herself, by special consecration, under the guardianship of the Holy Virgin.

The Doctor is greatly grieved in view of the speedy departure of Adele, and tenfold grieved when Maverick lays before him the letter of the mother, and he sees the fiery zeal which the poor child must confront.

Over and over in those last interviews he seeks to fortify her faith; he warns her against the delusions, the falsities, the idolatries of Rome; he warns her to distrust a religion of creeds, of human authority, of traditions. Christ, the Bible,—these are the true monitors; and "Mind, Adaly," says he, "hold fast always to the Doctrine of the Westminster Divines. That is sound,—that is sound!"

LXII.

Reuben went with a light heart upon his voyage. The tender memories of Ashfield were mostly lived down. (Had the letter of Adele ever reached him, it might have been far different.) Rose, Phil, the Tourtelots, the Tew partners (still worrying through a green old age), the meeting-house, even the Doctor himself and Adele, seemed to belong to a sphere whose interests were widely separate from his own, and in which he should appear henceforth only as a casual spectator. The fascinations of his brilliant business successes had a firm grip upon him. He indulges himself, indeed, from time to time, with the fancy that some day, far off now, he will return to the scenes of his boyhood, and astonish some of the old landholders by buying them out at a fabulous price, and by erecting a "castle" of his own, to be enlivened by the fairy graces of some sylph not yet fairly determined upon. Surely not Rose, who would hardly be equal to the grandeur of his proposed establishment, if she were not already engrossed by that "noodle" (his thought expressing itself thus wrathfully) of an assistant minister. Adele,—and the name has something in it that electrifies, in spite of himself,—Adele, if she ever overcomes her qualms of conscience, will yield to the tender persuasions of Phil. "Good luck to him!"—and he says this, too, with a kind of wrathful glee.

Still, he builds his cloud castles; some one must needs inhabit them. Some paragon of refinement and of beauty will one day appear, for whose tripping feet his wealth will lay down a path of pearls and gold. The lonely, star-lit nights at sea encourage such phantasms; and the break of the waves upon the bow, with their myriad of phosphorescent sparkles, cheats and illumines the fancy. We will not follow him throughout his voyage. On a balmy morning of July he wakes with the great cliff of Gibraltar frowning on him. After this come light, baffling winds, and for a week he looks southward upon the mysterious, violet lift of the Barbary shores, and pushes slowly eastward into the blue expanse of the Mediterranean. In the Sicilian ports he is abundantly successful. He has ample time to cross over to Naples, to ascend Vesuvius, and to explore Herculaneum and Pompeii. But he does not forget the other side of the beautiful bay, Baiae and Pozzuoli. He takes, indeed, a healthful pleasure in writing to the Doctor a description of this latter, and of his walk in the vicinity of the great seaport where St. Paul must have landed from his ship of the Castor and Pollux, on his way from Syracuse. But he does not tell the Doctor that, on the same evening, he attended an opera at the San Carlo in Naples, of which the ballet, if nothing else, would have called down the good man's anathema.

An American of twenty-five, placed for the first time upon the sunny pavements of Naples, takes a new lease of life,—at least of its imaginative part. The beautiful blue stretch of sea, the lava streets, the buried towns and cities, the baths and ruins of Baiae, the burning mountain, piling its smoke and fire into the serene sky, the memories of Tiberius, of Cicero, of Virgil,—all these enchant him. And beside these are the things of to-day,—the luscious melons, the oranges, the figs, the war-ships lying on the bay, the bloody miracle of St. Januarius, the Lazzaroni upon the church steps, the processions of friars, and always the window of his chamber, looking one way upon blue Capri, and the other upon smouldering Vesuvius.

At Naples Reuben hears from the captain of the Meteor—in which good ship he has made his voyage, and counts upon making his return—that the vessel can take up half her cargo at a better freight by touching at Marseilles. Whereupon Reuben orders him to go thither, promising to join him at that port in a fortnight. A fortnight only for Rome, for Florence, for Pisa, for the City of Palaces, and then the marvellous Cornice road along the shores of the sea. Terracina brought back to him the story of Mr. Alderman Popkins and the Principessa, and the bandits; after this came the heights of Albano and Soracte, and there, at last, the Tiber, the pyramid tomb, the great church dome, the stone pines of the Janiculan hill,—Rome itself. Reuben was not strong or curious in his classics; the galleries and the churches took a deeper hold upon him than the Forum and the ruins. He wandered for hours together under the arches of St. Peter's. He wished he might have led the Doctor along its pavement into the very presence of the mysteries of the Scarlet Woman of Babylon. He wished Miss Almira, with her saffron ribbons, might be there, sniffing at her little vial of salts, and may be singing treble. The very meeting-house upon the green, that was so held in reverence, with its belfry and spire atop, would hardly make a scaffolding from which to brush the cobwebs from the frieze below the vaulting of this grandest of temples. Oddly enough, he fancies Deacon Tourtelot, in his snuff-colored surtout, pacing down the nave with him, and saying,—as he would be like to say,—"Must ha' been a smart man that built it; but I guess they don't have better preachin', as a gineral thing, than the old Doctor gives us on Fast-Days or in 'protracted' meetin's."

Such queer humors and droll comparisons flash into the mind of Reuben, even under all his sense of awe,—a swift, disorderly mingling of the themes and offices which kindled his first sense of religious awe under a home atmosphere with the wondrous forms and splendor which kindle a new awe now. The great dome enwalling with glittering mosaics a heaven of its own, and blazing with figured saints, and the golden distich, "Thou art Peter,—to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,"—all this seems too grand to be untrue. Are not the keys verily here? Can falsehood build up so august a lie? A couple of friars shuffle past him, and go to their prayers at some near altar; he does not even smile at their shaven pates and their dowdy, coarse gowns of serge. Low music from some far-away chapel comes floating under the panelled vaultings, and loses itself under the great dome, with a sound so gentle, so full of entreaty, that it seems to him the dove on the high altar might have made it with a cooing and a flutter of her white wings. A mother and two daughters, in black, glide past him, and drop upon their knees before some saintly shrine, and murmur their thanksgivings, or their entreaty. And he, with no aim of worship, yet somehow shocked out of his unbelief by the very material influences around him.

