“The struggle, you will thus see,” wrote he, “is over. The
     blasphemer and the democrat have fallen together, and it
     will take full a century to rally from the humiliation of
     such a defeat. Bethink you, my dear Michel, what that same
     century may make the Church, and how, if we be but vigorous
     and watchful, every breach in the glorious fortress may be
     repaired, every outwork strengthened, every bastion newly
     mounted, and her whole garrison refreshed and invigorated.
     Without a great convulsion like this we were lost! The
     torpor of peace brought with it those habits of thought and
     reflection—the sworn enemies of all faith! As governments
     grew more popular they learned to rely less on our aid.
     The glorious sway of Belief was superseded by direct appeals
     to what they called common sense, and imperceptibly, but
     irrevocably, the world was being Protestantized. Do not
     fancy that my fears have exaggerated this evil. I speak of
     what I know thoroughly and well. Above all, do not mistake
     me, as though I confounded this wide-spread heresy with what
     you see around you in Ireland, those backslidings which you
     so aptly called 'soup conversions.'

     “By Protestantism, I mean something more dangerous than
     Anglicanism, which, by the way, has latterly shown itself
     the very reverse of an enemy. The peril I dread is that
     spirit of examination and inquiry which, emboldened by the
     detection of some trumpery trick, goes on to question the
     great dogma of our religion. And here I must say, that these
     miracles—as they will call them——have been most ill-
     judged and ill-timed. Well adapted as they are to stimulate
     faith and warm zeal in remote and unvisited villages, they
     are serious errors when they aspire to publicity and
     challenge detection. I have done all I could to
     discountenance them; but even in the Vatican, my dear
     Michel, there are men who fancy we are living in the
     sixteenth century. What are you to do with a deafness that
     cannot be aroused by the blast of a steam-engine, and which
     can sleep undisturbed by the thunder of railroads? Well, let
     us be thankful for a little breathing time; the danger from
     these heretics is over for the present. And here I would ask
     of you to mark how the very same result has taken place
     wherever the battle was fought. The Church has been
     triumphant everywhere. Is this accident, my dear friend?
     Was it mere chance that confounded counsels here, and dealt
     out ruin to Ireland also? Why did our policy come to a
     successful issue, here, by a dangerous conflict; and, with
     you, by abstaining from one? Why, because it was truth—
     eternal, immutable truth—for which we struggled. I must say
     that if our game called for more active exertions, and
     perhaps more personal hazards, yours in Ireland was
     admirably devised. There never was a more complete
     catastrophe than that into which you betrayed your Mitchells
     and Meaghers; and does not the blind credulity of such men
     strike you as a special and Divine infliction? I own I think
     so. They were, with all their hot blood, and all the glow of
     their youth, serious thinkers and calm reasoners. They could
     detect the finger of England in every tangled scheme, and
     yet they never saw the shadow of your hand as it shook in
     derision over them. Yes, Michel, the game was most skilfully
     played, and I anticipate largely from it. The curtain thus
     falls upon the first act of the drama; let us set about to
     prepare for its rising. I am far from saying that many
     errors—some of the gravest kind—have not been committed in
     the conduct of this affair. More than one grand opportunity
     has gone by without profit; and even my suggestion about the
     restoration of the States of the Church to their ancient
     limits within the Venetian provinces—a demand which Rome
     has formerly renewed every year since the treaty of Campo
     Formio, and which might now have been pressed with success—
     even this was neglected! But what could be done with a
     runaway Pope and a scattered Consistory? Your letter, my
     dear Michel, is a perfect catechism—all questions! I must
     try a reply to some, at least, of its inquiries. You are
     anxious about the endowment of the Ursulines, and so am I;
     but unfortunately I can tell you little of my progress in
     that direction. Lady Hester Onslow would appear to have
     fallen into an entanglement of some sort with Lord Norwood;
     and although I have in my possession the means of preventing
     a marriage with him, or annulling it, if it should take
     place, yet the very exercise of this power, on my part,
     would as inevitably destroy all my influence over her, and
     be thus a mere piece of profitless malice. This, therefore,
     is a matter of some difficulty, increased, too, by his hasty
     departure from Florence—they say for England; but I have no
     clew to his destination, for he left this on the very day I
     last wrote to you—the day of my visit to the Moskova—in
     which you seem to be so much interested. Strangely enough,
     Michel, both this man and the Russian seemed to feel that
     they were in the toils, and broke away, rather than hazard
     an encounter with me. And they were right, too! For the deep
     game of life, there is no teaching like that of the
     cloister; and if we be not omnipotent, it is owing to our
     weakness of purpose. Hildebrand knew this—Boniface knew it
     also; but we have fallen upon poor successors of these great
     men!    What might not a great Pope be in the age we live
     in!—one whose ambition was commensurate with his mission,
     and who had energy and courage for the task before him! Oh!
     how I felt this, some nights ago, as I sat closeted with our
     present ruler—would you believe it, Michel, he has no
     higher guide or example than the weak and kind-hearted Pius
     the Seventh? To imitate him is the whole rule of his
     faith, and to resemble him, even in his misfortunes, has
     become an ambition. How he strung for me the commonplaces of
     that good man, as though they had been the distilled
     essences of wisdom! Alas! alas! the great heritage of the
     Church has not been won by Quaker Popes.

