THE man in black having helped himself to some more of his favourite
beverage, and tasted it, I thus addressed him: “The evening is getting
rather advanced, and I can see that this lady,” pointing to Belle, “is
anxious for her tea, which she prefers to take cosily and comfortably
with me in the dingle: the place, it is true, is as free to you as to
ourselves, nevertheless as we are located here by necessity, whilst you
merely come as a visitor, I must take the liberty of telling you that we
shall be glad to be alone, as soon as you have said what you have to say,
and have finished the glass of refreshment at present in your hand. I
think you said some time ago that one of your motives for coming hither
was to induce me to enlist under the banner of Rome. I wish to know
whether that was really the case?”
“Decidedly so,” said the man in black; “I come here principally in the
hope of enlisting you in our regiment, in which I have no doubt you could
do us excellent service.”
“Would you enlist my companion as well?” I demanded.
“We should be only too proud to have her among us, whether she comes with
you or alone,” said the man in black, with a polite bow to Belle.
“Before we give you an answer,” I replied, “I would fain know more about
you; perhaps you will declare your name?”
“That I will never do,” said the man in black; “no one in England knows
it but myself, and I will not declare it, even in a dingle; as for the
rest, _Sono un Prete Cattolico Appostolico_—that is all that many a one
of us can say for himself, and it assuredly means a great deal.”
“We will now proceed to business,” said I. “You must be aware that we
English are generally considered a self-interested people.”
“And with considerable justice,” said the man in black, drinking. “Well,
you are a person of acute perception, and I will presently make it
evident to you that it would be to your interest to join with us. You
are at present, evidently, in very needy circumstances, and are lost, not
only to yourself, but to the world; but should you enlist with us, I
could find you an occupation not only agreeable, but one in which your
talents would have free scope. I would introduce you in the various
grand houses here in England, to which I have myself admission, as a
surprising young gentleman of infinite learning, who by dint of study has
discovered that the Roman is the only true faith. I tell you confidently
that our popish females would make a saint, nay, a God of you; they are
fools enough for anything. There is one person in particular with whom I
should wish to make you acquainted, in the hope that you would be able to
help me to perform good service to the holy see. He is a gouty old
fellow, of some learning, residing in an old hall, near the great western
seaport, and is one of the very few amongst the English Catholics
possessing a grain of sense. I think you could help us to govern him,
for he is not unfrequently disposed to be restive, asks us strange
questions—occasionally threatens us with his crutch; and behaves so that
we are often afraid that we shall lose him, or, rather, his property,
which he has bequeathed to us, and which is enormous. I am sure that you
could help us to deal with him; sometimes with your humour, sometimes
with your learning, and perhaps occasionally with your fists.”
“And in what manner would you provide for my companion?” said I.
“We would place her at once,” said the man in black, “in the house of two
highly respectable Catholic ladies in this neighbourhood, where she would
be treated with every care and consideration till her conversion should
be accomplished in a regular manner; we would then remove her to a female
monastic establishment, where, after undergoing a year’s probation,
during which time she would be instructed in every elegant
accomplishment, she should take the veil. Her advancement would speedily
follow, for, with such a face and figure, she would make a capital lady
abbess, especially in Italy, to which country she would probably be sent;
ladies of her hair and complexion—to say nothing of her height—being a
curiosity in the south. With a little care and management she could soon
obtain a vast reputation for sanctity; and who knows but after her death
she might become a glorified saint—he! he! Sister Maria Theresa, for
that is the name I propose you should bear. Holy Mother Maria
Theresa—glorified and celestial saint, I have the honour of drinking to
your health,” and the man in black drank.
“Well, Belle,” said I, “what have you to say to the gentleman’s
proposal?”
“That if he goes on in this way I will break his glass against his
mouth.”
“You have heard the lady’s answer,” said I.
