66 little girl going home; and they ran after the cart and cheered ;-“ hurrah! hurrah! she's out! she's out!" How well the donkey went; he actually cantered; and the little boys cheered: it was quite a triumph. On they went home good donkey!-and Peter's legs dangled behind; and he whistled some curious tune. On they went, and they all were so merry. But who are these on before? They come closer; they are like police. Closer still-two policemen holding a woman between them, and dragging her along-oh! God, her mother. Grace felt quite sick; her mother going to gaol-the same police that took her. "Oh! do stop, William." And Peter looked round, but still he whistled his old tune, and the police stopped. CHAPTER VII. GRACE went home with her father that night to Katty and Peter. Oh, weren't they glad to see her! But there was a great deal of sorrow in Grace's cup of joy. She thought of her mother in prison, and how she had cursed her. "I must stay with you now, father dear." "An' why, alannah? Didn't the lady say ye might go back to the big house now that ye war clear?" "I know she did; but, father, who'll dress yer victuals, and take care of the children?" "Nivir mind me; an' sure the children won't be worse off than they ever wor." "But, father dear, sure there's no one now?" "Nivir you mind, acushla; go back to yer mistress like a good girl to-morrow, as she towld ye; an' I'll think, an' maybe I'd manage; an' I'll go over an' see you on Sunday, plaze God; an' Biddy Hoolagan will have an eye to the childhre till then." And Grace started the next morning back to Fairport, and she told her dilemma. "Father wishes me to stay here, ma'am; but who'll mind the children?" "I quite agree with your father," said Mrs. Saunders; "but I will talk over the matter with the master, and speak to your father when he comes on Sunday. And she told her husband. "I don't know anything else," said he, "except to give him work here. I think he's an honest man, and would have no objection to employ him." "Oh, that will do exactly; and the children can all go to school." 66 But you know, my dear, I cannot take him from Rawson; that is, I cannot offer him work so as to induce him to leave his present employment. Dunne, the herd, will be leaving me in a fortnight, and if Kennedy knows anything of cattle, as I think he does, that would suit him; and there's a house, too." So there was Kennedy as they drove home from church on Sunday. He took off his hat, and approached them. "Put on your hat, my man," said Mr. Saunders. "Grace, ma'am," he began, "is very anxious to come home and tache the childhre, and mind them; bud I'm thinkin' that it's betther for her to stay here in a good place and larn herself. An' I'm goin' to make so bowld as to ax yer honor if I might put the little childhre to lodge with some of the neighbours here, and thin they'd be near Grace, and could go to the school; an' may be, in coorse of time, I'd get work about here my self." "Would you wish for work in this neighbourhood, my friend?" asked Mrs. Saunders. "Oh! yes, ma'am; sure that id jist do." "Do you know anything of the management of black cattle ?" inquired the gentleman. "Is it cattle, sir? sure that's what I'm at all my life; it's herd I am at Mr. Rawson's beyant. The cows, the craturs!" "Well, my herd is going away in a fortnight, and if you wish for work in this neighbourhood, I'll give you the situation. There is a house, garden, and milk, and five shillings a-week, to be increased if you go on well." And the hat was off again. 66 May God bless you an' yer good lady, sir. I'll ax Mr. Rawson, sir, whin he could let me go, for he's a good man, and I wouldn't take him short; an' I'll tell ye, sir, this day week." It was all arranged, and in a fortnight they took possession of their new abode. "Your children will all go to school to-morrow, Kennedy, I hope?" said Mrs. Saunders, on the evening he ar rived. "Oh, yis, ma'am, sartinly; the craturs must have the edication." "Are you a Roman Catholic?" "Why, ma'am," said Kennedy, approaching her, "by rights I ought to be a Protestant; an' if I know any religion it's that. My father was a Catholic sartinly, but any mother, and all belongin' to her, were raal Protestants. An' she used to be tachin' us when we were young; an' I'm sure that I was christened by the minister, an' often went to the church. Well, mother died an' we all young, an' father didn't much care what we wor; an' the neighbours strove to make us go to chapel, an' they brought the eldest sister, but me an' the boys ran wild; an' any prayers I know are all Protestant." "Perhaps you could say one for me ?” asked Mrs. Saunders, anxious to test the truth of his assertion, for she had a great horror of appearing to buy converts. "Let me think, ma'am. Oh, here's wan-O Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all our desires known, an' from whom no sacrets are hid, clane the bad thoughts of our hearts by the Holy Spirit, so that we'll love you always, through Jasus Christ our Lord. Amin."" "That is certainly one of our most beautiful prayers," said the lady, solemnly; and you had a good mother to teach you to pray to God, to make clean the thoughts of your heart. And about the children, Kennedy?" "Sure, ma'am, they don't know a hap'orth about God Almighty-an' though Katty was a Roman, ma'am, she nivir throubled her head much about religion, except to take them to the priest to be christened. Sure she had no religion, an' I think the Protestant's the