     “You ask about myself. All goes well. The die is cast; and
     so far, at least, a great point gained. The Austrians saw
     the matter in its true light, and with justice perceived
     that diplomacy is a war of reprisals. How I glory in the
     anticipation of this vengeance upon England, the encourager
     and abettor of all the treason against our Faith! How little
     do they suspect the storm that is gathering around them; how
     tranquilly are they walking over the ground that is to be
     earthquaken! The letters and diplomas are all prepared. The
     Bull itself is ready; to-morrow, if it were opportune, I
     might be proclaimed a prince of the Church and an Archhishop
     of an English see! As in every great event of life the
     moment is everything, the question is now one of time.
     Guardoni—and I look upon him as the shrewdest of the
     cardinals—says, 'Wait! our cause is advancing every day in
     England; every post brings us tidings of desertions to our
     army,—men distinguished in rank, station, or intellect. In
     our controversies we have suffered no defeats, while our
     moderation has gained us many well-wishers; we have a tone
     of general liberality to work upon that is eminently
     favorable to a policy meek, lowly, and unpretending.
     Therefore, I say, Wait; and do not forfeit such advantages
     for the glory of a pageant' Against this it might be urged,
     that the hour is come to proclaim our victory; and that it
     would be a craven policy not to unfurl our banner above the
     walls we have won! I repose less trust in the force of this
     reasoning than in another view of the subject; and it is to
     the ricochet of our shot, Michel, that I look for the damage
     of our enemy. My calculation is this: the bold pretensions
     we advance will arouse the passions of the whole island;
     meetings and addresses and petitions will abound. All the
     rampant insolence of outraged bigotry, all the blatant
     denunciations of insulted protestantism, will burst forth
     like a torrent. We shall be assailed in pamphlets and
     papers; caricatured, hooted, burned in effigy. A wily and
     well-conducted opposition on our part will fan and feed this
     flame. Some amongst us will assume the moderate tone: invoke
     the equality that pertains to every born Briton, and ask for
     the mere undisturbed exercise of our faith.   Others, with
     greater boldness, will adventure sorties against the enemy,
     and thus provoke reply and discussion. To each will be
     assigned his suited task. A laboring for the one great
     object,—to maintain the national fever at a white heat, to
     suffer no interval of calm reflection to come, and to force
     upon the Parliament, by the pressure of outward opinion,
     some severe or at least some galling act of legislation.
     This once accomplished, our game is won, and the great
     schism we have so long worked for effected! It will then be
     the Government on one side and the Church on the other.
     Could you wish for anything better? For myself, I care
     little how the campaign be then conducted; the victory must
     be our own. I have told you again and again there is no such
     policy against England as that of hampering the course of
     her justice. It was O'Connell's secret; he had no other; and
     he never failed till he attempted something higher. First,
     provoke a rash legislation, and then wait for the
     discomfiture that will follow it! With all the boasted
     working of the great constitution, what a mere trifle
     disturbs and disjoints it! Ay, Michel, a rusty nail in the
     cylinder will spoil the play of the piston, although the
     engine be rated at a thousand horse-power. Such a conflict
     with Protestantism is exactly like the effect of a highly
     disciplined army taking the field against a mob. With us     all is preconcerted, prearranged, and planned; with them     everything is impulsive, rash, and ill-advised. This
     glorious prerogative of private judgment becomes a capital
     snare, when measures should be combined and united. Fancy, I
     ask of you,—fancy all the splendid errors of their hot
     enthusiasm; think of the blunders they will commit on
     platform or pulpit; reflect upon the folly and absurdity
     that will fill the columns of the public journals, and all
     the bigoted balderdash the press will groan under! What
     coarse irony, what Billingsgate shall we hear of our Holy
     Church,——her saints, her miracles, and her dogmas,—what
     foul invectives against her pious women and their lives of
     sanctity! And then think of the glorious harvest that will
     follow, as we reply to insult by calm reasonings, to bigotry
     by words of charity and enlightenment, appealing to the
     nation at large for their judgment on which side truth
     should lie,—with intolerance, or with Christian meekness
     and submission?