Reuben's old wranglings and struggles with doubt had ended—where so many are apt to end, when the world is sunny and success weaves its silken meshes for the disport of self—in a quiet disbelief that angered him no longer, because he had given over all fight with it. But the great dome, flaming with its letters, AEdificabo meam Ecclesiam, shining there for ages, kindled the fight anew. And strange as it may seem, and perplexing as it was to the Doctor (when he received Reuben's story of it), he came out from his first visit to the great Romish temple with his religious nature more deeply stirred than it had been for years.

AEdificabo meam Ecclesiam. HE had uttered it. There was then something to build,—something that had been built, at whose shrine millions worshipped trustingly.

Under the sombre vaultings of the great Florentine Cathedral, the impression was not weakened. The austere gloom of it chimed more nearly with his state of unrest. Then there are the galleries, the painted ceilings,—angels, saints, martyrs, holy families,—can art have been leashed through so many ages with a pleasant fiction? Is there not somewhere at bottom an earnest, vital truth, which men must needs cling by if they be healthful and earnest themselves? Even the meretricious adornments of the churches of Genoa afford new evidence of the way in which the heart of a people has lavished itself upon belief; and if belief, why, then, hope.

Upon the Cornice road, with Italy behind him and home before (such home as he knows), he thinks once more of those he has left. Not that he has forgotten them altogether; he has purchased a rich coral necklace in Naples, which will be the very thing for his old friend Rose; and, in Rome, the richest cameos to be found in the Via Condotti he has secured for Adele; even for Aunt Eliza he has brought away from Florence a bit of the pietra dura, a few olive-leaves upon a black ground. Nor has he forgotten a rich piece of the Genoese velvet for Mrs. Brindlock; and, for his father, an old missal, which, he trusts, dates back far enough to save it from the odium he attaches to the present Church, and to give it an early Christian sanctity. He has counted upon seeing Mr. Maverick at Marseilles, but learns, with surprise, upon his arrival there, that this gentleman had sailed for America some months previously. The ship is making a capital freight, and the captain informs him that application has been made for the only vacant state-room in their little cabin by a lady attended by her maid. Reuben assents cheerfully to this accession of companionship; and, running off for a sight of the ruins at Nismes and Arles, returns only in time to catch the ship upon the day of its departure. As they pass out of harbor, the lady passenger, in deep black, (the face seems half familiar to him,) watches wistfully the receding shores, and, as they run abreast the chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, she devoutly crosses herself and tells her beads.

Reuben is to make the voyage with the mother of Adele. Both bound to the same quiet township of New England; he, to reach Ashfield once more, there to undergo swiftly a new experience,—an experience that can come to no man but once; she, to be clasped in the arms of Adele,—a cold embrace and the last!



PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

V.

Brook Farm, Sept. 26, 1841.—A walk this morning along the Needham road. A clear, breezy morning, after nearly a week of cloudy and showery weather. The grass is much more fresh and vivid than it was last month, and trees still retain much of their verdure, though here and there is a shrub or a bough arrayed in scarlet and gold. Along the road, in the midst of a beaten track, I saw mushrooms or toadstools, which had sprung up probably during the night.

The houses in this vicinity are, many of them, quite antique, with long, sloping roofs, commencing at a few feet from the ground, and ending in a lofty peak. Some of them have huge, old elms overshadowing the yard. One may see the family sleigh near the door, it having stood there all through the summer sunshine, and perhaps with weeds sprouting through the crevices of its bottom, the growth of the months since snow departed. Old barns, patched and supported by timbers leaning against the sides, and stained with the excrement of past ages.

In the forenoon, I walked along the edge of the meadow, towards Cow Island. Large trees, almost a wood, principally of pine with the green pasture-glades intermixed, and cattle feeding. They cease grazing when an intruder appears, and look at him with long and wary observation, then bend their heads to the pasture again. Where the firm ground of the pasture ceases, the meadow begins,—loose, spongy, yielding to the tread, sometimes permitting the foot to sink into black mud, or perhaps over ankles in water. Cattle paths, somewhat firmer than the general surface, traverse the dense shrubbery which has overgrown the meadow. This shrubbery consists of small birch, elders, maples, and other trees, with here and there white pines of larger growth. The whole is tangled and wild and thick-set, so that it is necessary to part the nestling stems and branches, and go crashing through. There are creeping plants of various sorts, which clamber up the trees, and some of them have changed color in the slight frosts which already have befallen these low grounds, so that one sees a spiral wreath of scarlet leaves twining up to the top of a green tree, intermingling its bright hues with their verdure, as if all were of one piece. Sometimes, instead of scarlet, the spiral wreath is of a golden yellow.

Within the verge of the meadow, mostly near the firm shore of pasture ground, I found several grape-vines, hung with an abundance of large purple grapes. The vines had caught hold of maples and alders, and climbed to the summit, curling round about and interwreathing their twisted folds in so intimate a manner that it was not easy to tell the parasite from the supporting tree or shrub. Sometimes the same vine had enveloped several shrubs, and caused a strange, tangled confusion, converting all these poor plants to the purpose of its own support, and hindering their growing to their own benefit and convenience. The broad vine-leaves, some of them yellow or yellowish-tinged, were seen apparently glowing on the same stems with the silver-maple leaves, and those of the other shrubs, thus married against their will by the conjugal twine; and the purple clusters of grapes hung down from above and in the midst, so that one might "gather grapes," if not "of thorns," yet of as alien bushes.

