BLIND AGNESE CECILIA M. CADDELL r BLIND AGNESE OR THE LITTLE SPOUSE OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT BY CECILIA M. CADDELL P. J. KENEDY & SONS 44 BARCLAY STREET, NEW YORK PRINTED IN U. S. A. TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS earth so laden with the sorrows of His hu- manity in heaven, so overflowing with the joys of His Divinity and, in the adorable Sacrament of the Altar, a fountain of joy, and peace, and con- solation, of purity, of love, of gladness, and of grace, to all who seek Him there, this little book, in lowliest reverence, is offered as a tribute of gratitude and love a confession of faith and a reparation (inas- much as may be) for the insults, neglect, ingratitude, and blasphemies heaped upon Him in this mystery of love, both by those who believe it not and those who are cold in their believing. Sweet Mother Mary ! To thy pure heart and hands I confide this offering, hoping thus to make a double reparation to the Son, and to the Mother so often and so deeply wounded in the injurious treatment cast upon the Son. Present it to Him, I pray thee, and give thy maternal benediction to me, and the little ones for whom I write ! Engrave indelibly on their tender hearts the lesson I have sought to trace. Teach them that none are too young to love Jesus, none too little or too low to be loved by Him. Persuade them, as none but thou canst do, sweet Mother, that He, who from out of the Judean crowd did deign to call one little as themselves, and to impart to that young child 3 2134843 " 4 DEDICATION a father's benediction, will likewise give to them His blessing, and lift their hearts to higher thoughts and holier aspirations each time they kneel before Him, in His Eucharistic Presence ; there to offer, through thy pure heart and hands, their tribute of most grateful love, to His Divine and Sacred Heart, in the ever- adorable Sacrament of the Altar ! BLIND AGNESE OS, THE LITTLE SPOUSE OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT CHAPTER I PHE lights were extinguished, the people were gone, the orange and the myrtle, the rose and the jessamine were fading on the floor, and Jesus, who, in the Sacrament of His love, had upon that day pre- sided visibly from His altar-throne over the devotions of His creatures, was once more concealed beneath the veils of the tabernacle, where for more than eighteen centuries His love has held Him captive. It was the Feast of His Most Sacred Heart, which comes to us in the midst of the fervid days of June, as if to remind us of the love with which He burns for us and of the love with which He would have us to burn for Him; and during the sweet service of the evening benediction, the lovers of that most blest devotion had knelt before Him some in joy, and some in sor- row ; some with souls consciously burning in His em- braces; others without any sensible perception of His presence ; but all with the prayer of Jacob upon their lips and in their hearts "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." And He did bless them in that hour ; 5 C BLIND AGNESE He would not be less merciful than His angel, He would not deny the petition which His ministering spirit had been unable to refuse ; 'but high above the altar, in the hands of His priest, amid clouds of in- cense, and dying strains of music, and the tingling of low bells, and falling of fresh flowers, He poured out upon them His parting benediction, such a benedic- tion as He had already breathed upon His disciples when ascending from them into heaven a benedic- tion as full of mercy, as full of love, as full of ma- jesty, as full of power, and falling upon hearts, if not as faithful, at least, it may be said, as full of faith. For in that mighty multitude not one was found to doubt of the reality of His presence among them ; not one who, with beating heart, and bowed down head, and spirit rapt into hushed and voiceless adoration, did not kneel before his Eucharistic Saviour, in the full conviction that His eye was on them, and His heart was with them, and His lips unclosed to speak His blessing, and His hands extended to invoke it on their heads ; and with such a faith as this among them, who shall wonder if, when the service was over, and they once more went forth to their homes, it was with hearts lightened at least of half their cares, filled to overflowing in the consolations showered on them by that presence, made even "as a plentiful field which the Lord hath blest," beneath the gifts and graces imparted in that blessing? They were gone, but not all: one there was who yet knelt before His altar, at- tracted, compelled, chained to it, as it were by the fas- cination of His presence. To that rapt up, bowed down spirit, He was invisible, and yet most visible; BLIND AGNESE 7 He was silent, and yet most eloquently persuasive of His love; and if He were held apart and separated from it by the door of the tabernacle, yet did He draw it to run after Him in the sweet odour of his oint- ments, until love made Him all but tangible to its spiritual embraces. And in whom, do you think, and in what visible form was this spirit of love and devo- tion enshrined ? It was no aged priest, grown gray in the service of the altar, who now knelt at its foot. No cloistered nun, who had identified herself with the Lord of the sanctuary, by a life-long renunciation of His enemy, the world No high prince, descended from his throne, to adore Him with the magi No courtly dame, come hither, like another Magdalen, to lay her beauty, her tresses, and her perfumes at His feet. It was but a poor beggar girl, who, in her in- nocent years, and her tattered rags, and her humble station, seemed an earthly embodiment of His favour- ite virtues. If she were alone, or if the crowd were still around her, she knew it not, for her whole soul was with the silent dweller in the tabernacle, feeding upon His sweetness, who himself doth feed among the lilies ; and yet in that hour a human eye was fixed upon her, and a human mind was speculating