“I have,” said the man in black, “and shall not press the matter. I
can’t help, however, repeating that she would make a capital lady abbess;
she would keep the nuns in order, I warrant her; no easy matter! Break
the glass against my mouth—he! he! How she would send the holy utensils
flying at the nuns’ heads occasionally, and just the person to wring the
nose of Satan, should he venture to appear one night in her cell in the
shape of a handsome black man. No offence, madam, no offence, pray
retain your seat,” said he, observing that Belle had started up; “I mean
no offence. Well, if you will not consent to be an abbess, perhaps you
will consent to follow this young Zingaro, and to co-operate with him and
us. I am a priest, madam, and can join you both in an instant, _connubio
stabili_, as I suppose the knot has not been tied already.”
“Hold your mumping gibberish,” said Belle, “and leave the dingle this
moment, for though ’t is free to every one, you have no right to insult
me in it.”
“Pray be pacified,” said I to Belle, getting up, and placing myself
between her and the man in black; “he will presently leave, take my word
for it—there, sit down again,” said I, as I led her to her seat; then,
resuming my own, I said to the man in black: “I advise you to leave the
dingle as soon as possible.”
“I should wish to have your answer to my proposal first,” said he.
“Well, then, here you shall have it: I will not entertain your proposal;
I detest your schemes: they are both wicked and foolish.”
“Wicked,” said the man in black, “have they not—he! he!—the furtherance
of religion in view?”
“A religion,” said I, “in which you yourself do not believe, and which
you contemn.”
“Whether I believe in it or not,” said the man in black, “it is adapted
for the generality of the human race; so I will forward it, and advise
you to do the same. It was nearly extirpated in these regions, but it is
springing up again owing to circumstances. Radicalism is a good friend
to us; all the Liberals laud up our system out of hatred to the
Established Church, though our system is ten times less liberal than the
Church of England. Some of them have really come over to us. I myself
confess a baronet who presided over the first Radical meeting ever held
in England—he was an atheist when he came over to us, in the hope of
mortifying his own Church—but he is now—ho! ho!—a real Catholic
devotee—quite afraid of my threats; I make him frequently scourge himself
before me. Well, Radicalism does us good service, especially amongst the
lower classes, for Radicalism chiefly flourishes amongst them; for though
a baronet or two may be found amongst the Radicals, and perhaps as many
lords—fellows who have been discarded by their own order for
clownishness, or something they have done—it incontestably flourishes
best among the lower orders. Then the love of what is foreign is a great
friend to us; this love is chiefly confined to the middle and upper
classes. Some admire the French, and imitate them; others must needs be
Spaniards, dress themselves up in a _zamarra_, stick a cigar in their
mouth, and say, _c—jo_. Others would pass for Germans; he! he! the idea
of any one wishing to pass for a German! but what has done us more
service than anything else in these regions—I mean amidst the middle
classes—has been the novel, the Scotch novel. The good folks, since they
have read the novels, have become Jacobites; and, because all the Jacobs
were Papists, the good folks must become Papists also, or, at least,
papistically inclined. The very Scotch Presbyterians, since they have
read the novels, are become all but Papists; I speak advisedly, having
lately been amongst them. There’s a trumpery bit of a half-papist sect,
called the Scotch Episcopalian Church, which lay dormant and nearly
forgotten for upwards of a hundred years, which has of late got
wonderfully into fashion in Scotland, because, forsooth, some of the
long-haired gentry of the novels were said to belong to it, such as
Montrose and Dundee; and to this the Presbyterians are going over in
throngs, traducing and vilifying their own forefathers, or denying them
altogether, and calling themselves descendants of—ho! ho! ho!—Scottish
Cavaliers!!! I heard them myself repeating snatches of Jacobite ditties
about ‘Bonnie Dundee,’ and:—
‘Come, fill up my cup, and fill up my can,
And saddle my horse, and call up my man.’
There’s stuff for you! Not that I object to the first part of the ditty.
