into the most out-of-the-way place in out-of-the-way Ireland, and I find
myself treading on the kibes of the very man whom of all others I would
least care to meet. I always thought that Jyvecote was in Kerry, near
Valentia, where the wire dives for America. However, seven miles mean
utter isolation here, and, by Jove! I’m too much charmed with this
genial old clergyman and his genuine hospitality to think of shifting my
quarters; besides I’ll paint him a holy picture, perhaps a Virgin and
Child, which will in some small measure repay him. Nowhere in the world
would one meet with such a reception, save in Ireland. Here I am taken
upon trust, and believed to be an honest fellow until I am found out,
completely reversing the social code. He places his house, his all, at
my disposal, believing me to be a poor devil of an artist on tramp and
ready to paint anything for bread and butter. Hang it all! it makes me
feel low and mean to sail under the false colors of an assumed name, and
yet it is better as it is—much better. Suppose I meet Mr. Jyvecote? He’d
scarcely recognize me. I’ve not seen him since our stormy interview at
Marseilles. Had I my beard then? No; it was on my way out to Egypt, and
that’s exactly three years ago this very month. He had a lot of
womankind with him. _Per Bacco!_ I suppose he was making for this
place.”
Mr. Brown strolled over to the beach, and, seating himself upon a
granite boulder, smoked on and on, buried in thought. The sea was as
still as a sea in a dream, and gray, and mystic, and silent. The hush
that Eve whispers as Night lets fall her mantle was coming upon the
earth, and the twinkling stars began to throb in the blue-black sky; not
a speck was visible on the billowy plain save a solitary fishing-boat,
which now loomed out of the darkness like a weird and spectral bark.
In such scenes, and in the awful quiet of such hours, images and
thoughts that dare not die are deposited upon the silent shore of
memory. The man who sat gazing out to sea with his hands clasping his
knees was Sir Everard Noel, the fourth baronet of a good old Yorkshire
family, and owner of a fine estate between Otley and Ilkley, in the
North Riding of that noble county. He was five-and-twenty, and had been
his own master ever since he attained his majority, until which
momentous event he had been the victim of a peripatetic guardian and the
Court of Chancery, his father having died while he was yet an infant,
and his mother when he had reached the age of nineteen. Freed from the
yoke of his guardian, who led him a tour of the world, and placed in
possession of ninety thousand pounds, the accumulation of his minority,
and with an income of ten thousand a year, he plunged into the giddy
whirl of London fast life, and for a brief season became the centre of a
set composed of the _crème de la crème_, the _aurati juvenes_ of that
modern Babylon. He was liberal to lavishness, was fascinated with
Clubland and _écarté_, losing his money with a superb tranquillity, and
addicted to turning night into day. He flattered the fair sex with the
“homage of a devotee,” and broke hearts as he would nutshells.
Intriguing dowagers fished for him for their “penniless lasses wi’ long
pedigrees,” but somehow or other, after four seasons, during which he
had had several hairbreadth escapes, he still was single, still healthy
and heart-whole, but _minus_ his ninety thousand pounds.
During his minority he had wooed Art, wisely and well, and even while
the daze of deviltry was upon him he never totally neglected her. He
painted with more than the skill of a mere amateur, and had even the
best of it in a tussle with the art critic of the _Times_ upon the
genuineness of a Rembrandt which had burst upon the market, to the
intense excitement of the _cognoscenti_. There was a good deal of the
artist in his nature, and he was an immense favorite with the bearded
Bohemians, knights of the brush, who voted him a good fellow, with the
solitary drawback of being unavoidably a “howling swell.”
Four years of wasted life brought on satiety, and he turned from the
past with a shudder, from the present with loathing. He wanted to do
something, to be interested in something, and to shake off the sickening
aimlessness of his every-day life that clung to him like a
winding-sheet.
There came a day when the men in the smoking-room of the club asked each
other, “Where the doose is Noel?” when wily matrons found their gushing
notes of invitation unanswered; when toadies, hangers-on, and sycophants
found his apartments in Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly, closed. There came
a day when club and matron and toady thought of him no more. The wave of
oblivion had passed over him and he was forgotten. _Sic itur ad astra._
Away from the fatal influences that had, maelstrom-like, sucked him into
their whirl, new thoughts, new impulses, new aspirations burst into
blossom, and his old love—Art—turned to him with the radiant smile of
the bygone time.