about her. Nor was it for her beauty, although the beauty of devotion, the true beauty of the seraph, was beam- ing from her features. Nor was it for her picturesque appearance, although her rags were disposed as only a lazzaroni of Naples knows how to dispose them col- our contrasting colour, and patches of black, and scarlet, and yellow, and rich brown, mingling together just as they would have been mingled by the cunning 8 BLIND AGNESE of a painter. Nor was it for her youth, although she was but a mere child; children as young are, thanks be to God, no rare sight in Italy, kneeling before His altar. The eye was fixed upon her, in wonder how the human form could remain so still the mind was en- gaged in speculation and in question, as to what in- visible influence it was, which could give such deep meaning to that child-like brow, such seraph beauty to those child-like features. "How motionless she is!" thought this second watcher in the temple, "and how very fair. I wonder how long she will remain in that attitude of prayer. Oh, that I were a painter, that I might give her to the world as my vision of an angel. Surely, she must weary soon. I will wait, and speak to her as she is leaving the church." But minute after minute passed away, and she did not seem to weary. The rays of the setting sun streamed full upon her kneeling form, and gave a new richness to her many-coloured costume, and fell with an almost unearthly radiance upon her brow; and no trace of weariness was to be found upon it no change of attitude which might convey the idea of bodily or mental fatigue. It was all repose thought in repose, repose in thought as if body and soul were both re- clining in the arms of one invisibly beside her. And now the watcher herself began to grow impatient twice she arose, as if to rouse the child from her de- votions, and twice she desisted from her purpose, for each time she approached that kneeling figure a kind of awe, for which she could not account, came over her own spirit it seemed so like an irreverent in- BLIND AGNESE 9 trusion upon the communications of the invisible creator with the visible creature. Half in wonder, half in vexation, she retired to her own seat, and as she did so for the second time, she discovered that she was not the only one engaged in a similar scrutiny. A door, which she had not perceived before, was open, and an old man was standing near it, not merely watching the child, but making signal after signal that she should approach him. They were all unheeded, for they were all unseen; and then he advanced into the church, his foot falling without sound among the flowers that carpeted the pavement; but when he reached her side he also paused, as if in doubt whether to disturb or to leave her with her God. It was, how- ever, only the hesitation of a moment; directly after- wards he touched her on the shoulder, whispering something at the same time in her ear, and, apparently in obedience to his summons, the child arose and fol- lowed him to the open door, which closed immediately upon them, greatly, it must be owned, to the disap- pointment of the old lady, who had been an interested witness of the scene. "My poor Agnese," said the old man, with a com- passionate smile, "for a moment I forgot your mis- fortune, and beckoned as though I imagined you could see me." "I knew you would have work for me this even- ing," said the young girl, in a voice which fell like soft music on the ear, it was so plaintive and so sweet, "and so I thought I would wait until you came to call me." "And then forgot the old man, in thought of Him io BLIND AGNESE to whose service the old man would call you," returned her companion, with a smile. <r Ves, Francesco." "I should like to know those thoughts, my child. Strange it is that one so young should find within herself the source of such deep and holy meditation." "Not so strange, Francesco ; remember I am blind." "You are right, my child; the good Jesus never withholds a gift without replacing it by another, ten- fold its value ; and so, perhaps, He has but blinded you to the things of this earth, in order to give you a facility for discerning the glories of His invisible kingdom, in a manner not often granted to His poor creatures while yet in the body." "How do you see Jesus, Francesco?" said Agnese, abruptly. "I know that God and the man He is on our altars, but then I know not well what an altar is like, and I have never seen a man." "When I kneel before the altar," said the old man, in the tone and manner of one describing what he sees, what he is seeing at that moment, "I first say to my- self, Jesus is in the tabernacle I know that He is there: I believe it as if my very eyes beheld Him. He is there in His divinity in His humanity He is there. Methinks, therefore, that I look upon Him in the human form which He took from Mary, but which is now all light and radiance radiant in its own glori- fied nature but yet more radiant in the glory of the divinity, by which it is embued, and penetrated, and filled to overflowing. I behold Him a God and yet a man a man and still a God; and if the awed majesty of His Heavenly Father be throned upon his brow, yet BLIND AGNESE 11 is it mingled with that sweet and gentle look, which made Him on earth so like His mother." "Go on, dear Francesco," said Agnese, sitting down at his feet, and covering her face with her hand : "go on ; I love to hear you." "Yet doth He wear the garment of His shame, but now woven of the light which the Lamb sheds over His loved in Heaven, flows it in robes of brightness to His feet. Yet doth He bear the crown with which our sins have diademed his brow, but now the lustre of millions of millions of diamonds seem concentrated in every thorn. Yet doth He show those wounds which, in His hands, and feet, and side He refused not for our love; but for the blood once shed there- from streams of glory and of sweetness are pouring from them now. And beneath this glorious veil of His humanity, methinks I discern the light inacces- sible