not overcome it.

so dear as you are now!"

Never, never were you half not bear to see him lying thus in pain, which he had perhaps, as she supposed, encountered for her. She was impulsive, and though she thought of his assistance toward the escape of Minnie and herself, yet pity and compassion were her chief inspiring motives.

Now, of course, that was all very well, considered as the language of an estranged husband seeking for reconciliation with an estranged wife; but when one regards it simply as the language of a passionate lover directed to a young and exceedingly pretty widow, one will perceive that it was not all very well, and that under ordinary circumstances it might create a sensation.

Upon Mrs. Willoughby the sensation was simply tremendous. She had begun by "humoring" the delirious man; but now she found his delirium taking a course which was excessively embarrassing. The worst of it was, there was truth enough in his language to increase the embarrassment. She remembered at once how the mournful face of this man had appeared before her in different places. Her thoughts instantly reverted to that evening on the balcony when his pale face appeared behind the fountain. There was truth in his words; and her heart beat with extraordinary agitation at the thought. Yet at the same time there was some mistake about it all; and he was clearly delirious.

"Oh, Heavens!" he cried. "Can you ever forgive me? Is there a possibility of it? Oh, can you forgive me? Can you-can you?"

He was clearly delirious now. Her heart was full of pity for him. He was suffering too. He was bound fast. Could she not release him? It was terrible for this man to lie there bound thus. And perhaps he had fallen into the hands of these ruffians while trying to save her and her sister. She must free him.

"Would you like to be loosed ?” she asked, coming nearer. "Shall I cut your bonds ?" She spoke in a low whisper.

Mrs. Willoughby had told Girasole that she had no knife; but this was not quite true, for she now produced one, and cut the cords that bound his wrists. Again a thrill flashed through him at the touch of her little fingers; she then cut the cords that bound his ankles.

Dacres sat up. His ankles and wrists were badly swollen, but he was no longer conscious of pain. There was rapture in his soul, and of that alone was he conscious.

Be

"Be careful!" she whispered, warningly; "guards are all around, and listeners. careful! If you can think of a way of escape, do so."

Dacres rubbed his hand over his forehead.

"Am I dreaming?" said he; "or is it all true? A while ago I was suffering from some hideous vision; yet now you say you forgive me!"

Mrs. Willoughby saw in this a sign of returning delirium. "But the poor fellow must be humored, I suppose," she thought.

"Oh, there is nothing for me to forgive," said she.

"But if there were any thing, would you?" "Yes."

"Freely?" he cried, with a strong emphasis. 'Yes, freely."

66

"Oh, could you answer me one more question? Oh, could you ?"

"No, no; not now-not now, I entreat you," said Mrs. Willoughby, in nervous dread. She was afraid that his delirium would bring him upon delicate ground, and she tried to hold

"Oh, tell me first, I implore you! Can him back. you forgive me?"

He spoke in such a piteous tone that heart was touched.

her

"Now may Heaven forever bless you for that sweet and gentle word!" said Dacres, who altogether misinterpreted her words, and the emphasis she placed on them; and in his voice there was such peace, and such a gentle, exultant happiness, that Mrs. Willoughby again felt touched.

"Poor fellow!" she thought; "how he must have suffered!"

"Where are you fastened?" she whispered, as she bent over him. Dacres felt her breath upon his cheek; the hem of her garment touched his sleeve, and a thrill passed through him. He felt as though he would like to be forever thus, with her bending over him.

"But I must ask you," said Dacres, trembling fearfully—“I must-now or never. Tell me my doom; I have suffered so much. Oh, Heavens! Answer me. Can you? Can you feel toward me as you once did ?"

"He's utterly mad," thought Mrs. Willoughby; "but he'll get worse if I don't soothe him. Poor fellow! I ought to answer him."

"Yes," she said, in a low voice.

"Oh, my darling!" murmured Dacres, in rapture inexpressible; "my darling!" he repeated, and grasping Mrs. Willoughby's hand, he pressed it to his lips. "And you will love me again-you will love me?"

Mrs. Willoughby paused. The man was mad, but the ground was so dangerous! Yes, she must humor him. She felt his hot kisses on her hand.