best." "And it's your wish that your chil dren should be brought up in that faith?" "It is, ma'am, if ye plaze, wid the help of God." "But about Grace?" continued the lady, "she has been looked upon here as a Roman Catholic, and has gone to chapel with the cook." 66 'Oh, it's no matther about Grace, ma'am." "No matter?" said Mrs. Saunders, somewhat astounded. "That is, ma'am-I mane, ye may make her what ye like. Be right, I've no call to her." And he came closer. "She's a fondlin', ma'am. But for the love of God, don't tell her that, ma'am. Sure ye needn't tell any wan. She thinks she's ours-an' I'm twice as fond of her as if she was. An' if she knew she wasn't, maybe she wouldn't love her poor father as well as she does. Tache her, yerself, ma'am. I'll be bound ye'll make her a good Christian; but don't tell her that." "And how did you get her?" asked the lady, eagerly. "A poor strange woman died in our house," said Kennedy, with a sort of shudder, "and left the little thing." "Well, it was very good of your wife to bring the child up." "Humph!" he muttered. 66 Well, Kennedy?" continued Mrs. Saunders, "you had better announce yourself that you are a Protestant, and that you wish the children to go to church. I shall speak to Grace myself, and will send her down to-morrow morning, to take them to school." And Mrs. Saunders thought within herself, "thank God, she is not the child of that woman. An orphan. And this man told of his own wife's crime the mother of his childrento save the strange girl from disgrace. 'Tis very odd." And the good lady buried these things in her heart, and her interest in the protegé increased. It was early in March, and the hedges and little trees were beginning to tell that spring was come; and the birds sang joyfully in the morning, and there was a smile all round on the face of nature, and Grace and her little brother and sister went regularly to school. Mick had gone off somewhere with his bag, since his mother went to gaol. And Grace was such a good girl-she would win her way back into all their hearts. She had done so, dear child-even Mr. Saunders himself began to notice her, and like her. She was nominally living at Fairport, but was constantly down at her father's. And Mrs. Saunders never missed a pin'sworth from the house by Grace, which she had not given her. When Mrs. Saunders had spoken to her about going to church, she clapped her hands, and said how glad she was, that she was often going to ask Miss Jane to let her She could go. not understand what they said in the chapel. And on Sundays they locked up the house, and Grace and her father, and brother and sister went to church. Grace used to talk to Miss Jane of all the nice stories of Jesus Christ she heard there. One morning Mr. Saunders, as he was reading a letter that the post-boy had just brought, exclaimed, "My God! so sudden." "What is the matter, love?" said his wife, alarmed. "Poor Mrs. Fortescue is no more," he answered, solemnly. "You don't say so?" said the lady, her eyes filled with tears. "Why, by the last account she was better." "Here's the letter from her poor husband:" "Florence, February, 18 "It's all over, Saunders. The temporary flush of health on my darling's cheek was delusive and vain; the last bright glimmer of the lamp ere it went out for ever. Fanny is gone. She expired two days ago, without a struggle, on the sofa, in the drawing-room, the last beams of an Italian sun gilding her dying bed. God's will be done. My poor girls now have no mother. Their grief is heart-rending. I have nothing to keep me here. Will you, my dear fellow, have everything got ready at the Abbey. I may be home in a week after you receive this—and kind Mrs. Saunders will provide anything wanting in the domestic way. "Your distressed "J. Saunders, Esq." "HENRY FORTESCUE. Mrs. Saunders was sobbing violently as her husband concluded. She left the room to cry in peace. THE FALL OF THE LEAF. Carrigbawn, 28th September, 1850. RESOLVE me, dear Anthony, how it is that the soul of man so finely sympathises with all the changes of scene and season in this changeful and beautiful world? How spring and summer, autumn and winter, as they roll on successively through the varying year, invigorate, inflame, solemnise, and sadden us? Truly the texture of man's inward life is intimately interwoven with the outward world around him, and its influences are not less potent on his physical than on his moral being. The fresh breezy morn and the dewy eventide--the bright blue sky of still sultry summer, and the wild blasts of gloomy winter-day and night, sunshine and shadow, playing upon our spirits as the hand of a cunning musician upon harp-strings, alike admonish us that we are a portion of God's wondrous creation, harmonised with the whole-sentient with insentient-perturbed or tranquillised as his omnipotent hand shakes or stills it; bearing our part involuntarily, often unconsciously, with spheres unnumbered, in that mystical adoration which universal nature is unceasingly offering up to its Divine Author. Sublimely is this consentaneous worship expressed in the fine canticle which our own Church has introduced into her spiritual service. I allude, of course, to the " Song of the Three Children,"-"O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever." Spring, with its bursting life and buoyant feeling, has long since swelled and softened into summer, and summer has ripened into an autumn of plenteous promise a promise destined to be but