of His divinity, dwelling within the sacred heart, as in its temple, and from thence pouring itself forth in floods of grace, and gladness, and mercy on His creatures. Within that sacred heart is love, and peace, and holy calm, a silence inexpressible around it are spirits bowed, cherubim and seraphim in reverent adoration. There have the weary of earth found rest at last and the saints their exceeding great reward, and Mary herself her heaven of heavens. Methinks, that He is inviting me, even me, the most sinful of His creatures, to the embraces of that most sacred heart that He holds out to me His wounded hands- that, out of the very depths of his tenderness, He is speaking to my soul, and fixing on me those eyes which once were fixed in dying sweetness on His mother; 12 BLIND AGNESE and so, in awful and yet most calm affection, I kneel before Him, and press to my lips that robe which once imparted of His virtue to the sick woman of the Gospel; and kiss those feet which were not refused to the embraces of a Magdalen; and inhale the frag- rance of those wounds, once terrible in their gore, but now so beautiful and sweet sweet with the 'smell of Lebanon/ the 'odour of his ointments.' And then at last," continued the old man, and his voice grew tremulous and "full of tears," "it seems to me that He permits me to a yet closer union with Himself, that He even says 'Friend, come up higher,' that He folds His arms around me, that He lays my head upon His sacred bosom, breathing of paradise, that He draws me even to the centre of His sacred heart, and in its holy stillness imparts to me those lessons of heavenly love and wisdom which once, by His living lips, He gave to His disciples. And what are those lessons, dear child, if they are not contained in such words as these ? 'Blessed are the poor in spirit ; blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com- forted; blessed are the merciful, for they shall find mercy.' Or again 'Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find peace in your souls. 'My yoke is sweet, and my burden light.' And I listen, dear Agnese, until my very heart and soul seem steeped in the sweetness of these words as in the dew of heaven itself; and then I say in my turn, not indeed by my lips, but by the internal language of the Spirit 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth; thou hast the words of eternal life; say to my soul, I am thy salvation.' " BLIND AGNESE 13 "That is very beautiful, and of great devotion," said Agnese, and, for an instant, there was something of sadness in her sweet, low voice, "but then, you know, I cannot think or feel that way, because I cannot see; therefore, I cannot image to myself what Christ is like in His glorified humanity." "Then tell me, Agnese, what it is that draws you to His altar?" "I can hardly tell you, it is so much easier to feel than to describe. I am drawn to Jesus, I know not how embraced by Him, I cannot tell you in what manner. It is as if a spirit of awe, and power, and majesty, and greatness was overshadowing the sanc- tuary, aweing and hushing every creature into silence ; around that holy spot do angels and saints keep sleep- less watch, and the Mother of God is ever there. I do not see them, but I feel them at my side sometimes in silence they adore ; sometimes in strains of sweetest music they sing His praises, and ever and always they cast their crowns before Him, and send up incense from their golden horns, and scatter the flowers of paradise at His feet; and so it seems to me, that all the perfumes of the earth are not so sweet all the music of the earth is not so full of harmony and love all the brightness and glory of the earth are not and cannot be so glorious and so bright, as is the Holy of Holies where Jesus ever dwelleth in the taber- nacle of the altar. Francesco, I do not imagine that I see Him there, for, methinks, the light of God, which is in Jesus, and which Jesus is, must be as darkness itself to human eye, and human understand- ing. Neither do I know what sight of earth is like, 14 BLIND AGNESE but this is my thought of the light of heaven, and from out that visible, tangible darkness, Jesus draws me to Himself, until my soul seems to leave the body, to be lost and swallowed up, and forget itself in His im- mensity; or, rather, perhaps, it is, that He Himself draws near to me, nearer and nearer, closer and closer, until He is in my heart, and in my soul, and in my very body, filling every sense with joy, satiating every feeling with delight, forcing me to weep in tears of delicious sweetness, and to say, as it were, in my own despite Lord, let me never see; it is joy enough to feel thou art so near." It was no child who spoke such words as these. For a moment Agnese was not a child, she looked and felt like a seraph at the altar. So Francesco fancied, as he looked upon her, but he did not tell his thought. He remembered that His angel, who saw the face of the Father in heaven, would have reason to complain if he injured the humility of His little one by words of praise; so, after a moment's reverent pause, he only said "Agnese, your words remind me of a story, which I read many and many a long year ago, about a child, not older, if indeed, as old, as you are." "Tell it to me, if it be about Him, Francesco," said the child, "particularly if it be true. There now, I have settled myself nicely at your feet, and I shall listen quite at my ease." "I cannot answer for its being entirely true, and it is so long since I read it, that I almost forget it. She was an orphan, brought up from her earliest infancy in a convent, of which her aunt was abbess. I think BLIND AGNESE 15 her Heavenly Father must Himself have chosen out this sanctuary of peace for His little one, in order that no obstacle might be opposed to the graces which He had reserved for her innocent soul, and by means of which He so drew her to Himself that, from the earliest dawn of reason, her thoughts seemed to turn as naturally to Him as the thoughts of other