"You will-you will love me, will you not?" he repeated. "Oh, answer me! Answer me, or I shall die!" "My hands are fastened behind me," said he. "Yes," whispered Mrs. Willoughby, faintly. "I have a knife," said Mrs. Willoughby. As she said this a cold chill passed through She did not stop to think of danger. It was But it was too late. Dacres's arms were chiefly pity that incited her to this. She could around her. He had drawn her to him, and

her.

pressed her against his breast, and she felt hot isn't my name. tears upon her head.

"Oh, Arethusa!" cried Dacres.

"Well," said Mrs. Willoughby, as soon as she could extricate herself, "there's a mistake, you know."

"A mistake, darling?"

"Oh dear, what shall I do?" thought Mrs. Willoughby; "he's beginning again. I must stop this, and bring him to his senses. How terrible it is to humor a delirious man!"

"Oh, Arethusa !" sighed Dacres once more. Mrs. Willoughby arose.

If you can shake off your delirium, I wish you would. I really do." "What!" cried Dacres, in amazement. "I'm not Arethusa at all; that isn't my name." "Not your name ?"

"No; my name's Kitty."

"Kitty!" cried Dacres, starting to his feet. At that instant the report of a gun burst upon their ears, followed by another and another; then there were wild calls and loud shouts. Other guns were heard.

Yet amidst all this wild alarm there was nothing which had so tremendous an effect upon "I'm not Arethusa at all," said she; "that Dacres as this last remark of Mrs. Willoughby's.

N

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND.

of St. David's, that |

Revenge, or a passionate longing to revisit

On the sharp promontory of the Irish Sea, the green meadows of Leinster, probably blind

his vengeance, he must have shrunk appalled from his fatal purpose could he have foreseen through the lapse of centuries the endless chain of tyranny he was about to entail upon his country; the miseries of its people, that were never to cease; the cruel triumph of the Norman knights as they hunted the Irish from their pleasant pastures to wild fens and dismal solitudes; the utter ruin of its ancient church, that was to be crushed beneath the furious bigotry of Rome; the series of perpetual sorrows that were to weigh down an innocent and happy race, and make the Irish name from the twelfth to the nineteenth century the symbol of national subjection and decay.

stood Dermot Macmorrough, Prince of Leinster, ed the Irish chieftain to the consequences of planning the ruin of his native land. Exiled his design. Yet however deep and insatiable for his cruel oppressions, hated and contemned by friend and foe, the royal traitor, says the contemporary chronicle, watched with eager eyes the distant coast of Ireland, and caught with joy the scent of the gales that breathed from his ancestral fields.' To Dermot of Leinster his countrymen may well ascribe the loss of their freedom and the destruction of their national faith. The savage chief was one of the numerous kings or rulers of Ireland. He was tall in stature, of huge proportions, valiant in war, terrible to his foes; his sonorous voice was become hoarse from raising the war-cry of battle; his sanguinary joy was to count the heads of the slain and exult over the heaps of the fallen. But misfortune or retribution had at last come upon the haughty Dermot: his people had risen against his tyranny. And a woman, adds the monkish writer, with natural injustice, has usually been the cause of the chief woes of man, as Helen or Cleopatra witness; nor was this destructive element wanting to the sorrows of Dermot.3 The barbarous Paris had snatched from King O'Roric of Meath a faithless bride; the Irish princes, like the Grecian chieftains, had united to avenge the unpardonable wrong; Roderic of Connaught, then monarch of all Ireland, led the forces of his country against the offender; the nobles of Leinster deserted their guilty prince, and Dermot fled to Wales or England in a convenient ship, glowing with hatred against his countrymen, resolved to destroy, by the aid of foreign arms, the irresistible confederacy of the Irish chiefs.4

Nor could Dermot have succeeded in his aim had he not been aided by the two most potent of his country's foes. The Norman King of England, Henry II., and the Pope of Rome, had already resolved upon the destruction of Ireland. Of the causes and the results of this unmerited enmity we propose to give a brief but, we trust, a not uninstructive sketch.