One vine had ascended almost to the tip of a large white pine, spreading its leaves, and hanging its purple clusters among all its boughs,—still climbing and clambering, as if it would not be content till it had crowned the very summit with a wreath of its own foliage and bunches of grapes. I mounted high into the tree and ate the fruit there, while the vine wreathed still higher into the depths above my head. The grapes were sour, being not yet fully ripe. Some of them, however, were sweet and pleasant.

* * * * *

September 27.—A ride to Brighton yesterday morning, it being the day of the weekly Cattle Fair. William Allen and myself went in a wagon, carrying a calf to be sold at the fair. The calf had not had his breakfast, as his mother had preceded him to Brighton, and he kept expressing his hunger and discomfort by loud, sonorous baas, especially when we passed any cattle in the fields or in the road. The cows, grazing within hearing, expressed great interest, and some of them came galloping to the roadside to behold the calf. Little children, also, on their way to school, stopped to laugh and point at poor little Bossie. He was a prettily behaved urchin, and kept thrusting his hairy muzzle between William and myself, apparently wishing to be stroked and patted. It was an ugly thought that his confidence in human nature, and nature in general, was to be so ill-rewarded as by cutting his throat, and selling him in quarters. This, I suppose, has been his fate before now!

It was a beautiful morning, clear as crystal, with an invigorating, but not disagreeable coolness. The general aspect of the country was as green as summer,—greener indeed than mid or latter summer,—and there were occasional interminglings of the brilliant hues of autumn, which made the scenery more beautiful, both visibly and in sentiment. We saw no absolutely mean nor poor-looking abodes along the road. There were warm and comfortable farm-houses, ancient, with the porch, the sloping roof, the antique peak, the clustered chimney, of old times; and modern cottages, smart and tasteful; and villas, with terraces before them, and dense shade, and wooden urns on pillars, and other such tokens of gentility. Pleasant groves of oak and walnut, also, there were, sometimes stretching along valleys, sometimes ascending a hill and clothing it all round, so as to make it a great clump of verdure. Frequently we passed people with cows, oxen, sheep, or pigs for Brighton Fair.

On arriving at Brighton, we found the village thronged with people, horses, and vehicles. Probably there is no place in New England where the character of an agricultural population may be so well studied. Almost all the farmers within a reasonable distance make it a point, I suppose, to attend Brighton Fair pretty frequently, if not on business, yet as amateurs. Then there are all the cattle-people and butchers who supply the Boston market, and dealers from far and near; and every man who has a cow or a yoke of oxen, whether to sell or buy, goes to Brighton on Monday. There were a thousand or two of cattle in the extensive pens belonging to the tavern-keeper, besides many that were standing about. One could hardly stir a step without running upon the horns of one dilemma or another, in the shape of ox, cow, bull, or ram. The yeomen appeared to be more in their element than I have ever seen them anywhere else, except, indeed, at labor;—more so than at musterings and such gatherings of amusement. And yet this was a sort of festal day, as well as a day of business. Most of the people were of a bulky make, with much bone and muscle, and some good store of fat, as if they had lived on flesh-diet;—with mottled faces too, hard and red, like those of persons who adhered to the old fashion of spirit-drinking. Great, round-paunched country squires were there too, sitting under the porch of the tavern, or waddling about, whip in hand, discussing the points of the cattle. There were also gentlemen-farmers, neatly, trimly, and fashionably dressed, in handsome surtouts and trousers, strapped under their boots. Yeomen, too, in their black or blue Sunday suits, cut by country tailors, and awkwardly worn. Others (like myself) had on the blue, stuff frocks which they wear in the fields, the most comfortable garments that ever were invented. Country loafers were among the throng,—men who looked wistfully at the liquors in the bar, and waited for some friend to invite them to drink,—poor, shabby, out-at-elbowed devils. Also, dandies from the city, corseted and buckramed, who had come to see the humors of Brighton Fair. All these, and other varieties of mankind, either thronged the spacious bar-room of the hotel, drinking, smoking, talking, bargaining, or walked about among the cattle-pens, looking with knowing eyes at the horned people. The owners of the cattle stood near at hand, waiting for offers. There was something indescribable in their aspect, that showed them to be the owners, though they mixed among the crowd. The cattle, brought from a hundred separate farms, or rather from a thousand, seemed to agree very well together, not quarrelling in the least. They almost all had a history, no doubt, if they could but have told it. The cows had each given her milk to support families,—had roamed the pastures, and come home to the barn-yard,—had been looked upon as a sort of member of the domestic circle, and was known by a name, as Brindle or Cherry. The oxen, with their necks bent by the heavy yoke, had toiled in the plough-field and in haying-time for many years, and knew their master's stall as well as the master himself knew his own table. Even the young steers and the little calves had something of domestic sacredness about them; for children had watched their growth, and petted them, and played with them. And here they all were, old and young, gathered from their thousand homes to Brighton Fair; whence the great chance was that they would go to the slaughter-house, and thence be transmitted, in sirloins, joints, and such pieces, to the tables of the Boston folk.

William Allen had come to buy four little pigs to take the places of four who have now grown large at our farm, and are to be fatted and killed within a few weeks. There were several hundreds, in pens appropriated to their use, grunting discordantly, and apparently in no very good humor with their companions or the world at large. Most or many of these pigs had been imported from the State of New York. The drovers set out with a large number, and peddle them along the road till they arrive at Brighton with the remainder. William selected four, and bought them at five cents per pound. These poor little porkers were forthwith seized by the tails, their legs tied, and then thrown into our wagon, where they kept up a continual grunt and squeal till we got home. Two of them were yellowish, or light gold-color, the other two were black and white, speckled; and all four of very piggish aspect and deportment. One of them snapped at William's finger most spitefully, and bit it to the bone.

All the scene of the Fair was very characteristic and peculiar,—cheerful and lively, too, in the bright, warm sun. I must see it again; for it ought to be studied.