There is red red blood in the veins at twenty-five, and white-winged
Hope ever beckons onwards with soul-seductive gesture. He determined to
seek change of scene and of thought. As Sir Everard Noel, the president
of the Four-in-Hand Club; the owner of Katinka, the winner of the
Chester Cup; the skipper of the _Griselda_, that won the queen’s prize
at Cowes; the best rider with the Pytchley hounds, every hotel on the
Continent, every village in Merrie England, would recognize him, and the
old toadying recommence; but as plain Mr. Brown, an obscure artist, with
a knapsack on his back, he would be free, free as a bird, and the summer
morning this idea flashed across his mind found him once again a bright,
happy, and joyous man.
Sir Everard Noel was a gentleman of warm temper and great energy, prone
to sudden impulses and unconsidered actions. No sooner had he made up
his mind to go upon the tramp than he started; and, considering that he
would be less liable to recognition in Connemara than in Wales, made
Galway the base of his supplies, and, knapsack on back, containing
sketching materials and a change of flannel, a few days’ walking brought
him to Monamullin in glorious health, splendid spirits, and prepared to
enjoy everybody and everything.
“How much more delightful all this is,” he thought, “than the horrors I
have passed through—horrors labelled pleasures! Faugh! I shudder when I
think of them. Let me see, it’s ten o’clock; at this hour I would be
about half-way through a miserably unwholesome dinner, spiced up in
order to meet the requirements of a demoralized appetite, or yawning in
an opera-box, with six or seven long, dreary hours before me to kill at
any price, especially with brandy and soda. How delicious all _this_ is!
How fresh, how pure! What a dinner I ate of those rashers and eggs! And
such tea! By Jove! that old lady must have a chest entirely for her own
consumption. If my bed is as comfortable as it looks, I shall not awaken
till the _padre_ returns from Jyvecote’s. How disagreeable to meet
Jyvecote or any of the lot! I never knew any of them but Jasper and the
father. What a glorious old gentleman is Father Maurice—simple as a
child, with the dignity of a saint. I had better get to bed now, as I
shall begin on a Virgin and Child for him to-morrow; or, if his Stations
are daubs, I can do him a set, though it will take me a deuce of a time.
I must visit the chapel to-morrow; I suppose it’s very dingy.” And with
a good stout yawn Mr. Brown—for we shall continue to call him by this
name until the proper time comes—turned towards the cottage.
Mrs. Clancy met him at the door.
“I was afraid ye wor lost, sir,” she said as he entered the hall.
“Not lost, my good lady, but found. I suppose you lock the doors here
earlier than this.”
“Lock!” she exclaimed almost indignantly—“lock indeed! There’s not a
bowlt nor a bar nor a lock on the whole house. Arrah! who wud rob Father
Maurice but th’ ould boy?—an’ he’d be afeard. He daren’t lay a hand on
anything here, an’ well he knows it, God be good to us!”
“I suppose you’ve been a long time with Father Maurice, Mrs. Clancy.”
“Only sence me man—the Lord rest his sowl, amin!—was lost in the night
av the great storm, nigh fifteen year ago—fifteen year come the
fourteenth av next month, on a Frida’ night. He was a good man, an’ a
fine provider, an’ wud have left me warm an’ comfortable but for the
hard times that cum on the cunthry be raison av the famine. Ye might
have heard tell of it, sir.”
“Oh! indeed I did.”
“Och! wirra, wirra! but it was an awful time, glory be to God! whin the
poor craythurs was dyin’ by the roadsides and aitin’ grass to keep the
sowles in their bodies, like bastes.”
“I was far away then, in China,” said Brown.
“That’s where the tay cums from; an’ very infayrior tay we’re gettin’
now, sir, compared wud what we used to get. I can’t rise more nor a cup
out av two spoonfuls, an’ well I remimber whin wan wud give me layves
enough for to fill a noggin. Are ye thinkin’ av Maynewth, sir?” asked
Mrs. Clancy, exceedingly desirous of some clue as to the identity,
habits, and occupation of her guest, as it would not do to face
Monamullin with her finger in her mouth.