From that gloomy period that lies between the fifth and the tenth centuries, when all Europe was desolated by the swift inroads of Northern barbarians, and when Goths or Huns were laying the foundations of novel systems of government, the island of Erin, sheltered amidst the waves, shines out with the tranquil lustre that won for it the appellation of the Island of the Saints. No savage hordes rayaged its fertile fields; no papal crusade corrupted its early Christianity; a soft and misty climate made it the perpetual abode of plenty and temperate ease. From the central ridge of picturesque mountains, often covered with

1 Campion, Hist. Ireland, p. 19, is filled with legends, but is entertaining. Hanmer relates the miracles of Patrick, p. 76.

2 Girald., Topog. Hib., is always unfavorable to the victims of the Geraldines, but extols the country.

bog, or supporting, like natural vases, some crys- | cated their children to bear privation and live tal pool amidst their summits, the soil of Ireland slopes downward on all sides to the sea. It was ever rich in pastures and meadows, honey and milk; countless herds of cattle wandered beneath its forests and over its bountiful fields; it purchased with its hides and skins an abundance of wine from the coasts of Poitou; its stags, with noble antlers and slender shapes, ranged in troops over its sequestered hills, and herds of wild boar, more numerous than those of any other land, filled the thickets of Ulster and Killarney. There were black swans and cranes; crows, always parti-colored and never black; no nightingales, few hawks, but countless eagles, who could gaze with unwinking eyes upon the sun, who soared upward until they almost reached the fiery gates of heaven, whose lives were so prolonged that they looked down from their mountain peaks upon the successive generations of dying man, and scorned the feeble race beneath them.1

on scanty food; their dress was a thick coat of the black wool of the country, and heavy hose or breeches-a plain mark of barbarism to the Normans, who still wore the flowing robes of ancient Rome. They suffered their beards and hair to grow to an enormous length; they built no towns nor cities, but lived a pastoral life, filling the woods and fields with immense herds of cattle. Yet, like all the Celts, the Irish were passionate lovers of music and poetry. Bards, renowned from Cork to Derry, sang at the great assemblies of Tara the exploits of the O'Tooles and the O'Neils, and took rank with the chief nobles and princes. The musicians of Ireland excelled those of all other lands; they touched the strings of their native harp with such delicate and cultivated art, and produced strains so soft yet lively, so rapid, sweet, and gay, that even their Norman conquerors yielded to its seductions, and filled their castles with Irish harpers.1 The Irish bishop or saint in his missionary toils carried his harp with him to soothe his lonely hours. The Irish princes swept their harp-strings with rapid touch as they made ready for battle.

But the chief boast of Ireland was its independence. The Romans had seen but scarcely visited the savage isle, whose inhabitants, Strabo relates, sometimes devoured each other. The Saxons had made no incursions on the Irish shore. The Norwegians, masters of the western isles, founded the flourishing cities of Dublin, Wexford, Cork, or Limerick, but were blended peacefully with the native inhabitants; and of all the Celtic races the Irish alone re

One strange exception marked the animated life of Ireland. At least in the year 1170, we are assured, no venomous reptiles could exist upon its sacred soil; no snakes nor adders, no scorpions, frogs, nor dragons, were found in its green fields, or lay hidden in the recesses of its mountains. In France, it was said, the frogs filled the air with their croaking, in Britain they were silent, but in Ireland there were none; reptiles or toads brought in ships to the shores of Leinster died as they touched the enchanted ground; the soil of Ireland, sprinkled over foreign gardens, expelled the reptile crew; once only a single frog was discovered alive in the grassy meadows of Wexford, and was sur-mained free. Their kings were elective; a rounded by an immense throng of the Irish and the English, gazing in speechless wonder upon the unparalleled prodigy. Bearded natives and shaven strangers were struck with equal consternation; ghost or apparition they might have borne with calmness, but a frog, green and vigorous, was never seen in Ireland before. At length Donald, King of Ossory, a man renowned for wisdom and prudence, advanced among the thick throng of his people to explain the omen. Beating his head, and weighed down by unfeigned grief, he cried, "That reptile is the bearer of doleful news to Erin."3 The Normans soon after, says the chronicler, invaded the unhappy land, and fulfilled the saying of the acute Donald.