* * * * *

September 28.—A picnic party in the woods, yesterday, in honor of little Frank Dana's birthday, he being six years old. I strolled out, after dinner, with Mr. Bradford, and in a lonesome glade we met the apparition of an Indian chief, dressed in appropriate costume of blanket, feathers, and paint, and armed with a musket. Almost at the same time, a young gypsy fortune-teller came from among the trees, and proposed to tell my fortune. While she was doing this, the goddess Diana let fly an arrow, and hit me smartly in the hand. The fortune-teller and goddess were in fine contrast, Diana being a blonde, fair, quiet, with a moderate composure; and the gypsy (O. G.) a bright, vivacious, dark-haired, rich-complexioned damsel,—both of them very pretty, at least pretty enough to make fifteen years enchanting. Accompanied by these denizens of the wild wood, we went onward, and came to a company of fantastic figures, arranged in a ring for a dance or a game. There was a Swiss girl, an Indian squaw, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one or two foresters, and several people in Christian attire, besides children of all ages. Then followed childish games, in which the grown people took part with mirth enough,—while I, whose nature it is to be a mere spectator both of sport and serious business, lay under the trees and looked on. Meanwhile, Mr. Emerson and Miss Fuller, who arrived an hour or two before, came forth into the little glade where we were assembled. Here followed much talk. The ceremonies of the day concluded with a cold collation of cakes and fruit. All was pleasant enough,—an excellent piece of work,—"would 't were done!" It has left a fantastic impression on my memory, this intermingling of wild and fabulous characters with real and homely ones, in the secluded nook of the woods. I remember them, with the sunlight breaking through overshadowing branches, and they appearing and disappearing confusedly,—perhaps starting out of the earth; as if the everyday laws of Nature were suspended for this particular occasion. There were the children, too, laughing and sporting about, as if they were at home among such strange shapes,—and anon bursting into loud uproar of lamentation, when the rude gambols of the merry archers chanced to overturn them. And apart, with a shrewd, Yankee observation of the scene, stands our friend Orange, a thick-set, sturdy figure, enjoying the fun well enough, yet rather laughing with a perception of its nonsensicalness than at all entering into the spirit of the thing.

This morning I have been helping to gather apples. The principal farm labors at this time are ploughing for winter rye, and breaking up the greensward for next year's crop of potatoes, gathering squashes, and not much else, except such year-round employments as milking. The crop of rye, to be sure, is in process of being thrashed, at odd intervals.

I ought to have mentioned among the diverse and incongruous growths of the picnic party our two Spanish boys from Manilla;—Lucas, with his heavy features and almost mulatto complexion; and Jose, slighter, with rather a feminine face,—not a gay, girlish one, but grave, reserved, eying you sometimes with an earnest but secret expression, and causing you to question what sort of person he is.

* * * * *

Friday, October 1.—I have been looking at our four swine,—not of the last lot, but those in process of fattening. They lie among the clean rye straw in the sty, nestling close together; for they seem to be beasts sensitive to the cold, and this is a clear, bright, crystal morning, with a cool, northwest wind. So there lie these four black swine, as deep among the straw as they can burrow, the very symbols of slothful ease and sensuous comfort. They seem to be actually oppressed and overburdened with comfort. They are quick to notice any one's approach, and utter a low grunt thereupon,—not drawing a breath for that particular purpose, but grunting with their ordinary breath,—at the same time turning an observant, though dull and sluggish, eye upon the visitor. They seem to be involved and buried in their own corporeal substance, and to look dimly forth at the outer world. They breathe not easily, and yet not with difficulty nor discomfort; for the very unreadiness and oppression with which their breath comes appears to make them sensible of the deep sensual satisfaction which they feel. Swill, the remnant of their last meal, remains in the trough, denoting that their food is more abundant than even a hog can demand. Anon, they fall asleep, drawing short and heavy breaths, which heave their huge sides up and down; but at the slightest noise they sluggishly unclose their eyes, and give another gentle grunt. They also grunt among themselves, without any external cause; but merely to express their swinish sympathy. I suppose it is the knowledge that these four grunters are doomed to die within two or three weeks that gives them a sort of awfulness in my conception. It makes me contrast their present gross substance of fleshly life with the nothingness speedily to come. Meantime the four newly-bought pigs are running about the cow-yard, lean, active, shrewd, investigating everything, as their nature is. When I throw an apple among them, they scramble with one another for the prize, and the successful one scampers away to eat it at leisure. They thrust their snouts into the mud, and pick a grain of corn out of the rubbish. Nothing within their sphere do they leave unexamined, grunting all the time with infinite variety of expression. Their language is the most copious of that of any quadruped, and, indeed, there is something deeply and indefinably interesting in the swinish race. They appear the more a mystery the longer one gazes at them. It seems as if there were an important meaning to them, if one could but find it out. One interesting trait in them is their perfect independence of character. They care not for man, and will not adapt themselves to his notions, as other beasts do; but are true to themselves, and act out their hoggish nature.

* * * * *

October 7.—Since Saturday last, (it being now Thursday,) I have been in Boston and Salem, and there has been a violent storm and rain during the whole time. This morning shone as bright as if it meant to make up for all the dismalness of the past days. Our brook, which in the summer was no longer a running stream, but stood in pools along its pebbly course, is now full from one grassy verge to the other, and hurries along with a murmuring rush. It will continue to swell, I suppose, and in the winter and spring it will flood all the broad meadows through which it flows.