children do to the toys and ornaments of their age. From the moment she could speak, her words were of Jesus; from the moment she could walk, her feet ever turned towards the altar of Jesus ; spiritually, every day, and every hour of the day, she united herself to Him by her fervent desires, although far too young to be re- ceived into sacramental communion with Him, yet was this the object of her most earnest aspirations, of her unceasing petitions. Day after day she used to accompany the nuns to the church, and to watch them, with eyes of envy, as two by two they approached the altar, and two by two returned to their places; and when she saw them depart in peace, because their God was with them, she would prostrate herself at the feet of the abbess, and implore her, with many tears, to give to her this Jesus, in whose embraces she herself was so happily folded." "And they would not?" said Agnese, in a tone of deep sympathy. "She was so young, my child. But, young as she was, God had given to her a faith, a perception of the real presence of Jesus in the sacrament, which saints deem themselves happy to attain, after years of penance, solitude, and prayer, and often she has been heard to say in her sorrow, 'He is near, and I cannot 16 BLIND AGNESE approach Him; He is here, and I cannot possess Him; He is with all the others, and I alone am de- prived of His embraces.' Of her it might be truly said, that she mourned like the dove, whose sweet name she bore, for she did languish and pine until her bodily health sank beneath the vehement desires of her soul. Her step grew languid, and her cheek grew pale, and her eye softer and softer still, and yet, within its depth of softness (so the old legend tells us), a light, as if of heaven, did dwell; and still the languid step led her to the altar, and the weary head was bowed before it, and the eye was turned in patient sorrow towards the dove that watched above it, floating calm, and silvery, and pale, beneath the lighted lamp of the holy place, and seeming to tell, even in its outward form, of Him, the peaceful and the pure, who night and day reposed within its bosom." "Him, Francesco! do you mean Him? Was Jesus really dwelling within the dove?" "In those days, Agnese, the blessed sacrament was not kept upon the altar; it was placed in a silver ves- sel, suspended from above, and most often, I believe, fashioned in the likeness of a dove a dove, chosen, perhaps, because of the sweet and loving qualities with which our fancy has invested her. Yes, and I may also say, within which God Himself has chosen to surround her, making her ever, as it were, His messenger of peace to mankind. And so it may have seemed right and fitting to the early Christians that she, who brought the olive branch to Noah, should likewise bear Him above that altar, to which never BLIND AGNESE 17 would He descend except in thoughts of loving-kind- ness to His creatures." "A dove," said Agnese, thoughtfully "that is for meditation: is it not?" "True," said the old man, "so she would also re- mind them how they were to meditate like doves be- fore Him, and how they were to put off their rough, ungainly notions, and to put on His meek and dove- like spirit, for He was a very dove in heart, and he came to us through the dove-like Mary." "Tell me now about the child, Francesco, and what was her name? Did you not say she was the name- sake of the dove?" "She was called Colomba; I know not whether for her sweet and quiet disposition, or for the sake of her silver favourite and companion at the altar." "That is well, Francesco; but I am called Agnese, and that is better still. For I am the namesake of the lamb, and not of the chalice in which He is con- tained." "Colomba grew so weak at last that she could neither walk nor stand, and then they would carry her to the church and lay her on the pavement just beneath the silver guardian of the altar. Here they used to leave her for she always was best pleased to be left alone with Jesus. But often they watched her through the hours when she deemed herself un- seen and those who did so have left it on record, how she would lay motionless as one in a slumber, her hands folded on her bosom, her eyes lifted to the dove, which, through the feeble light and gloomy shadow, seemed watching her from on high and ever 18 BLIND AGNESE and anon, after a long and loving silence, she would say in a voice so sweet and sad, it might have been the very mourning of the quiet bird she looked on 'Oh, that the dove would descend and give Him to my prayers.' "One day she seemed so feeble they almost feared to move her, but she prayed so earnestly to be carried to the church for the last time to visit Jesus, that the nuns had it not in their hearts to refuse her peti- tion. So they bore her to His altar, and then, yet more earnestly than she had ever done before, she be- sought them to leave her to herself. It always ap- peared strange to them afterwards that they should have done so; they did not understand their feelings at the moment ; but later they confessed to one another that a kind of awful love had crept over their spirits, she looked and spoke so like a creature acting and speaking under the direct influence of the Spirit of God, her very words penetrating their hearts with a kind of celestial sweetness, such as they had never felt or known before. It seemed almost, to them, as if some hidden influence had left them no choice but to obey her. "One there was, however, not quite so submissive to the wishes of Colomba; this was her little sister, who was passionately attached to her, and to whom she herself was fondly devoted. The child, it ap- pears, could not bear to leave her, ill and alone, in that gloomy church, so she hid herself behind one of the pillars, and watched her from a distance. "Then, as ever, Colomba folded her hands upon her bosom, and lifted her eyes to her silver dove, BLIND AGNESE 19 and said so softly and beseechingly 'Oh, that thou wouldst descend and give Him to my prayers.' And