The people of Ireland belonged to that wide-spread family of Celts that had once ruled over France, Britain, and the hills of Scotland. They were tall, well formed, and vigorous.* Their hair and eyes were black; parents edu

1 Girald., Top. Hib. In ipsos solaris corporis radios. 2 Gerald, who studied the country with care, affirms the virtue of the Irish soil. The tradition proves that reptiles were at least rare; they have since multiplied.

Topog. Hib., c. xxiv. Pessimos in Hiberniam rumores vermis ille portavit. Gerald relates the incident as if of his own knowledge.

Girald. Pulcherrimis et proceris.

supreme ruler was chosen in the national assembly, and was crowned upon the stone of destiny at Tara; the impulsive people obeyed cheerfully their native rulers, and only rebelled when some cruel Dermot drove them to revolt and outraged the higher instincts of humanity.

Christianity, in its purer form, came to Ireland about the middle of the fifth century.2 For six years Patrick, the son of pious parents, the child of a priest, had been held in slavery in Ireland, and on the hills of Antrim had tended his sheep and worshiped God. Every seventh year it was the Irish custom to set free all bondsmen. Patrick returned to his native Brittany, to his parents and his Christian friends, was ordained a presbyter, and studied in the Celtic schools of Gaul. Yet his fancy must often have gone back to the pleasant fields and generous natives of Antrim, where his spotless youth had passed, who were still lost in savage superstitions, who sacrificed the firstlings of their flocks, and sometimes their infants, in the Valley of Slaughter, and knelt in the groves of the Druids. A vision came to

1 Girald., Top. Hib., c. xi. In musicis solum instrumentis commendabilem. The Irish airs began and closed on B flat, and were singularly melodious.

2 Thierry, Conquête de l'Angleterre, iii. 195 et seq., presents an accurate picture of the early Irish church.

Patrick as he labored at his studies in Gaul, nor would it be possible even to enumerate the summoning him to the conversion of Ireland. A voice called him in the midnight; he obeyed. About the year 432 he crossed the seas to the land where he had once been a slave, and preached the simple Gospel to the bards, the princes, and the bearded people of Erin.'

long succession of Irish scholars who in this eventful period laid the foundations of European progress. It should be remembered that the Irish were the first to impress upon the barbarians of the North the necessity of popular education, the priceless importance of the public school.

In the year 432 there were no images nor crucifixes, no pompous ritual, no spiritual des- A bleak and rocky island washed by the potism, no moral corruption emanating from stormy northern seas has become immortal as Rome. The imperial city, sacked by Goth the home of the most renowned of the Irish and plundered by Hun, torn by discord, soon missionaries.1 Iona, or the Druid's Isle, on to be desolated by Genseric, and reduced al- the western coast of Scotland, swept by fierce most to a naked waste, harried by robbers and arctic winds and lashed by the wintry waves, polluted by savages, had sunk to the condition still preserves traces of that sacred company of a provincial town. Its scanty population, who once prayed and labored on its inhospitaits corrupted priesthood, or its trembling bish-ble rocks. Here are the ruins of extensive op were scarcely able to maintain the existence churches, composed of blocks of stone five or of its fallen church. Patrick, therefore, the six feet long; the foundations of ancient schools humble slave and missionary, brought to Ire- and monasteries, whence Europe was once inland the simple elements of an apostolic faith; structed; a multitude of tombs, overgrown he preached only the doctrines of Paul, with al- with weeds, where forty-eight kings of Scotmost equal success. The savage Irish received land and a throng of saints and heroes lie burhim with generous hospitality; he preached to ied; and sculptured crosses and sepulchres, the assembled nation on the hill of Tara; he from whence the grim faces of angels or depurged the Valley of Slaughter of its dreadful mons, distorted by time, still gaze upon the rites; he founded schools, churches, and mon- observer. The legends on the tombs are no asteries in the wilds of Connaught and along longer legible; the names of the saints and the dreary coasts of Ulster, and Ireland became poets, scholars and kings, who sleep in the wild a Christian country, renowned for its intelli- Westminster of the seas are forgotten; yet pergence, its pious genius, and its missionary zeal. haps no holier or more heroic spirits have visFor many centuries the island of the saints ited the earth than those who for many centuabounded with schools where countless teach-ries made Iona an island of light amidst the ers were educated, and where scholars from all the neighboring countries came to study at the feet of the most accomplished professors of the age. While Rome and Italy had sunk into a new barbarism, Ireland had revived the taste for classical learning, and was filled with a thoughtful and progressive population. At the great college of Armagh seven thousand students are said to have been gathered at once; a hundred schools studded the green fields of the happy isle; in every monastery its inmates labored and taught with ceaseless in-like Paul he went forth to convert mankind. dustry; its missionary teachers wandered among the Franks of Gaul and the Celts of Scotland, to Belgium and to Germany, sowing every where the germs of Christian civilization. Irish scholars established the colleges of Charlemagne. Virgilius and Erigena renewed the taste for philosophical inquiry; Columban, among the recesses of the Vosges, had taught honesty and independence to the savage Franks; St. Gall, an Irishman, founded in the heights of Switzerland that famous monastery long afterward renowned for its opulence and pride;