I have taken a long walk this forenoon along the Needham road, and across the bridge, thence pursuing a cross-road through the woods, parallel with the river, which I crossed again at Dedham. Most of the road lay through a growth of young oaks principally. They still retain their verdure, though, looking closely in among them, one perceives the broken sunshine falling on a few sere or bright-hued tufts of shrubbery. In low, marshy spots, on the verge of the meadows or along the river-side, there is a much more marked autumnal change. Whole ranges of bushes are there painted with many variegated hues, not of the brightest tint, but of a sober cheerfulness. I suppose this is owing more to the late rains than to the frost; for a heavy rain changes the foliage somewhat at this season. The first marked frost was seen last Saturday morning. Soon after sunrise it lay, white as snow, over all the grass, and on the tops of the fences, and in the yard, on the heap of firewood. On Sunday, I think, there was a fall of snow, which, however, did not lie on the ground a moment.

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October. The sunshine is peculiarly genial; and in sheltered places, as on the side of a bank, or of a barn or house, one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine. It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature. And the green grass, strewn with a few withered leaves, looks the more green and beautiful for them. In summer or spring Nature is farther from one's sympathies.

* * * * *

October 8.—Another gloomy day, lowering with portents of rain close at hand. I have walked up into the pastures this morning, and looked about me a little. The woods present a very diversified appearance just now, with perhaps more varieties of tint than they are destined to wear at a somewhat later period. There are some strong yellow hues, and some deep red; there are innumerable shades of green, some few having the depth of summer; others, partially changed towards yellow, look freshly verdant with the delicate tinge of early summer or of May. Then there is the solemn and dark green of the pines. The effect is, that every tree in the wood and every bush among the shrubbery has a separate existence, since, confusedly intermingled, each wears its peculiar color, instead of being lost in the universal emerald of summer. And yet there is a oneness of effect likewise, when we choose to look at a whole sweep of woodland instead of analyzing its component trees. Scattered over the pasture, which the late rains have kept tolerably green, there are spots or islands of dusky red,—a deep, substantial hue, very well fit to be close to the ground,—while the yellow, and light, fantastic shades of green soar upward to the sky. These red spots are the blueberry and whortleberry bushes. The sweet-fern is changed mostly to russet, but still retains its wild and delightful fragrance when pressed in the hand. Wild China-asters are scattered about, but beginning to wither. A little while ago, mushrooms or toadstools were very numerous along the wood-paths and by the roadsides, especially after rain. Some were of spotless white, some yellow, and some scarlet. They are always mysteries and objects of interest to me, springing as they do so suddenly from no root or seed, and growing one wonders why. I think, too, that some varieties are pretty objects, little fairy tables, centre-tables, standing on one leg. But their growth appears to be checked now, and they are of a brown tint and decayed.

The farm business to-day is to dig potatoes. I worked a little at it. The process is to grasp all the stems of a hill and pull them up. A great many of the potatoes are thus pulled, clinging to the stems and to one another in curious shapes,—long red things, and little round ones, imbedded in the earth which clings to the roots. These being plucked off, the rest of the potatoes are dug out of the hill with a hoe, the tops being flung into a heap for the cow-yard. On my way home I paused to inspect the squash-field. Some of the squashes lay in heaps as they were gathered, presenting much variety of shape and hue,—as golden yellow, like great lumps of gold, dark green, striped and variegated; and some were round, and some lay curling their long necks, nestling, as it were, and seeming as if they had life.

In my walk yesterday forenoon I passed an old house which seemed to be quite deserted. It was a two-story, wooden house, dark and weather-beaten. The front windows, some of them, were shattered and open, and others were boarded up. Trees and shrubbery were growing neglected, so as quite to block up the lower part. There was an aged barn near at hand, so ruinous that it had been necessary to prop it up. There were two old carts, both of which had lost a wheel. Everything was in keeping. At first I supposed that there would be no inhabitants in such a dilapidated place; but, passing on, I looked back, and saw a decrepit and infirm old man at the angle of the house, its fit occupant. The grass, however, was very green and beautiful around this dwelling, and, the sunshine falling brightly on it, the whole effect was cheerful and pleasant. It seemed as if the world was so glad that this desolate old place, where there was never to be any more hope and happiness, could not at all lessen the general effect of joy.

I found a small turtle by the roadside, where he had crept to warm himself in the genial sunshine. He had a sable back, and underneath his shell was yellow, and at the edges bright scarlet. His head, tail, and claws were striped yellow, black, and red. He withdrew himself, as far as he possibly could, into his shell, and absolutely refused to peep out, even when I put him into the water. Finally, I threw him into a deep pool and left him. These mailed gentlemen, from the size of a foot or more down to an inch, were very numerous in the spring; and now the smaller kind appear again.

* * * * *

Saturday, October 9.—Still dismal weather. Our household, being composed in great measure of children and young people, is generally a cheerful one enough, even in gloomy weather. For a week past we have been especially gladdened with a little seamstress from Boston, about seventeen years old; but of such a petite figure, that, at first view, one would take her to be hardly in her teens. She is very vivacious and smart, laughing and singing and talking all the time,—talking sensibly; but still, taking the view of matters that a city girl naturally would. If she were larger than she is, and of less pleasing aspect, I think she might be intolerable; but being so small, and with a fair skin, and as healthy as a wildflower, she is really very agreeable; and to look at her face is like being shone upon by a ray of the sun. She never walks, but bounds and dances along, and this motion, in her diminutive person, does not give the idea of violence. It is like a bird, hopping from twig to twig, and chirping merrily all the time. Sometimes she is rather vulgar, but even that works well enough into her character, and accords with it. On continued observation, one discovers that she is not a little girl, but really a little woman, with all the prerogatives and liabilities of a woman. This gives a new aspect to her, while the girlish impression still remains, and is strangely combined with the sense that this frolicsome maiden has the material for the sober bearing of a wife. She romps with the boys, runs races with them in the yard, and up and down the stairs, and is heard scolding laughingly at their rough play. She asks William Allen to place her "on top of that horse," whereupon he puts his large brown hands about her waist, and, swinging her to and fro, lifts her on horseback. William threatens to rivet two horse-shoes round her neck, for having clambered, with the other girls and boys, upon a load of hay, whereby the said load lost its balance and slid off the cart. She strings the seed-berries of roses together, making a scarlet necklace of them, which she fastens about her throat. She gathers flowers of everlasting to wear in her bonnet, arranging them with the skill of a dressmaker. In the evening, she sits singing by the hour, with the musical part of the establishment, often breaking into laughter, whereto she is incited by the tricks of the boys. The last thing one hears of her, she is tripping up stairs to bed, talking lightsomely or warbling; and one meets her in the morning, the very image of bright morn itself, smiling briskly at you, so that one takes her for a promise of cheerfulness through the day. Be it said, with all the rest, that there is a perfect maiden modesty in her deportment. She has just gone away, and the last I saw of her was her vivacious face peeping through the curtain of the cariole, and nodding a gay farewell to the family, who were shouting their adieux at the door. With her other merits, she is an excellent daughter, and supports her mother by the labor of her hands. It would be difficult to conceive beforehand how much can be added to the enjoyment of a household by mere sunniness of temper and liveliness of disposition; for her intellect is very ordinary, and she never says anything worth hearing, or even laughing at, in itself. But she herself is an expression well worth studying.