“Maynewth?” he replied. “What is Maynewth?”
“The collidge.”
“What college?”
“The collidge where the young priests is med.”
“Oh! dear, no, Mrs. Clancy,” he replied, laughing heartily. “I am a
painter.”
“A painther!” she said in considerable astonishment.
“Yes, a poor painter.”
“Musha, now, but that flogs. An’ what are ye goin’ for to paint?”
“Anything that turns up.”
She thought for a moment, hesitated a little, scrutinized his apparel,
hesitated again, and at length, “Wud ye be afther doin’ his riverince a
good turn?”
“I should be only too delighted.”
“Thin ye might give the back doore a cupple o’ coats o’ paint afore ye
go.”
The artist burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, long, loud,
joyous, and rippling as that of a schoolboy’s, again and again renewed
as the irritated puzzle written in the housekeeper’s face met his
glance. At length he burst out after a tremendous guffaw:
“I am not exactly that sort of a painter, Mrs. Clancy, but I dare say I
could do it if I tried; and I will try. I am more in that line,”
pointing to the picture of Daniel O’Connell suspended over the
mantel-piece.
The cloud of anger rapidly disappeared from Mrs. Clancy’s brow upon this
explanation, and in a voice of considerable blandishment she
half-whispered:
“Arrah, thin, mebbe ye’d do me a little wan o’ Dan for the kitchen,
honey.”
After another hearty peal of laughter Mr. Brown most cordially assented,
and, taking his chamber candle—a flaring dip—retired to his bedroom.
“_Ma foi_,” he gaily laughed, “this _is_ homely. Do I miss my valet? Do
I miss my brandy and soda? Do I miss my Aubusson carpet, my theatrical
pictures, my Venetian mirror, or my villanous French novel? Not a bit of
it. This is glorious; and what a tub I shall have in the morning in the
wild Atlantic!”
* * * * *
Father Maurice’s guest was up, if not with the lark, at least not far
behind that early-rising bird, and out in the gently-gliding wavelets,
buffeting them with the vigorous stroke of a skilful swimmer. The ocean
on this still, clear morning was beautiful enough to attract wistful
glances from eyes the most _blasé_. The cloudless sky was intensely dark
in its blue, as though the unseen sun was overhead and shining
vertically down. The light did not seem of sea or land, but it shone
dazzlingly on the low line of verdure-clad hills, on the cornfields in
stubble, causing every blade to glisten like a golden spear, on the
whitewashed cottages, on the bright green hedges, on the line of dark
rock, and enveloping the mountains of Carrig na Copple in the dim
distance in blue and silver glory. The colors of the sea were magical,
in luminous green, purple, and blue; and out across the billowy plain
great bands of purple stretched away to the sky line, as a passing cloud
flung its shadows in its onward fleecy progress. The artist felt all
this beauty, drinking it in like life-wine, till it tingled and throbbed
in every vein.
After partaking of a breakfast the consumption of which would have
considerably astonished some of his quondam London set, and having
lighted his meerschaum, Mr. Brown set out for a stroll through the
village, accompanied by half a dozen cabin curs, who, having scented the
stranger, most courteously made up their minds to act as his escort. The
inhabitants of the cabins _en route_ turned out to look respectfully at
him. Children timorously approached, curtsied, and, when spoken to,
retreated in laughing terror. Matrons gazed and gossiped. A cripple or
two touched their caps to him, and on every side he was wished
“good-luck.” He was Father Maurice’s guest, and, as a consequence, the
guest of Monamullin. Whitewash abounded everywhere; amber thatch covered
the roofs; scarlet geraniums bloomed vigorously, their crimson blossoms
resembling gouts of blood spurted against marble slabs. A shebeen or
public-house was not to be seen; order and peace and happiness reigned
triumphant.
“A few trees planted down this street—if I may call it so—would make
this an Arcadian village. I must ask Father Maurice to let me have them
planted. A fountain, too, would look well just opposite that
unpretending shop. I wonder where the church can be?”
A man with a reaping-hook bound in a hay rope happened to be passing, to
whom he addressed himself.
“Can you tell me where the church is?”
“Yis, yer honor; troth, thin, I can.”
“Where is it, please?”