1 The only trustworthy account of Patrick is his own confessio and a single letter. The more recent

lives are filled with the visions and miracles of the Dark Ages.

There is no trace in the "Confession" of any knowledge of Romish practices, or any mention of Rome.

Thierry, Conquête, iii. 195. Leur île comptait une foule de saints et de savants. See Ware, Hist. Bishops of Ireland, i. 4, for Patrick's life and the legends.

general decay and degradation of the intellect.

Columba, the missionary of Iona, was educated, at the opening of the sixth century, in the pure religion of the Irish church. He was the descendant of kings, perhaps born to opulence and power. But he sought a spiritual crown, and gave himself eagerly to ceaseless study. Learned in all the attainments of the age, his chief delight was ever in the literature of the Scriptures. With Paul he meditated upon the mighty problems of life and death;

He passed over Ireland, founding great monasteries and schools, long afterward renowned as centres of purity and faith; he preached in the wilds of Scotland; he planted the germs of Christianity in the British Isles. At length he selected the bare and barren Iona as the scene of his chief labors, the home of his adventurous spirit. He landed with twelve disciples on its rocky breast, and built his humble monastery. Amidst the roar of the angry waves and the rage of the arctic seas the prayers and toils of the faithful company ripened into a wonderful success. The bleak rocks of Iona were wrought into a throng of costly buildings, and were covered with a pious and studious population.

1 Bede, Hist. Ecc., iii. 4. Venit autem Brittaniam Columba.

2 The tombs and ruins of Iona do not probably reach back beyond the tenth century; are the products of Romish labors. See Pennant, Tour, Iona. Wilson, Tour round Scotland, p. 130, notices a "giant cross."

The kings of the North laid their offerings on its modest shrines, and claimed the right of burial by the side of its scholars and saints. Centuries passed on; Columba slept peacefully on his Druid's Isle; the fame of Iona spread over the world, and its missionaries carried learning and Christianity through all those savage lands over which the benevolent Columba had bent with affectionate regard.

successors of Patrick. They founded their ritual on the venerable practice of the Apostlestheir doctrines upon the study of the Scriptures. No archbishop had ever been known in Ireland; no legate from the papal court was allowed to intrude within the sacred isle.1 No contributions from the Irish church swelled the evercraving treasury of St. Peter. No tithes, firstfruits, or ecclesiastical tribute helped to confirm the growing splendor and corruption of the Roman see. The Irish bishops firmly maintained their independence against the constant menaces of popes or councils; would consent to hold no intercourse with the court of Rome; denied its claim to the right of ordination, and consecrated each other by a simple laying on of hands; rejected the worship of images, the adoration of Mary, the infallibility of the pope, and in all their schools and colleges persisted in a free study of the Scriptures. With an earlier protestantism that Luther might have suggested and Calvin approved, they inculcated and exercised a general liberty of conscience founded upon the wide education of the people, and a moral vigor that had been handed down from their forefathers. The honesty, simplicity, and pious zeal of the Irish teachers are admitted by the more intelligent of their oppo