THE FENIAN "IDEA."

It was a great truth Shelley uttered when he said that slavery would not be the enormous wrong and evil which it is, if men who had long suffered under it could rise at once to freedom and self-government. We see this fact everywhere proved by races, nations, sexes, long held in bondage, and, when at last set free, displaying for years, perhaps for generations, the vices of cowardice, deceit, and cruelty engendered by slavery. Chains leave ugly scars on the flesh, but deeper scars by far on the soul. Even where the exercise of oppression has stopped short of actual serfdom,—where a race has been merely excluded from some natural rights, and burdened with some unrighteous restrictions,—the same result, in a mitigated degree, may be traced in moral degradation, surviving the injustice itself and almost its very memory. Ages pass away, and "Revenge and Wrong" still "bring forth their kind." The evil is not dead, though they who wrought it have long mouldered in their forgotten graves.

In a very remarkable manner this sad law of our nature applies to the condition of the Irish race. Doubtless the isolated position of Ireland, the small share it has had in the life and movement of our century, has allowed the old wrongs to fester in memory, and the old feelings of rancor to perpetuate themselves, as they could never have done in a country more in the highway of nations. Vendettas personal and political are ever to be found in islands, like Corsica, Sicily, Ireland; or in remote glens and mountains, such as those of Scotland or Greece. Men who live in New York, London, or Paris must be singularly retentive of passion to keep up even their own hatreds, not to speak of the hatreds of their ancestors. But it is alike the bane and blessing of lives spent in retirement and monotony to retain impressions for years, and live in the past almost more vividly than in the tame and uninteresting present. Ireland, at all events, has had nothing to divert her from her old traditions; and there is probably no man, woman, or child of Celtic race living in the country in whose mind a certain "historical element," compounded strangely of truth and falsehood, does not occupy a place such as no analogous impression takes in the thought of an ordinary Englishman or Frenchman. We shall endeavor in this paper to give a little idea of the nature of these Irish traditions and feelings; and if we succeed in doing so, we shall at the same time afford to our readers a clew to some of the supposed mysteries of the recent outbreak of Fenianism. In sober truth, Fenianism is not, to Anglo-Irish observers, a startling apparition, an outburst of insane folly, an epidemic of national hate, but, on the contrary, a most familiar phenomenon, the mere appearance on the surface of what we always knew lay beneath,—an endemic as natural to the soil as the ague and fever which haunt the undrained bogs. Those who understand what Irishmen are always thinking will find no difficulty in understanding also what things they occasionally do.

The real wrongs inflicted by England upon Ireland are probably as bad as ever disgraced the history of a conquest—in itself without excuse. Not to speak of confiscations, and executions often taking the form of murderous raids into suspected districts, there were laws passed one after another, from the time of Edward I. even to the present century, a collection of which would be a sad commentary on the boasted justice of English Parliaments. Irishmen lay under disabilities, political, social, and ecclesiastical, so severe and numerous that it really seems to have been a question what they were expected to do except to break some of these arbitrary laws, and so incur some cruel penalty. Down to our own century, and for the avowed purpose of injuring the only flourishing trade of the country (that of linen), the English cotton and woollen manufacturers procured the passing of acts better called destructive than protective; and in sober truth, if England now deplores the low industrial and commercial state of Ireland, she has only to look over her own statute-book, and see if ingenuity could have further gone in the way of discouragement and depression. When we add to these wrongs the bitter drop of the Irish Church Establishment, it is doubtless clear that an able advocate could make out a very telling case for the plaintiff, in that great case of Ireland vs. England on which Europe and America sit as jury.

But it is a singularly inexact notion of the real historical wrongs of his country which an ordinary Irishman treasures in his heart; in fact, he has no idea of the real wrongs at all, but of other and quite imaginary ones. He sets out with the great fallacy that Ireland was at some indefinite epoch (described as "former times") a wealthy, prosperous, and united country, and that every declension from those characteristics is to be laid at the door of English tyranny and jealousy. When Moore wrote,

"Let Erin remember the days of old, Ere her faithless sons betrayed her, When Malachi wore the collar of gold Which he won from her proud invader,