It is natural enough that a Scotchman should cry, ‘Come, fill up my cup!’
more especially if he’s drinking at another person’s expense—all
Scotchmen being fond of liquor at free cost: but ‘Saddle his
horse!!!’—for what purpose, I would ask? Where is the use of saddling a
horse, unless you can ride him? and where was there ever a Scotchman who
could ride?”
“Of course you have not a drop of Scotch blood in your veins,” said I,
“otherwise you would never have uttered that last sentence.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” said the man in black; “you know little of
Popery if you imagine that it cannot extinguish love of country, even in
a Scotchman. A thorough-going Papist—and who more thorough-going than
myself?—cares nothing for his country; and why should he? he belongs to a
system, and not to a country.”
“One thing,” said I, “connected with you, I cannot understand; you call
yourself a thorough-going Papist, yet are continually saying the most
pungent things against Popery, and turning to unbounded ridicule those
who show any inclination to embrace it.”
“Rome is a very sensible old body,” said the man in black, “and little
cares what her children say, provided they do her bidding. She knows
several things, and amongst others, that no servants work so hard and
faithfully as those who curse their masters at every stroke they do. She
was not fool enough to be angry with the Miquelets of Alba, who renounced
her, and called her _puta_ all the time they were cutting the throats of
the Netherlanders. Now, if she allowed her faithful soldiers the
latitude of renouncing her, and calling her _puta_ in the marketplace,
think not she is so unreasonable as to object to her faithful priests
occasionally calling her _puta_ in the dingle.”
“But,” said I, “suppose some one were to tell the world some of the
disorderly things which her priests say in the dingle?”
“He would have the fate of Cassandra,” said the man in black; “no one
would believe him—yes, the priests would: but they would make no sign of
belief. They believe in the _Alcoran des Cordeliers_—that is, those who
have read it; but they make no sign.”
“A pretty system,” said I, “which extinguishes love of country and of
everything noble, and brings the minds of its ministers to a parity with
those of devils, who delight in nothing but mischief.”
“The system,” said the man in black, “is a grand one, with unbounded
vitality. Compare it with your Protestantism, and you will see the
difference. Popery is ever at work, whilst Protestantism is supine. A
pretty Church, indeed, the Protestant! Why, it can’t even work a
miracle.”
“Can your Church work miracles?” I demanded.
“That was the very question,” said the man in black, “which the ancient
British clergy asked of Austin Monk, after they had been fools enough to
acknowledge their own inability. ‘We don’t pretend to work miracles; do
you?’ ‘Oh! dear me, yes,’ said Austin; ‘we find no difficulty in the
matter. We can raise the dead, we can make the blind see; and to
convince you, I will give sight to the blind. Here is this blind Saxon,
whom you cannot cure, but on whose eyes I will manifest my power, in
order to show the difference between the true and the false Church;’ and
forthwith, with the assistance of a handkerchief and a little hot water,
he opened the eyes of the barbarian. So we manage matters! A pretty
Church, that old British Church, which could not work miracles—quite as
helpless as the modern one. The fools! was birdlime so scarce a thing
amongst them?—and were the properties of warm water so unknown to them,
that they could not close a pair of eyes and open them?”
“It’s a pity,” said I, “that the British clergy at that interview with
Austin did not bring forward a blind Welshman, and ask the monk to
operate upon him.”
“Clearly,” said the man in black; “that’s what they ought to have done;
but they were fools without a single resource.” Here he took a sip at
his glass.
“But they did not believe in the miracle?” said I.
“And what did their not believing avail them?” said the man in black,
“Austin remained master of the field, and they went away holding their
heads down, and muttering to themselves. What a fine subject for a
painting would be Austin’s opening the eyes of the Saxon barbarian, and
the discomfiture of the British clergy! I wonder it has not been
painted!—he! he!”
“I suppose your Church still performs miracles occasionally!” said I.