Late in the seventh century the malarious influence of the Italian priesthood began to subdue the British churches, and reached even to the rebellious presbyters of Iona. To Rome they had ever presented a silent opposition.' They owed it no allegiance; they followed none of the Romish rites. They had founded a Northern church in Scotland, Ireland, France, or Saxony, that professed to draw its origin from the gentle. model of Ephesus and St. John, and had scarcely heard of the primacy of Peter. By force and fraud the unscrupulous prelates of Rome pursued and subjugated the primitive Christians, massacred their bishops in Wales, seized on their churches in Scotland, and at last intruded a Romish bishop and Italian rites into the hallowed seat of Columba. Iona now lost its reputation for scholarship and sanctity. The pestilential breath of Italian corruption dissipated its moral vigor. Its mis-nents." sionaries no longer poured forth in devoted But bitter was the hostility with which the throngs to civilize and restrain the barbarous North. The Danes and Norwegians began their savage inroads upon the Irish seas, and in 806 a fleet of swift vessels, filled with the yellow-haired worshipers of Odin, surrounded the holy island, and landed its vikings upon the sacred soil. A brief contest followed. The monks and scholars fought bravely in defense of their peaceful home. But soon all was carnage and desolation. The Norman pi-As the popes advanced steadily in their career rates laughed as they beheld the island strewn with the dead, and gathered their impious plunder; and the chant of the pagan bards celebrating the victory of the vikings was the only sound heard amidst the desolate ruins of Iona.3 The Irish church meantime flourished with signal vigor. It was in the fresh ardor of evangelical prosperity. Its simple elders, or bishops, without any fixed sees, traveled from county to county confirming their intelligent people in their ancestral faith. They were maintained by voluntary contributions. Avarice and priestly pride were unknown to the

1 The acute, learned, judicious Thierry (iii. 197) asserts the liberty of the Irish church, and observes the incessant efforts of the popes to subdue it. Les papes se bornêrent à négocier, par lettres et par messages, pour tâcher d'amener les Irlandais à établir dans leur ile une hiérarchie ecclésiastique, etc.

2 Bede, Hist. Ecc., iii. 25. Colman cites against the popes the example of St. John.

3 It was renewed, and, often ravaged, it slowly declined.

4 Thierry, Conquête de l'Angleterre, x. Leurs évêques n'étaient que de simples prêtres, auxquels on avait confié par élection la charge purement de surveillans ou de visiteurs des églises, iii. p. 198. They held no superiority of rank, nor thought of it.

Roman popes and the Italian conclaves had long been accustomed to view the island of the saints, where alone their maledictions had been treated with neglect; which had never trembled before the violence of a Hildebrand or the milder reproofs of Honorius; where they could never levy the smallest tax nor sell a benefice; where presbyters were married, and suffered their hair to hang down upon their shoulders.3

of ambition and crime, and the authority of Rome was established by a general extirpation of the primitive Christianity of Gaul, Britain, Wales, and Scotland, the church of Ireland became more than ever before the object of the envy and hatred of the Italian priests. Its simple honesty put to shame the unprincipled lives of those guilty men who from the fabled chair of St. Peter had set the world an example of falsehood and duplicity that had corrupted generations, and made Christianity a vain pretense, a fearful formalism. Its apostolic usages, its Scriptural doctrines, and its ever open Bible were arguments so strong against the fabric of Romish superstition that the popes felt that they could never be secure until they had swept from their path, in fire and blood, the schools, the churches, and the native bishops of Ireland.

1 Thierry, Conquête, iii. 198. Ou acheter le palliums pontifical.

Girald., Topog. Hib. Clerus satis religione commendabilis. Gerald allows them piety, chastity, etc. 3 Thierry, Conquête, iii. 198. New Rome, says Thierry, must rely on its arts, not its legions. The inhuman St. Bernard, the popes, and Gerald unite in violent abuse of the Irish church.