then scarcely could the child believe her eyes slowly and steadily, through the dim shadows of the evening, the dove descended the light of the lamp above gleaming brightly on its silver wings and, as if some secret spirit gave her power, Colomba rose to meet it. And her folded arms were folded still, and her head was bowed in lowliest prayer, and she knelt, yet scarcely did she seem to touch the pavement, and a soft and silvery mist seemed floating round her, as. if to fold her from all mortal vision. And then, in fear and wonder, the child ran to summon her com- panions; but when the nuns returned with her to the church the dove had re-ascended to its former posi- tion, and the child lay once more stretched upon the pavement peace on her brow, an unutterablejexpres- sion (it could not be called a smile) yet resting on her lips. The nuns were frightened at her stillness. They drew near, but she did not move ; they spoke, but she did not answer. They kissed her, but no look of gratitude was returned for their embraces. Still seemed the bird of the sanctuary to brood over the fair child, but Colomba no longer had need of its as- sistance closed were the eyes which had been fixed upon it so often and so long, hushed was the voice which had called it from on high. The dove's celestial habitant had taken her to Himself, and the child was dead." "Francesco ! But He had come to her in her dying hour." "Who can tell?" replied Francesco. "This much, 20 BLIND AGNESE indeed, is certain, that when the dove was lowered, one was missing of the Sacred Hosts which had been confided to its keeping; and so the nuns were left un- certainly to conjecture that Jesus, whose delight it is to be with the children of men, would not refuse Him- self to the embraces of this child, nor suffer her soul to go forth from her body until He had blessed it by His sacramental presence. And but you can guess the rest, Agnese. The joy was too much for her wasted frame she died in that moment of un- utterable bliss." There was a long pause, and when Francesco looked again upon his young companion, he saw that she could not speak, so fast were the tears streaming from her blind eyes. "To die of love ! it was, indeed, a death to die, more blessed than any life could be," he added. There was another pause, and then Agnese whispered, in a voice which seemed, to the old man's fancy, as the very echo of Colomba's "Oh, that the dove would descend once more and give Him to my. prayers." "We must have patience a little longer fanciullina mia. You are older than the little saint of whom we have been speaking, and soon Padre Giovanni will be- gin to talk of our first communion." "Soon! Do you think he will talk about it soon, Francesco?" said Agnese, her whole face lighting up with a look of joyful surprise. "I must not reveal the Padre's secrets," said the old man, smiling; "only wait a very little longer, and then we shall see ; but, in the meantime, dear Agnese, BLIND AGNESE 21 we will work for Jesus with Martha, that we may earn the happiness of resting afterwards at His feet with Mary. See, here are the little corporals for the wash ; and remember, dear child, we are rather in want of them just now." "You shall have them by to-morrow morning, Fran- cesco." "Nay, my child, you must not sit up all night to do it. The sweet Jesus would never demand such a hard task of his little one. Time enough, if you bring them to me in the evening." "You shall have them in the morning, Francesco," replied the child in a tone of quiet resolution. "Adieu, Francesco." "Adieu, my child. What have you done with Per- letta?" "I left her at the porch." "Well, you have kept her a long time waiting. You had better make haste and seek her, else, if you leave her alone much longer, perhaps she will take it into her head to go home without you, as she did once be- fore, Agnese." "She has never played me such a trick but once, Francesco. No, no, there is no fear of Perletta; she is grown very patient." "Well, I am glad of that, Agnese. Adieu, my child." Francesco left the vestry through another door, just as Agnese opened the one by which she had en- tered it with him, stumbling as she did so over the old lady whom she had so long and unwittingly left wait- ing on the outside. Determined not to leave the 22 BLIND AGNESE church without speaking to the child, and yet, feeling too weary and tantalized to remain patient any longer, she had just made up her mind to break in upon their conversation, when, as we have seen, Agnese opened the door, and in her blindness stepped directly upon her feet. The sufferer uttered an involuntary scream, and then, as sufferers will upon such occasions, she could not resist saying, in a petu- lant tone "You have hurt me, child ; if you had not left your eyes before the altar you might have seen that you were walking quite over my feet; one would fancy you were blind." "Pardon me, Madam," said the child, in a voice of distress, but which had not even the shadow of im- patience in it "pardon me, for I am blind." "Blind ! Good God," cried the old lady, "how cruel I must have appeared." And then she looked more steadily at the child, and she saw that, though the young face was turned towards her, with an expression of sympathy in her suffering, the eyes were not lifted to hers as they would so naturally have been. The lids were closed, the long lashes swept over her cheeks there was no temptation to raise them, for sight there was none beneath. "Alas, poor child!" said she again, struck by the meek and holy expression of that face; "how long have you been thus ? or were you, indeed, as I should think, born blind?" "I know not; but I do not remember ever to have seen the light, Signora." BLIND AGNESE 23 "And are you here alone? have you no one to lead you home, my child?" asked her companion, now, in a tone of tenderest compassion. "Si, Signora, Perletta is waiting for me at the porch, and I can always go so far by myself." Without saying another word the old lady led her down the aisle, as