“Av it’s Mass ye want, Father Maurice is beyant at Moynalty Castle.”
“I merely want to see it.”
“An’ shure ye can, sir; it’s open day an’ night.”
“But where is it, my man?”
“Where is it? Right foreninst ye, thin. Don’t ye see the holy and
blessed crass over the doore?”
The chapel was a small, low, cruciform building, very dingy despite its
whitewash, and very tumble-down-looking. It was surrounded by a small
grass-plat and a few stunted pines. A rude cross with a real crown of
thorns stood in one corner, at the foot of which knelt an old man,
bare-headed, engaged in repeating the rosary aloud, and two women, who
were rocking themselves to and fro in a fervor of prayer. Within the
church the fittings were of the most primitive description. The floor
was unboarded, save close to the altar-rails; a few forms were scattered
here and there, and one row of backed seats occupied a space to the
right. The altar, approached by a single step, was of wood, a golden
cross ornamenting the front panel, and a series of gilded Gothic arches
forming its background, while the tabernacle consisted of a rudely-cut
imitation of a dome-covered mosque. A picture of the Crucifixion hung
over the altar suspended from the ceiling, and, as this was regarded as
a masterpiece of art by the inhabitants of Monamullin from time
immemorial, we will not discuss their æstheticism here. The Stations of
the Cross were represented by small colored engravings in mahogany
frames, and the holy-water font consisted of a huge boulder of granite
which had a large hole scooped out of it.
“This will never do,” said Mr. Brown, gazing ruefully at the several
works of art. “What a splendid chance for me! I shall paint, as the old
masters did, under direct inspiration. What a sublime sensation, when my
picture shall have been completed, to witness the reverential admiration
of the poor devout people here! I shall be regarded as a benefactor.
Fancy _my_ being a benefactor to anybody or anything! Heigh-ho!” he
sighed, “what a glorious little Gothic church, a prayer in stone, a
portion of the money I so murderously squandered would have built
here!—that four thousand I flung last March into the mire in Paris.
Faugh!” And, dragged back over the waves of Time, he sat down upon one
of the wooden benches, overwhelmed by the rush of his own thoughts.
Of the length of time he remained thus absorbed he made no count. The
dead leaves of the misspent past rustled drearily round his heart,
weighing him down with a load of inexpressible sadness—a sadness almost
amounting to anguish—and two hours had come and gone ere his reverie was
broken.
Happening to raise his eyes towards the altar, he was startled by
perceiving a female form kneeling at the railings, lithe, _svelte_, and
attired in costly and fashionable raiment. As he gazed, the young girl
finished her prayers, and, with a deep, reverential inclination in front
of the altar, swept past him with that graceful, undulatory motion which
would seem to be the birthright of the daughters of sunny Spain. She was
tall, elegantly formed, and possessed that air of high breeding which
makes itself felt like a perfume. Her bright chestnut hair was brushed
tightly back from an oval face, and hung in massive plaits at the back
of her head. Her eyes were soft brown, her complexion milk-white.
“What a vision, and in this place, too! That is the best of the Catholic
religion. The churches are always open, inviting one to come in and
pray. I wonder who she can be? Some tourist. Pshaw! your tourist doesn’t
trouble this quarter of the globe. To see, to be seen, to dress, and
wrangle over the bills at palatial hotels, means touring nowadays. Some
county lady, over to do a little shopping; but there are no shops,
except that miserable little box opposite, and they apparently sell
nothing there but marbles, tobacco-pipes, kites, and corduroy. Ah! I
have it: some inlander coming for a plunge in the Atlantic. I suppose I
shall meet her pony phaeton as I pass up through the village. I
seriously hope I shall. There is something very fetching about her, and
it purifies a fellow to see a girl like that at prayer.”
Such were the cogitations of Mr. Brown as he emerged from the dingy
little chapel. Brown was not a Catholic. He had been educated at Eton,
and, although intended for Cambridge, his guardian took him to Japan
when he should have been cramming for his degree. Of the religion as by
law established in England, he paid but little attention to the forms
and merely went to church during the season to hear some “swell”
preacher, or because Lady Clara Vere de Vere gave him a _rendezvous_.
But, with all his faults and follies, he was never irreverent, and his
respect for the things that belong unto God was ever honest, open, and
sincere.