     “Prepare, then, I say, for the coming day; the great
     campaign is about to open, and neither you nor I, Michel,
     will live to see the end of the battle. On this side the
     Alps, all has happened as we wished. Italian Liberalism is
     crushed and defeated. The Piedmontese are driven back within
     their frontier, their army beaten, and their finances all
     but exhausted, and Austria is again at the head of Northern
     Italy. Rome will now be grander and more glorious than ever.
     No more truckling to Liberalism, no more faith in the false
     prophets of Freedom.   Our gorgeous 'Despotism' will arise
     reinvigorated by its trials, and the Church will proclaim
     herself the Queen of Europe!

     “It is an inestimable advantage to have convinced these meek
     and good men here that there is but one road to victory, and
     that all alliance with what are called politicians is but a
     snare and a delusion.

     “The Pope sees this at last, but nothing short of wounded
     pride could have taught him the lesson.

     “Now to your last query, my dear Michel, and I feel all
     gratitude for the warm interest with which you make it.
     What is to be done I know not.   I am utterly ignorant of my
     parentage, even of my birthplace.   In the admission-book of
     Salamanca I stand thus:

     'Samuel Eustace, native of Ireland, aged thirteen years and
     seven months; stipendiary of the second class.' There lies
     my whole history. A certain Mr. Godfrey had paid all the
     expenses of my journey from Louvain, and, up to the period
     of his death, continued to maintain me.   From Louvain I can
     learn nothing.    I was a 'Laic' they believed,——perhaps
     No. 134 or 137—they do not know which; and these are but
     sorry facts from which to derive the baptismal registry of a
     future cardinal. And yet something must be done, and
     speedily too. On the question of birth the Sacred College is
     peremptory. You will say that there ought to be no
     difficulty in devising a genealogy where there are no
     adverse claims to conflict; and if I could go over to
     Ireland, perhaps the matter might be easy enough. At this
     moment, however, my presence here is all-essential, while I
     am not without a hope that accident may afford me a clew to
     what I seek. A few days ago I was sent for from Malgherra to
     attend the dying bed of a young officer, whose illness had
     so completely disordered his brain that he forgot every word
     of the foreign language he was accustomed to speak, and
     could only understand or reply in his native English.
     Although I had other and more pressing cases to attend to,
     the order coming from an archduke made obedience imperative,
     and so I hastened over to Verona, where the sick youth lay.
     Conceive my surprise, Michel, to discover that he was the
     same Dalton,—the boy whom I have so often adverted to, as
     eternally crossing my path in life,—the relative of that
     Godfrey who was my early patron. I have already confessed to
     you, Michel, that I felt towards this youth in a way for
     which my calmest reason could render no account. Gamblers
     have often told me of certain antipathies they have
     experienced, and that the mere presence of an individual—
     one totally unknown to them, perhaps—has been so ominous of
     ill-luck that they dare not risk a bet while he remained in
     the room. I know you will say that men who pass their lives
     in the alternation of hope and fear become the slaves of
     every shadow that crosses the imagination, and that they are
     sorry pilots to trust to. So they are, Michel; they art
     meanly minded, they are sordid, and they are low; their
     thoughts never soar above the card or the hazard table; they
     are dead to all emotions of family and affection; the very
     events that are convulsing the world are less audible to
     their ears than the ring of the dice-box; and yet, with all
     this—would you believe it?—they are deep in the mysteries
     of portents. Their intense study of what we call chance has
     taught them to combine and arrange and discipline every atom
     and accident that can influence an event. They have their
     days of good and evil fortune, and they have their agencies
     that sway them to this side or to that. Chemistry shows us
     that substances that resemble metals are decomposed by the
     influence of light alone,—do not, then, despise the working
     of that gleam that darts from a human eye and penetrates
     within the very recesses of your brain.