"When her kings, with their standards of green unfurled, Led the Red Branch knights to danger, Ere the emerald gem of the Western world Was set in the crown of a stranger,"—

when, we say, a man of the world, who afterwards wrote a remarkably moderate and sensible History of Ireland, wrote nonsense like this, he was doubtless well aware he was only by poetic license describing what Irishmen commonly believed about "days of old," and their glorified circumstances. We once saw an Irish schoolmaster, just one of those who mould the ideas of the humbler classes, shown into a room furnished with the usual luxury of a handsome English drawing-room,—books, pictures, flowers, and china, "an earthly paradise of ormolu." The good man looked round with great admiration, and then innocently remarked, "Why, this must be like one of the palaces of our ancient kings!" Here was precisely the popular Irish idea. Her "ancient king"—who actually lived in the wattled walls of Tara, enjoying barbarian feasts of beer and hecatombs of lean kine and sheep—is supposed to have been a refined and splendid prince, dwelling in ideal "halls," (doubtless compounded out of the Dublin Bank and Rotunda,) and enjoying the finest music on a double-action harp. As a fact, there is no evidence whatever that the old Irish Pentarchy was much better than any five chieftainships of the Sandwich Islands. Even the historians who laud it in most pompous phrases, like Keatinge, give nothing but details of wars and massacres, disorders and rebellions without end. Out of one hundred and sixty-eight kings who by this (of course) half-fabulous story reigned from the Milesian Conquest to Roderick O'Connor, vanquished by Henry II. in 1172, no less than seventy-nine are said to have acquired the throne by the murder of their predecessors. The contests between the five kings for the supremacy, or for the acquisition of each other's territories, offer a spectacle which can only be compared to a sanguinary game of puss-in-the-corner lasting for a thousand years. As to any monuments of civilization, it would indeed be wonderful if they were found in a country so circumstanced. Such existing architecture as can be attributed to a Celtic origin is confined to the simple round towers, Cormac's Chapel at Cashel, and a few humble little stone-roofed edifices like the one known as "St. Kevin's Kitchen," and made, with true Irish magniloquence, to stand wellnigh alone for the "Seven Churches of Glendalough." For literature, ancient Ireland can show the respectable "Annals of the Four Masters," and a few minor chronicles in prose and verse, but not a single work deserving a place in European history. Literally the fame of a few nomad saints, and a collection of torques and brooches (of great beauty, but possible Byzantine workmanship) in the Irish Academy, are the chief grounds on which rest the claims of Ireland to ancient civilization. Yet not merely civilization, but the extreme grandeur and magnificence of Ireland in "former times," is the first postulate of all Irish discontent. It is because England has dimmed her glory and overthrown her royal state that Irishmen burn with patriot indignation, and not by any means because she has merely left barbarism and disunion still barbarous and disunited after seven centuries, and has checked, instead of encouraging, the industry and commerce of the land.

Proceeding on this false ground, the Celtic Irishman, with his fervid imagination, easily builds for himself a whole edifice of local and personal grievances on the pattern of the supposed national one. Was Ireland once a rich and splendid country? So was every town and neighborhood once full of gayety and prosperity, when "the family" lived at home and did not travel or spend the season in London. Full of extravagant reverence for birth and rank, it is always, in the Irishman's mind, not his fault, nor that of his compeers of the working and middle classes, that trade and agriculture do not flourish in the land; but the fault of some lord or squire who ought to come and spend money there, or some king or queen who should hold court in Dublin and waste as much treasure as possible upon state ceremonials. Nay, every man for himself, almost, has at the bottom of his heart a belief that he ought to be, not a laborer or carter, shoemaker or tailor, but the head of some ancient house,—some O' or Mac,—living not in his own mud cabin, but in the handsome residence of some English gentleman whose estate was wrongfully taken in "former times" from his—the laborer's or shoemaker's—ancestors.

Fenians talk of an Irish Republic, and the brave and honest men who led the rising of '98 undoubtedly heartily desired to establish one on the American model. But to any one really acquainted with Irish character, to dream of such institutions for ages to come seems utterly vain. All the qualities which go to make a republican, in the true sense of the term, are wanting in the Irish nature; and, on the other hand, there is a superabundance of all the opposite qualities which go to make a loyal subject of a king,—not too despotic, but still a strong-handed, visible, audible, tangible ruler of men. Devotion to an idea, to a constitution, to a flag; respect for law as law; sturdy independence and self-reliance; regard for others' rights and jealousy of a man's own,—all these true republican characteristics are most rarely to be found in Irishmen. Nay, the most important of all—the reverence for law—is almost, we might say, reversed in his nature. The true Irishman detests law. He loves, indeed, mercy, retribution, many fine things which law may or may not produce. But the simple fact that a certain proceeding has been by proper authorities constituted a law or rule of any kind, in public matters or private, is reason enough, in high or low, to make it secretly distasteful. As Coleridge used to say, that, "when anything was presented to him as a duty, he instantly felt himself seized by a sense of inability to perform it," so, to the Celtic mind, when anything comes in the guise of a law, there is an accompanying seizure of moral paralysis. Even if the law or rule be made by the offender himself, it is all the same. Having given it utterance, it is a law, and he hates it accordingly. On the other hand, nothing can exceed the generous, chivalrous personal and family loyalty of the Irish nature. But it is a person he wants, not a constitution or a flag.

Of course, how far all these characteristics may be altered by residence in America we are unable to say. We write of the Irishman in Ireland, from lifelong acquaintance. What dreams the Fenians in America may indulge, we are also in no position to know. But this we may safely aver: The Irishmen in Ireland who are caught by such schemes of rebellion and revolution are not, as might be thought, mere vulgar agitators, eager for notoriety or perhaps plunder. They are (such of them as are the dupes, not the dupers) men whose minds from childhood have been filled with anti-historic visions of Ireland's former grandeur, and who cherish patriotic indignation for her supposed wrongs, and patriotic hopes of her future glory. In a word, they live in a world of unrealities almost inconceivable to a cool Saxon brain,—unreal splendors of the past and utterly unreal and impossible future hopes. They neither see where England has actually wronged Ireland heretofore, nor how her Constitution opens to them now (were they but once united) the lawful means of obtaining all just redress and beneficial legislation they can desire. Instead of this, they are still talking of Tara and Kincora, of Ollamh Fodhla and Brien Boiromhe, and dream in the year of grace 1866 to set England at naught with a few thousand undisciplined troops, and then burn down the hundred or two of handsome houses and banish all the cultivated men and women in the country (even including the priests!), to inaugurate a grand era of universal prosperity and civilization.