“It does,” said the man in black. “The Rev. — has lately been performing
miracles in Ireland, destroying devils that had got possession of people;
he has been eminently successful. In two instances he not only destroyed
the devils, but the lives of the people possessed—he! he! Oh! there is
so much energy in our system; we are always at work, whilst Protestantism
is supine.”
“You must not imagine,” said I, “that all Protestants are supine; some of
them appear to be filled with unbounded zeal. They deal, it is true, not
in lying miracles, but they propagate God’s Word. I remember only a few
months ago, having occasion for a Bible, going to an establishment, the
object of which was to send Bibles all over the world. The supporters of
that establishment could have no self-interested views; for I was
supplied by them with a noble-sized Bible at a price so small as to
preclude the idea that it could bring any profit to the vendors.”
The countenance of the man in black slightly fell. “I know the people to
whom you allude,” said he; “indeed, unknown to them, I have frequently
been to see them, and observed their ways. I tell you frankly that there
is not a set of people in this kingdom who have caused our Church so much
trouble and uneasiness. I should rather say that they alone cause us
any; for as for the rest, what with their drowsiness, their plethora,
their folly and their vanity, they are doing us anything but mischief.
These fellows are a pestilent set of heretics, whom we would gladly see
burnt; they are, with the most untiring perseverance, and in spite of
divers minatory declarations of the holy father, scattering their books
abroad through all Europe, and have caused many people in Catholic
countries to think that hitherto their priesthood have endeavoured, as
much as possible, to keep them blinded. There is one fellow amongst them
for whom we entertain a particular aversion; a big, burly parson, with
the face of a lion, the voice of a buffalo, and a fist like a
sledge-hammer. The last time I was there, I observed that his eye was
upon me, and I did not like the glance he gave me at all; I observed him
clench his fist, and I took my departure as fast as I conveniently could.
Whether he suspected who I was, I know not; but I did not like his look
at all, and do not intend to go again.”
“Well, then,” said I, “you confess that you have redoubtable enemies to
your plans in these regions, and that even amongst the ecclesiastics
there are some widely different from those of the plethoric and Platitude
schools?”
“It is but too true,” said the man in black; “and if the rest of your
Church were like them we should quickly bid adieu to all hope of
converting these regions, but we are thankful to be able to say that such
folks are not numerous; there are, moreover, causes at work quite
sufficient to undermine even their zeal. Their sons return at the
vacations, from Oxford and Cambridge, puppies, full of the nonsense which
they have imbibed from Platitude professors; and this nonsense they
retail at home, where it fails not to make some impression, whilst the
daughters scream—I beg their pardons—warble about Scotland’s Montrose,
and Bonny Dundee, and all the Jacobs; so we have no doubt that their
papas’ zeal about the propagation of such a vulgar book as the Bible will
in a very little time be terribly diminished. Old Rome will win, so you
had better join her.”
And the man in black drained the last drop in his glass.
“Never,” said I, “will I become the slave of Rome.”
“She will allow you latitude,” said the man in black; “do but serve her,
and she will allow you to call her _puta_ at a decent time and place, her
popes occasionally call her _puta_. A pope has been known to start from
his bed at midnight and rush out into the corridor, and call out _puta_
three times in a voice which pierced the Vatican; that pope was —”
“Alexander the Sixth, I dare say,” said I; “the greatest monster that
ever existed, though the worthiest head which the popish system ever
had—so his conscience was not always still. I thought it had been seared
with a brand of iron.”
“I did not allude to him, but to a much more modern pope,” said the man
in black; “it is true he brought the word, which is Spanish, from Spain,
his native country, to Rome. He was very fond of calling the Church by
that name, and other popes have taken it up. She will allow you to call
her by it, if you belong to her.”
“I shall call her so,” said I, “without belonging to her, or asking her
permission.”
“She will allow you to treat her as such, if you belong to her,” said the
man in black; “there is a chapel in Rome, where there is a wondrously
fair statue—the son of a cardinal—I mean his nephew—once— Well, she did
not cut off his head, but slightly boxed his cheek and bade him go.”