partially realised. For men have gathered in the fruits of the earth, and find the gold of her grain scant and alloyed; and with sad hearts and crushed hopes they dig out her diseased and putrescent roots. And now the days are growing short, and the sunshine fitful; the streamlets are swelling, and their silvery currents are running dark and turbid, while the voices of winds and waters are becoming hoarser and more loud. The flush of her beauty is passing away from the face of the earth, but the change is not unmarked with a tender loveliness that is more touching than the brightness of summer. Her flowers are all gone; the purple and gold of her heathery braes are fading, and her foliage of tree and shrub, which is a glory to her," as long hair is a glory to woman, has already lost gloss and colour, and is now falling away like the dry grey hairs from the head of one past the prime of life. The ash, latest to put forth its green, shows now but naked sprays traced against the sky, and her sister of the mountain has cast to the ground the clusters of her bright red berries, for they, too, are shrunk and faded; the leaves of the beech, and elm, and sycamore are twisted and shrivelled into crisp and discoloured shreds, and even the oak-leaf sears in the wind "And turning yellow, Falls and floats adown the air." The day has been one of gloom, and gust, and shower; but as the sun is declining, the masses of clouds are broken and scattered, and the patches of bright blue that shine out between the sun-tinted edges of grey cloud, where "We can almost think we see, Through golden vistas into heaven," promise a serene evening. Come, then, dear Anthony, and wander forth with me in the spirit, if you cannot in the flesh. Pass we out through the casement of my sanctum upon the shining gravel, and along the alley, lately dark and leafshadowed, now exposed to light and air; and as we wend upwards, skirting the grove of oak and pine, mark how the breath of evening shakes down showers of leaves, and bright drops of rain fall glinting from the swaying branches, as if Nature, with tears and sighs, mourned over her decay. How our feet crunch the dry skeleton leaves that lie like a carpet upon the shingles! There is something in that sound that always saddens me. It speaks of death as loudly to my heart as the peal of the passing bell. "THE FALL OF THE LEAF!" How mysteriously does man's life synchronise with it. With what an agony of solicitude do many fond and fearing hearts take daily note of the process of maceration that eats away the parched leaf to a network of fibre, and then turn their sorrowful eyes to the clear, pale forehead and wasting cheek of some dear friend, sure that when the leaves have all laid them down upon earth's lap, the sick one will seek the same place of rest. Oh, mighty mother! all things that spring from thee to thee return, and thou drawest them to thy bosom, and there they take their rest. Some sleep but for a brief season, and rise refreshed and beautified, like a babe whose cheek is flushed from slumber, and thou seest them wake and sleep again and again; but man-thy last born and thy noblest-him thou hidest in thy heart, and coverest tenderly as for a long, deep sleep-ay, long and deep it is; still wilt thou behold its waking, but not till thou art thyself in thy death-struggle. And for man, what a waking! Stupendous, inconceivable, spiritual, glorified, incorruptible! What meeting of friends, what renewal of affections, what clearing up of all that is dark! "Behold," said one who spoke with a heaven-taught tongue, "I show you a mystery —a mystery upon whose confines so many with whom we have held converse are already waiting, whose realisation we ourselves so rapidly approach. "Time draweth onward fast, All things are taken from us, and become And how does life show now to us, dear Anthony, in the retrospect, as we take it in in a glance, foreshortened in the perspective of memory. Pause a moment, and look on the river rushing at our feet. Far above, near the mountaintop, is its clear and sparkling source, and down along the hill-sides and ravines, here in light, there in gloom, it has sported and leaped, swelling and widening, till it hurries by us, deep in its channel, strong in its current, eddying and chafing-dark, turbid, and sinuous. Look down now and catch a glimpse of it in the far-away plain, in broad and plenteous volume, and thence it rolls away, though we see it no more, into the ocean, and is lost. It is a type of man's life, my friend, obvious and apt-its bright and joyous infancy-its youth of high, vague hope, how rarely fulfilled-its busy, fretful, toiling manhood-its sobered, passionless senectude, lapsing almost imperceptibly into eternity. A few lines, if you will listen to them, will tell you what I mean by this illustration. I would that you could, for my recitative, substitute the magnificent voice and finished style of my friend, Joseph Robinson, as he chaunts them to one of the fine airs which those great masters of song, the Germans, alone know how to conceive: LIFE. Fount! that sparklest wild and free, As thy bright waves dance along, In the joyous melody Of thy bubbling voice of song Just like Life, when young and bright, Ah! that shadows ever should lower. Sorrows will darken life's brightest hour! Stream! that rushest deep and strong, On thy full and lordly tide Just like Life in manhood's hour, Tempests may wreck the hopes that we prize! 2 H VOL. XXXIV.-NO. CCXIV. |