     “Be the theory true or false, the phenomena exercise a deep
     influence over me, and I have never ceased to regard this
     boy as one inextricably interwoven with myself and my own
     fortunes; I felt a degree of dread at his contact, which all
     my conscious superiority of mind and intellect could not
     allay. In vain have I endeavored to reason myself out of
     these delusions, but in the realm of imagination reason is
     inoperative; as well might a painter try to commit to his
     palette the fleeting colors of the rainbow. Shall I own to
     you that in moments of illness or depression this terror
     magnified itself to giant proportions, and a thousand wild
     and incongruous fancies would fill my mind? I bethought me
     of involving him in such difficulty that he would no longer
     be at large; as a prisoner or an exile, I should never see
     him more. Every snare I tried was a failure; the temptations
     that were most adapted to his nature he resisted; the wiles
     I threw around him he escaped from. Was there not a fate in
     all this? Assuredly there was and is, Michel. I cannot tell
     you the relief of mind I should feel if this boy had shared
     the fate of your patriots, and that the great sea was to
     roll between him and Europe forever. Twenty times a day I
     think of Dirk Hatteraick's expression with respect to Brown:
     'That boy has been a rock ahead of me all through life;' and
     be assured that the characters of fiction are often powerful
     teachers.

     “And now to my narrative. The same note which requested my
     visit at Verona begged of me, if I possibly could accomplish
     it, to provide some English person who should sit up with
     the sick youth and nurse him. I was not sorry to receive
     this commission; I wished to learn more about this boy than
     the confessional at such a time could teach; and could I
     only find a suitable agent, this would not be difficult.
     Chance favored me strangely enough. Amongst the prisoners
     taken at Ancona I found an Irish fellow, who, it appears,
     had taken service in the Piedmontese navy. He had been some
     years in America and the West Indies, and from the scattered
     remarks that he let fall, I perceived that he was a man of
     shrewd and not over-scrupulous nature. He comprehended me in
     an instant; and, although I was most guarded in giving my
     instructions, the fellow read my intentions at once. This
     shrewdness might, in other circumstances, have its
     inconveniences, but here it gave me no alarm. I was the
     means of his liberation, and were he troublesome, I could
     consign him to the prison again,—to the galleys, if needed.
     In company with this respectable ally, I set out for the
     headquarters. On my arrival I waited on the Count von
     Auersberg, in whose house the sick boy lay. This old man,
     who is Irish by birth, is more Austrian in nature than the
     members of the House of Hapsburg.

     I found him fully convinced that the white-coated legions
     had reconquered Lombardy by their own unaided valor, and I
     left him in the same pleasant delusion. It appeared that a
     certain Count von Walstein was enabled to clear young
     Dalton's character from all taint of treason, by exhibiting,
     in his own correspondence, some letters and documents that
     related to the events detailed in Frank's writing, and of
     which he could have had no possible knowledge. This avowal
     may be a serious thing for Walstein, but rescues the young
     Dalton at once, and proves that he was merely the writer of
     Ravitzky's sentiments; so that here, again, Michel, he
     escapes. Is not this more than strange?