But however delusive the indignation and the hopes of the Fenians must be accounted, the sad fact remains that old misgovernment and oppression have left behind a train of evil feelings, whose existence is only too real, however fantastic may be the shapes they assume. While three or four centuries sufficed to obliterate all trace of the Norman Conquest, and unite in indissoluble bonds of blood and language the two races who contended for mastery at Hastings, in Ireland, on the contrary, seven centuries have failed, not merely to efface, but even essentially to diminish the sharpness of the distinction between the conquerors and the conquered. Still, to this day, the two nations dwell in the same land, but not united. Still each member of each race learns as his first lesson to which of the two he belongs, and recognizes, by some occult, but well-known tokens, the race and creed of every man with whom he has dealings. Religious differences, of course, have come in to swell the tide of mistrust, and to nullify the most strenuous efforts of the Anglo-Irish to gain the confidence of the Celts. In the books circulated in the baskets of the strolling pedlers, which constitute almost the sole literature of the laboring class, we have constantly seen the favorite tract entitled "A Father's Advice to his Son," in which the Catholic peasant is warned to put no faith in the desire of his Protestant neighbor to help him, and advised, not, indeed, to refuse his charity, but to return for it no gratitude, since a Protestant can have no real feeling for a Catholic. We have heard with our own ears O'Connell say almost the same thing in Conciliation Hall, and tell his hearers that English subscriptions at the time of the famine were given from fear, not kindness. But even were all these false teachers silenced, were the enormous insult of the Irish Establishment retracted to-morrow, even then the root of national bitterness would not be killed. It would take generations to kill it.

Between fifty and a hundred years ago the Anglo-Irish gentry, as all the world knows, were a wild and extravagant race. Duelling and drinking were the two great duties of a gentleman. A young man was instructed how to "make his head" early in life, and to acquire the gentle art of pistolling his friends, when now he would be studying Greek under Professor Jowett, or "coaching" for a civil-service examination. It was in bad taste in those halcyon days for a man to leave a pleasant social party in a state of sobriety, and he was liable to be challenged by his aggrieved companions if he did it frequently. The custom of locking the dining-room door and putting the key in the fire, so as to secure a comfortable night (on the floor), was so common as hardly to deserve notice; and in many old houses are still preserved the huge glasses bearing the toast of the Immortal Memory of William III., and calculated to hold three bottles of claret, all to be drunk at once by one member of the company, who then won the prize of a seven-guinea piece deposited at the bottom. Gambling was not a pastime, but a business; and a business shared by the ladies. On rainy days it was customary to lay the card-tables at ten o'clock in the morning, and on all days the work began immediately after the four-o'clock dinner. Of all field-sports hunting was the favorite; and, of course, horses and hounds helped to run away with estates as well as cards and claret. Great pomp, however, of a certain semi-barbaric kind was the crowning extravagance. Everybody drove four horses,—the loftier grandees invariably six,—with due accompaniment of outriders and running footmen. Dresses, jewels, and lace were of course in keeping with the equipage, albeit the furniture of the finest houses was what we should deem a strange mixture of magnificence and bareness,—beautiful pictures on the walls, and no curtains to the windows,—tapestry fauteuils, and a small square of carpet in the midst of a Sahara of plain deal floor. But the kitchen was the true scene of that Wilful Waste which assuredly brought Woful Want often enough in its train. Every gentleman's house served as a sort of free tavern for tenants, servants, laborers, and the relatives, friends, and acquaintances of tenants, servants, and laborers without end. Up stairs there was endless dinner-giving and claret-drinking; down stairs there was breakfasting, dining, and supping,—only substituting beef for venison and whiskey for claret. One famous countess, coming into an estate of twenty thousand a year, with a reserve of one hundred thousand pounds, spent the whole, and left a debt of another hundred thousand, after Garter-King-at-Arms had been summoned from England to see her in state to her mausoleum as a descendant of the Plantagenets. An earl in the North, of no great wealth, was carried to his grave by a procession of five thousand people, all of whom were entertained, and three thousand clothed in mourning, for the occasion. But there is no need to go further into such traditions.

Were these, then, the people who earned the hoarded hate of the Fenian? Was it this coarse and stupid extravagance, contrasted with the abject penury of the peasantry, (far greater then than now,) which has left such indelible, bitter memories? Very far indeed is this from being the case. That age of lavish waste is looked back upon universally in Ireland as one of those "former times" which are to be forever contrasted with the present,—an age of gold compared to an age of iron. True, the old landlords were harder on their tenants than any dare now to be;—true, they neither improved land, nor built cottages, nor endowed schools, nor did one earthly thing to help the wretched and starving people in the face of whose misery they flaunted their splendor. But there was little or no bitterness of feeling toward them; for their faults were those with which the people sympathized, and their free-handed hospitality would have covered more sins even than they committed. Perhaps one of the very reasons why, in these last years, the never wholly quieted ground-swell of discontent has risen up in Fenianism is this, that the whole generation of which we have spoken has now utterly died out, and, since the Encumbered Estates Courts has done its work, the families of landholders have undergone great changes, and, where not changed in race, have wholly changed in habits and mode of life. "Castle Rackrent" exists no more. Irish landlords have now neither power nor inclination to hold free quarters for all comers. On the other hand, (we speak it advisedly,) no class of men in Europe strive more earnestly and self-denyingly to improve the condition of those dependent on them, to build good houses for their tenants, open schools for the children, and drain and fertilize the land. Let us hope that, as years roll on, and generations pass, the tradition of imaginary wrongs, and the unseen but too real results of actual ones, will both pass away, and there may yet come a day in which it will not seem a satire to speak of the land of the Fenian and the Agrarian murderer as "The Isle of Saints."