“I have read all about that in _Keysler’s Travels_,” said I; “do you tell
her that I would not touch her with a pair of tongs, unless to seize her
nose.”
“She is fond of lucre,” said the man in black; “but does not grudge a
faithful priest a little private perquisite,” and he took out a very
handsome gold repeater.
“Are you not afraid,” said I, “to flash that watch before the eyes of a
poor tinker in a dingle?”
“Not before the eyes of one like you,” said the man in black.
“It is getting late,” said I; “I care not for perquisites.”
“So you will not join us?” said the man in black.
“You have had my answer,” said I.
“If I belong to Rome,” said the man in black, “why should not you?”
“I may be a poor tinker,” said I, “but I may never have undergone what
you have. You remember, perhaps, the fable of the fox who had lost his
tail?”
The man in black winced, but almost immediately recovering himself, he
said: “Well, we can do without you, we are sure of winning.”
“It is not the part of wise people,” said I, “to make sure of the battle
before it is fought: there’s the landlord of the public-house, who made
sure that his cocks would win, yet the cocks lost the main, and the
landlord is little better than a bankrupt.”
“People very different from the landlord,” said the man in black, “both
in intellect and station, think we shall surely win; there are clever
machinators among us who have no doubt of our success.”
“Well,” said I, “I will set the landlord aside, and will adduce one who
was in every point a very different person from the landlord, both in
understanding and station; he was very fond of laying schemes, and,
indeed, many of them turned out successful. His last and darling one,
however, miscarried, notwithstanding that by his calculations he had
persuaded himself that there was no possibility of its failing—the person
that I allude to was old Fraser—”
“Who?” said the man in black, giving a start, and letting his glass fall.
“Old Fraser of Lovat,” said I; “the prince of all conspirators and
machinators; he made sure of placing the Pretender on the throne of these
realms. ‘I can bring into the field so many men,’ said he; ‘my
son-in-law, Cluny, so many, and likewise my cousin, and my good friend;’
then speaking of those on whom the Government reckoned for support, he
would say: ‘So and so are lukewarm, this person is ruled by his wife, who
is with us, the clergy are anything but hostile to us, and as for the
soldiers and sailors, half are disaffected to King George, and the rest
cowards’. Yet when things came to a trial, this person whom he had
calculated upon to join the Pretender did not stir from his home, another
joined the hostile ranks, the presumed cowards turned out heroes, and
those whom he thought heroes ran away like lusty fellows at Culloden; in
a word, he found himself utterly mistaken, and in nothing more than in
himself; he thought he was a hero, and proved himself nothing more than
an old fox; he got up a hollow tree, didn’t he, just like a fox?
_L’opere sue non furon leonine, ma di volpe_.” {24}
The man in black sat silent for a considerable time, and at length
answered in rather a faltering voice: “I was not prepared for this; you
have frequently surprised me by your knowledge of things which I should
never have expected any person of your appearance to be acquainted with,
but that you should be aware of my name is a circumstance utterly
incomprehensible to me. I had imagined that no person in England was
acquainted with it; indeed, I don’t see how any person should be, I have
revealed it to no one, not being particularly proud of it. Yes, I
acknowledge that my name is Fraser, and that I am of the blood of that
family or clan, of which the rector of our college once said, that he was
firmly of opinion that every individual member was either rogue or fool.