far as the open gate of the church ; there the child paused, and thanked her gently for her kindness. "I will trouble the Signora no further," she said; "the dog will see me home. Perletta, Perletta;" but no Perletta answered. "My child, no dog is here," said the old lady anx- iously. I fear it has forsaken you." "What shall I do ?" said the poor child, sadly. "My God, what has become of Perletta? Never but once before did she desert me in this manner." "Whither do you want to go, my child?" asked the old lady, more touched than ever by her forlorn look and evident distress. "Tell me where you wish to go, and I will gladly lead you thither." "The Signora is very good ; I thank her with all my heart," said the child submissively. "It is only to my grandmother; she sells lemonade in yonder grove; perhaps the Signora knows her already, for she often deals out iced waters to the fine ladies who leave their carriages to rest beneath the shadow of the orange trees." "The old woman who serves out water from the fountain, is she your grandmother ? I know her well ; many a time have I tasted of her delicious lemonade. Come, my child, we shall soon be there, and your 24 BLIND AGNESE grandmother shall give me a glass of iced water for my reward." "He will give the Signora a better one, some day, I hope, for her kindness to His poor blind lamb." "Tell me, what is your name, my child?" The old lady asked again as they took their way to the orange grove. "I have said it, Signora; it is Agnese; that is for lamb, you know. So they call me Blind Agnese, and sometimes, in their sport, the children name me, also the Little Spouse of the Blessed Sacrament." "Little Spouse of the Blessed Sacrament," said the lady in an undertone ; "what a strange name, and what a strange child. And does not this blindness grieve you?" she said aloud. The question sounded cruel, and the lady felt it did, yet she could not resist the temptation of trying to penetrate the secret feelings of this child, who had interested her so strangely. There was no trace, however, of pain or of regret upon Agnese's face as she answered "It would grieve me sadly, Signora, were it not for Him." "For who? my child the old man I saw speaking to you just now?" "No, Signora, not Francesco, though he is a kind- ness, and a comfort also. I spoke of Francesco's master and of mine of Jesus of Him who made us both! of Him who dwelleth ever with us on our al- tars." "You speak of God, my child," said the lady, rev- BLIND AGNESE 25 erently. "He, in truth, is everywhere ; but you cannot see him on the altar?" "No, Signora ; but I know Him to be there. I feel that He is with me, and I with Him, and so I do not want for sight to see Him." "And is there nothing, then, you want to see?" The old lady went on, as it were, in her own despite, for she felt all the danger of awakening regret in so thoughtful a mind. "The light, for instance the glo- rious light of heaven, the sun, the moon, the million of millions of stars that tell us of the glory of their maker?" "No," said the child, "for I have Him who made them, and He Himself is the 'light of the world.' " "Or the beautiful face of nature, the deep valley, the mighty mountain, or mountain of mountains your own Vesuvius?" "I have him," said the child, in an untroubled voice, "and He is mightier than all His works." "Or the buildings of your city, the stately palaces, the sainted temples? Yonder little church, for in- stance, which we have just quitted, and which might have been the work of angels or of fairies, it is so spirit-like and full of grace?" "These are but the creations of man, Signora;" and there was a shade of grave rebuke in Agnese's voice; "and if I long not to behold His works, shall I sigh to look upon His creatures'?" "Well, Agnese, the flowers, at least, are His own lovely work of love; tell me, do you not sometimes sigh to gaze upon the flowers, which He has scattered so profusely over this soft, southern land? Never 26 BLIND AGNESE have I walked before among such flowers, with their velvet-like richness of touch and hue, and their per- fume, which comes over one's senses like a dream of beauty." 'They are soft to the touch, and sweet to the senses," Agnese answered, after a moment's pause. "And he was called the 'flower of the root of Jesse.' So they must be precious things, those flowers! But yet," she added, in an assured and earnest tone, "I do not regard them, for I have Him, and He made them, and, beautiful as they are, He must be a thou- sand million of times more beautiful than they are." "Happy child," said the lady, sadly. "He hath, in- deed, robbed you of your sorrow ; would that I knew where you had found Him, that I might go and seek Him also." "Do you not know where to find Him ?" said Agnese in great surprise. "He is ever on the altar; if you are in sorrow, go and seek Him there, and He will speak sweet comfort to your soul." "Tell me, fair child, who has taught you to think and speak in this manner?" "Francesco, Signora ; he has taught me to know and love Jesus on the altar." The lady did not answer. Something in the child's voice and manner had recalled sad memories to her mind, and her tears were falling fast, nor did she seek to check them until they had nearly gained the foun- tain and the grove to which their footsteps were directed. There they found Agnese's grandmother, plying her usual trade before a table, made very gay to look at, -by the four painted stakes, placed one at BLIND AGNESE 27 every corner, and decorated with images of saints, coloured flags, and bunches of lemons, and bouquets of flowers, to say nothing of the ten little lamps al- ready gleaming like fire-flies among the shadows of the trees. A cask, in the form of a drum, filled with clear ice, and water from the fountain, was placed on this table, which likewise displayed an abundance of clean glasses and lemons for the preparation of iced lemonade. Many and grateful were the thanks of the old dame to the good Samaritan, who had brought her back her blind