     “It was not without anxiety that I passed the threshold of
     the sick-chamber; but happily it was darkened, and I soon
     saw that the sick youth could never recognize me, were his
     senses even unclouded. He lay motionless, and I thought
     insensible; but after I spoke to him he rallied a little,
     and asked after his father and his sisters. He had not yet
     heard that his father was dead; and it was affecting to hear
     the attempt he made to vindicate his honor, and show that he
     had never been disloyal. By degrees I brought him to talk of
     himself. He saw that he was dying, and had no fears of
     death; but there seemed as if his conscience was burdened by
     some heavy weight, less like guilt than the clew to some
     strange and dark affair. The revelation—if it deserved the
     name, for it was made in broken sentences—now uttered with
     rapid vehemence, now scarcely audible——was of the vaguest
     kind. You may imagine, however, the interest I felt in the
     narrative as the name Godfrey passed his lips. To know my
     anxiety to trace some tie of family to these Godfreys. They
     were gentry of ancient blood and good name, and would amply
     satisfy the demands of the Sacred College; so that when the
     boy spoke of Godfrey, I listened with intense curiosity;
     but—shall I own it?—all my practised skill, all my science
     of the sick-bed, was unable to tell me what were the
     utterings of an unclouded intellect, and what the wild
     fitful fancies of fever. I know, for I have repeatedly heard
     it from his sister's lips, that this youth has never been in
     Ireland, and yet he spoke of the peculiar scenery of a
     certain spot just as if he had traversed it yesterday. Mind,
     that I am carefully distinguishing between what might be the
     impression left by often hearing of a scene from others, and
     that which results from personal observation. His was
     altogether of the latter kind. As, for instance, when
     describing a garden, he mentioned how the wind wafted the
     branches of a weeping ash across a window, so as to confuse
     the scene that went on within; and then he shuddered
     terribly, and, with a low sigh, exclaimed, 'The light went
     out after that.' These are not ravings, Michel. This boy
     knows something of that dark mystery I have more than once
     alluded to in my letters. Could it be that his own father
     was in some way implicated in the affair? Bear in mind how
     he came to live abroad, and never returned to Ireland. From
     all I can learn, the old Dalton was a bold and reckless
     character, that would scarcely have stopped at anything.
     Assuredly, the son's conscience is heavily burdened! Now,
     there is an easy way to test the truth or fallacy of all
     this; and herein you must aid me, Michel. I have carefully
     noted every word the boy spoke; I have treasured every
     syllable that fell from him. If his description of the scene
     be correct, the mystery may be unravelled. This you can
     speedily ascertain by visiting the spot. It is not more than
     twenty miles from you, and about three or four, I believe,
     from the little village of Inistioge; it is called Corrig-
     O'Neal,—a place of some importance once, but now, as I
     hear, a ruin. Go thither, Michel, and tell me correctly all
     these several points. First, does the character of the river
     scenery suddenly change at this spot, and, from an aspect of
     rich and leafy beauty, exhibit only dark and barren
     mountains without a tree or a shrub? Is the old manor-house
     itself only a short distance from the stream, and backed by
     these same gloomy mountains? The house itself, if unaltered,
     should be high-peaked in roof, with tall, narrow windows,
     and a long terrace in front; an imitation, in fact, of an
     old French château. These, as you will see, are such facts
     as might have been heard from another; but now I come to
     some less likely to have been so learned.