I was born at Madrid, of pure, _oimè_, Fraser blood. My parents, at an
early age, took me to —, where they shortly died, not, however, before
they had placed me in the service of a cardinal, with whom I continued
some years, and who, when he had no further occasion for me, sent me to
the college, in the left-hand cloister of which, as you enter, rest the
bones of Sir John D—; there, in studying logic and humane letters, I lost
whatever of humanity I had retained when discarded by the cardinal. Let
me not, however, forget two points, I am a Fraser, it is true, but not a
Flannagan; I may bear the vilest name of Britain, but not of Ireland; I
was bred up at the English house, and there is at — a house for the
education of bog-trotters; I was not bred up at that; beneath the lowest
gulf, there is one yet lower; whatever my blood may be, it is at least
not Irish; whatever my education may have been, I was not bred at the
Irish seminary—on those accounts I am thankful—yes, _per Dio_! I am
thankful. After some years at college—but why should I tell you my
history? you know it already perfectly well, probably much better than
myself. I am now a missionary priest, labouring in heretic England, like
Parsons and Garnet of old, save and except that, unlike them, I run no
danger, for the times are changed. As I told you before, I shall cleave
to Rome—I must; _no hay remedio_, as they say at Madrid, and I will do my
best to further her holy plans—he! he!—but I confess I begin to doubt of
their being successful here—you put me out; old Fraser of Lovat! I have
heard my father talk of him; he had a gold-headed cane, with which he
once knocked my grandfather down—he was an astute one, but, as you say,
mistaken, particularly in himself. I have read his life by Arbuthnot, it
is in the library of our college. Farewell! I shall come no more to
this dingle—to come would be of no utility; I shall go and labour
elsewhere, though — how you came to know my name, is a fact quite
inexplicable—farewell! to you both.”
He then arose, and without further salutation departed from the dingle,
in which I never saw him again. “How, in the name of wonder, came you to
know that man’s name?” said Belle, after he had been gone some time.
“I, Belle? I knew nothing of the fellow’s name, I assure you.”
“But you mentioned his name.”
“If I did, it was merely casually, by way of illustration. I was saying
how frequently cunning people were mistaken in their calculations, and I
adduced the case of old Fraser of Lovat, as one in point; I brought
forward his name, because I was well acquainted with his history, from
having compiled and inserted it in a wonderful work, which I edited some
months ago, entitled _Newgate Lives and Trials_, but without the
slightest idea that it was the name of him who was sitting with us; he,
however, thought that I was aware of his name. Belle! Belle! for a long
time I doubted the truth of Scripture, owing to certain conceited
discourses which I had heard from certain conceited individuals, but now
I begin to believe firmly; what wonderful texts there are in Scripture,
Belle! ‘The wicked trembleth where—where—’”
“‘They were afraid where no fear was; thou hast put them to confusion,
because God hath despised them,’” said Belle; “I have frequently read it
before the clergyman in the great house of Long Melford. But if you did
not know the man’s name, why let him go away supposing that you did?”
“Oh, if he was fool enough to make such a mistake, I was not going to
undeceive him—no, no! Let the enemies of old England make the most of
all their blunders and mistakes, they will have no help from me; but
enough of the fellow, Belle; let us now have tea, and after that—”
“No Armenian,” said Belle; “but I want to ask a question: pray are all
people of that man’s name either rogues or fools?”
“It is impossible for me to say, Belle, this person being the only one of
the name I have ever personally known. I suppose there are good and bad,
clever and foolish, amongst them, as amongst all large bodies of people;
however, after the tribe had been governed for upwards of thirty years by
such a person as old Fraser, it were no wonder if the greater part had
become either rogues or fools: he was a ruthless tyrant, Belle, over his
own people, and by his cruelty and rapaciousness must either have stunned
them into an apathy approaching to idiotcy, or made them artful knaves in
their own defence. The qualities of parents are generally transmitted to
their descendants—the progeny of trained pointers are almost sure to
point, even without being taught: if, therefore, all Frasers are either
rogues or fools, as this person seems to insinuate, it is little to be
wondered at, their parents or grandparents having been in the
training-school of old Fraser! But enough of the old tyrant and his
slaves. Belle, prepare tea this moment, or dread my anger. I have not a
gold-headed cane like old Fraser of Lovat, but I have, what some people
would dread much more, an Armenian rune-stick.”