one; and having accepted a glass of iced water, and pressed an alms into the unwilling hand of Agnese, Lady Oranmore stepped into her carriage, which had followed her from the church, promising herself, how- ever, to return the very next day, and renew her ac- quaintance with the fair child of the fountain. How often, during her drive back to Naples, did the words of Agnese recur to her memory "If you are in sorrow, go and seek Him on the altar, and He will speak sweet comfort to your soul." She was not a Catholic, that old lady, or she would have better understood the deep meaning of these simple words the holy truth, that He, whose dwelling was in the bosom of His Father, could yet find no peace for His loving heart, until He had made Himself a home among the children of men, until He had imparted unto them the sweetness of that humanity, all the bit- terness of which He had reserved for Himself. And so He came to us, the Virgin's child, the meek and lowly Jesus to dwell for ever with us in the sacrament of His love, never again to be absent, even for an 28 BLIND AGNESE hour, from the world of His redemption and especial predilection ever living for us, with us, and among us. In the noon-tide glare, in the midnight gloom in the crowded city, and in the lonely country's most lonely places, still and for ever to be found upon our altars, from thence giving rest to the weary, comfort to the afflicted, calmer and holier joy to the glad of heart; leaving it to no creature of earth to say that he had sought his Lord and had not found Him, or that he had been near Him, and had not been invited to the embraces of His love. Happy they who seek the invitation, and happier they who hear it and obey it, by dwelling, if not always in the body, at least al- ways in spirit and desire, beneath the shadow of His altar. These are they of whom it has been truly said, "They shall eat the honey with the honeycomb," for they shall taste and see that the Lord is sweet; they shall find the tears wiped away from off their faces; they shall draw water in joy from the fountains of the Saviour; and they shall testify to the truth of the promise made to us by His own living and most sacred lips, a promise only not oftener fulfilled in ourselves, because we seek not its proper fulfillment in Him. "Come unto me all ye that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you." CHAPTER II Sign the cross, and strike the breast, Banish looks of lightsome cheer Heaven's monarch, mortal's guest Lo! our Jesus draweth near. One thou lovest, Lord, is ill, As of old, is now the tiding, And, as then, it finds him still, In His love that call abiding. "Sign the cross, and strike the breast," etc. Quicker ever than He went To the loved of Bethany, Now with thoughts as fondly bent On this loved one, cometh He. "Sign the cross, and strike the breast," etc. If His own no longer flow, Still He dries the sinner's tears; If no grief is on the brow, Still its look of love it wears. "Sign the cross, and strike the breast," etc. If no more from out the grave He doth bid the dead arise, Still, the sinful soul to save, On the sinner's heart He lies. "Sign the cross, and strike the breast," etc. Bids him put aside his fear, Bids his trembling all to cease, Whispers in his dying ear, Words of pardon, hope, and peace. "Sign the cross, and strike the breast," etc. 29 30 BLIND AGNESE Jesu, when my hour is nigh, Let me rest thy arms within, Thus to die is not to die, 'Tis but to quit a world of sin. Sign the cross, and strike the breast, Banish looks of lightsome cheer; Heaven's monarch, mortal's guest Lo! our Jesus draweth near. OEATED in her balcony, amid orange trees and myrtles, and all the sweet growth of that southern clime, Lady Oranmore listened to the soft voices of the singers as they slowly approached the Palazzo where she dwelt. It was midnight, but she had not been able to repose as yet, her thoughts were running on the blind Agnese; and the look of inexpressible peace, which could give such beauty to those pallid features, haunted her still, and the inexpressible de- votion of that voice, as once and once only it had reverently pronounced the name of Jesus, still seemed to ring in her ears. Over and over again she asked herself why it was that she knelt with an unsatisfied heart and a cold and hungry spirit before the selfsame altar where this poor child had but to come to be replenished with de- light. Yes, and Lady Oranmore could not deny it to herself, with heavenly wisdom also the wisdom so often withheld from the proud, to be lavishly be- stowed upon the humble and the poor. Alas! like Pilate, Lady Oranmore asked what is truth, and, like him, she waited not the answer, but, impatient of her own feverish fancies and sleepless couch, she rose, dressed herself hastily, as I have already said, and BLIND AGNESE 31 stepped out upon the balcony. It was a lovely night, such a night as that on which the prophet looked, when he declared that "the heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of His hands." The deep blue sky of Italy seemed to grow deeper and deeper still, as Lady Oranmore gazed upon it, until she felt as if she were looking into it, and through it, and beyond it, and from out of this azure setting the stars met her glances with looks so conscious and so calm, that she could almost have persuaded herself theirs was the light of angel eyes, not merely watching over a sleeping world, but en- gaged in penetrating into the hidden depths of her soul, and reading all its secrets. The calm night air soon soothed the perturbation of her spirits, and she was fast sinking into a sort of dreamy calm when the first notes of the Hymn of the Blessed Sacrament fell on her ears ; and here a door and there a window opening, told how all the people were now astir, some going forth to join in the procession, others content to sit in their balconies, and mingle their voices with the burden of the song. The voices of the singers were sweet and true, and the air they sang most touching; and