He was doomed to be disappointed. No pony phaeton disturbed the
stillness of the village street. The curs, which had patiently waited
for him whilst he remained in the church, received him with noiseless
but cheery tail-wagging as he came out, and marched at his heels as
though he had been their lord and master. The children rushed from
cabins and dropped their quaint little curtsies. The cripples doffed
their caps, the matrons gazed at him and gossiped; and, although he
lingered to say a few words to a passing fisherman, and somewhat eagerly
scanned the surrounding country, no sign could he obtain of the fair
young girl who had flashed upon him like a “vision of the night.”
“I shall never see her again,” he thought; “and yet I could draw that
face. Such a mouth! such _contour_! I must ask the _padre_ if he knows
her, though that is scarcely probable; and yet she is one of his
flock—at least, she is a Catholic, so there is some hope.”
He returned to the cottage, and encountered Father Maurice in the
garden.
“I did not like to disturb you at your devotions, Mr. Brown,” he said,
“but I was only going to give you five minutes longer, as the salmon
grill will be ready by that time.”
“How did you ascertain I was in the church?” asked Brown, entering the
hall and hanging up his hat.
“A beautiful young lady told me.”
“I saw her; who is she?” exclaimed the artist eagerly.
“I shall present you to her. Here she is. Mr. Brown, Miss Julia
Jyvecote.”
[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE TWO PROPHETS OF MORMONISM.
MR. T. B. H. STENHOUSE, one of the Scottish converts to Mormonism, was
for a quarter of a century an elder and missionary of the church of the
Latter-Day Saints. He is the author of the most complete and careful
history of the Mormons in the English language. Although he has
“outgrown” the faith of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, and disbelieves
the doctrines which he once preached, he writes of his former associates
in a tone of moderation and good sense, and gives them more credit for
sincerity than the rest of the world will be likely to concede them. In
the introduction to his _Rocky Mountain Saints_ he says:
“Whatever judgment may be passed upon the faith and personal
lives of the Mormon Prophet and his successor, there will be a
general recognition of a divine purpose in their history. Under
their leadership the Mormon people have aided to conquer the
western desert, and to transform a barren and desolate region of
a hitherto ‘unknown country’ into a land that seems destined at
no distant day to teem with millions of human beings, and which
promises to stand pre-eminent among the conquests of the
republic. It is doubtful whether any collective body of other
citizens, unmoved by religious impulses, would ever have
traversed the sandy desert and sage-plains, and have lived an
age of martyrdom in reclaiming them, as the Mormons have in
Utah. But this has been accomplished, and it was accomplished by
faith. That was the Providence of the saints, and it must be
conceded that, as a means subservient to an end, the Mormon
element has been used in the Rocky Mountain region by the
Almighty Ruler for developing the best interests of the nation,
and for the benefit of the world at large.”
The fallacies hidden in these reflections will not escape the notice of
any thoughtful Catholic reader. Mr. Stenhouse has got a feeble hold of a
great truth, but, embarrassed by the materialistic ideas which form so
important a part of the Mormon philosophy, he does not know how to apply
it. We quote the passage as a striking illustration of the spirit in
which too many of our countrymen are inclined to judge the history and
character of the saints of the Great Salt Lake. Americans have a
profound veneration for material prosperity, and hardly find it in their
hearts to condemn a community which has built cities in the remote
wilderness, planted gardens in the midst of the desert, taught brooks to
run across the arid plains, and “developed the resources” of one of the
least promising territories in our national domain. Any man, according
to the popular theories of the emancipation of conscience, has a right
to make a religion to suit himself; and whatever he may profess—unless,
indeed, he should chance to concur with about 160,000,000 other persons
in professing the doctrines of the holy Catholic Church, in which case
there would be a fair presumption that he was dangerous to society—his
fellow-citizens are bound to treat his creed respectfully and admit the
purity of his motives.[42] Hence the world honors the founder of a new
state, even though he may be also the founder of a false religion. There
are 80,000 Mormons in Utah, and as a community they are rich and
thrifty. It is not surprising that we have heard of late so much
admiring comment upon the genius of Brigham Young, so many predictions
that he will be reckoned hereafter among the great men in American
history.