     “From this boy's wanderings, I collect that there is a
     woodland path through these grounds, skirting the river in
     some places, and carried along the mountain-side by a track
     escarped in the rock itself. If this ever existed, its
     traces will still be visible. I am most curious to know this
     fact. I can see the profound impression it has made on the
     youth's mind, by the various ways in which he recurs to it,
     and the deep emotion it always evokes. At times, indeed, his
     revelations grow into something like actual descriptions of
     an event he had witnessed; as, for instance, last night he
     started from his sleep, his brow all covered with
     perspiration, and his eyes glaring wildly. 'Hush!' he cried;
     'hush! He is crossing the garden, now; there he is at the
     door; lie still—lie still.' I tried to induce him to talk
     on, but he shuddered timidly, and merely said, 'It's all
     over, he has strewn leaves over the spot, let us go away.'
     you will perhaps say that I attach undue importance to what
     may be the mere outpourings of a fevered intellect, but
     there is an intensity in the feeling which accompanies them,
     and, moreover, there is a persistence in the way he always
     comes back to them, that are not like the transient terrors
     that haunt distracted minds. No, Michel, there is a mystery,
     and a dreadful one, connected with this vision. Remember!
     that the secret of Godfrey's death has never been cleared
     up; the breach which separated him from these Daltons was
     then at its widest. Dalton's character you are familiar
     with; and, although abroad at that time, who can say what
     agencies may not have worked for him? Give your serious
     consideration to these facts, and tell me what you think.
     You know me too well and too long to suppose that I am
     actuated by motives of mere curiosity, or simply the desire
     to trace the history of a crime. I own to you, that with all
     my horror of blood, I scarcely grieve as I witness the
     fruitless attempts of English justice to search out the
     story of a murder. I feel a sort of satisfaction at the
     combat between Saxon dulness and Celtic craft—between the
     brute force of the conqueror and the subtle intelligence of
     the conquered—that tells me of a time to come when these
     relations shall be reversed. Acquit me, therefore, of any
     undue zeal for the observance of laws that only remind me of
     our slavery. However clear and limpid the stream may look, I
     never forget that its source was in foulness! I am impelled
     here by a force that my reason cannot account for. My
     boyhood was, in some manner, bound up with this Godfrey's
     fate. I was fatherless when he died! could he have been my
     father? This thought continually recurs to me! Such a
     discovery would be of great value to me just now; the
     question of legitimacy would be easily got over, as I seek
     for none of the benefits of succession. I only want what
     will satisfy the Sacred College. My dear Michel, I commit
     all this to your care and industry; give me your aid and
     your advice. Should it happen that Dalton was involved in
     the affair, the secret might have its value. This old field-
     marshal's pride of name and family could be turned to good
     account.

     “I must tell you that since I have overheard this boy's
     ravings, I have studiously avoided introducing my Irish
     protégé into the sickroom. My friend, Paul Meekins, might
     be a most inconvenient confidant, and so I shall keep him
     under my own eye till some opportunity occurs to dispose of
     him. He tells me that his present tastes are all
     ecclesiastical.   Do you want a sacristan? if so, he would
     be your man. There is no such trusty subordinate as the
     fellow with what the French call 'a dark antecedent;' and
     this I suspect to be his case.

     “I have well wearied you, my dear friend, and yet have I not
     told you half of what I feel on this strange matter. I am
     little given to tremble at shadows, and still there are
     terrors over me that I cannot shake off. Write to me, then,
     at once; tell me all that you see, all that you can hear.
     Observe well the localities; it will be curious if the boy
     be correct. Mark particularly if there be a spot of rising
     ground from which the garden is visible, and the windows
     that look into it, and see if there be a door out of the
     garden at this point.   I could almost map out the scene
     from his description.

     “I have done, and now, I scarcely know whether I should feel
     more relief of heart to know that all this youth has said
     were fever wanderings, or words of solemn meaning. It is
     strange how tranquilly I can move through the great events
     of life, and yet how much a thing like this can shake my
     nerve; but I suppose it is ever so, and that we are great or
     little as the occasion makes us.

     “I have just heard that Lady Hester Onslow has gone over to
     Ireland. She will probably be at Corrig-O'Neal. If so, you
     can present yourself to her as my old and intimate friend,
     and this will afford you an opportunity of examining the
     scene at leisure. I enclose you a few lines to serve as an
     introduction. Adieu, my dear friend.

     “You have often sighed over the obscurity of your position,
     and the unambitious life of a parish priest. Believe me, and
     from my heart I say it, I would willingly exchange all the
     rewards I have won, all that I could ever hope to win, for
     one week—one short week—of such calm quiet as breathes
     under the thatched roof of your little cottage.

     “I leave this for Vienna to-morrow, to thank the minister;
     and with good reason, too, since without his assistance the
     Pope would have shrunk from the bold policy. Thence I go to
     Rome; but within a fortnight I shall be back in Florence,
     where I hope to hear from you. If all goes well, we shall
     meet soon.—Yours, in much affection,

     Mathew D'Esmonde.”