ever and anon the tinkling of the little bells, which announced the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, filled the air with a melody so spirit-like and sweet, one might have fancied them rung by the hands of the angels who invisibly crowded round the sacramental presence of their Lord. Lady Oran- more looked and listened like one entranced. Holy stars, and silver moon, and a perfume-breathing of flowers, and a calm of sea, and hush of earth, the 32 BLIND AGNESE silent heavens and the voices of His adoring creatures, all seemed mingling together to do Him honour in the lowly state in which His love had laid Him. For one brief moment, the very sweetness of Jesus Him- self seemed to fill her bosom, and she believed in His sacramental presence with a faith as firm as the most undoubting of His worshippers. Tears gushed into her eyes, she clasped her hands, and exclaimed aloud, unconscious that she was repeating the very words of the hymn to which she had been listening "Oh, so to die is not to die. Good God! To go to thee with Jesus in my bosom!" By this time tapers began to burn in every balcony, light flew, as if by some in- visible communication, from house to house, from window to window, and the street, which a few min- utes before had been as dark as night and the tall shadows of buildings could make it, became bright and glittering, as though a shower of stars had sud- denly descended upon its gloomy places. Not a win- dow without its light not a black speck left to mar the effect of the general illumination. The mighty faith of the people stirred the heart of the lady to a yet higher pitch of enthusiasm, and, by an impulse for which she never afterwards could account, she stepped back into her chamber, lighted a taper at the night lamp left burning there, and, setting it among the flowers of the balcony, knelt down to worship Jesus as he passed. The procession was almost beneath her window as she did so. Surrounded by a guard of honour, the priest who bore the Blessed Sacrament walked beneath the canopy, of which the silver bells announced his coming to the people, and among his BLIND AGNESE 33 immediate assistants, some carried banners and crosses, and others sent up clouds of incense from their silver censers, while the people followed, some near and some at a little distance, some with the in- tention of attending to the dwelling of the dying per- son, but the greater number merely dropping into the procession, and, after walking with it for a short space, returning to their own homes. Lady Oran- more thought of his entrance into the cities of Judea, and of His meek and holy bearing, and of the crowds that gave Him welcome, and of the little children who sang Hosannahs, proclaiming Him their Saviour and, won by the selfsame spirit of love from whence they took their inspiration, for a little while she be- lieved as they did. But her faith, alas, like theirs, was fleeting, and as He who had inspired it passed slowly out of sight, it would, perhaps, have also faded from her bosom had not her eyes fallen upon the form of a child of Blind Agnese for what child save Blind Agnese could have been found with courage or devotion to wander through the streets at that late hour? Lady Oranmore was neither young nor ac- tive, and, though well acquainted with Naples, she was timid, as people often are in a strange and crowded city. Even in the broad daylight she had never ventured in the streets alone, yet now she could not resist the impulse which prompted her to cast a large mantle over her shoulders, to quit the bal- cony, descend the stairs, and join the procession side by side with the Little Spouse of the Blessed Sacra- ment. The wide street and the open 'square were soon left 34 BLIND AGNESE behind, and poorer grew the aspect of the houses, and poorer still the class of persons who joined in the procession as it passed along; but still the harmony of the hymn was heard, new voices linking themselves on to the silver chain, just where the old ones dropped it ; and still the streets, however dark and squalid they might have been before, put on a robe of light and brightness to welcome its approach. At length it paused in one of the dirtiest of those dirty streets, of which there is no lack at Naples. The song was hushed, the tinkling of the bells was heard no more, and in their stead arose the low murmur of prayer, as the people fell on their knees in all the mud and filth of that most filthy pavement. They thought not of these things, however, for they were in the presence of Him before whom cherubim and seraphim do veil their faces ; and how should dainty thought and earthly niceties intrude upon their minds? It was in truth to no kingly palace, to no lordly possessor of the earth, that the King of kings had come in person. The dwelling into which the priest now entered could only have been willingly chosen by voluntary pov- erty, or unwillingly forced upon that which was in- voluntary. At another time, Lady Oranmore might have trembled to find herself alone and unattended in such a place, at such an hour; but now, something which was neither curiosity, nor yet devotion, nor yet a settled purpose of any kind, seemed to draw her footsteps onward. She felt as if she were obeying an invisible spirit, and as if that spirit resided in the person of Agnese; and acting still upon the same irresistible impulse, when the child arose and followed BLIND AGNESE 35 the priest into the house, she forgot her native shyness, and stepped over the threshold with her. In a miserable room, on a miserable bed if, indeed, the heap of reeds and Indian straw could be so en- titled the stricken deer of the flock was lying. It was no sudden accident or sickness which had brought her there. The wasted form, the sunken cheek, the hectic colour, all told of the slow progress of that disease which inch by inch bears its victim to the tomb. Confession had probably gone before; all the his- tory of that young life had been told to God and to his minister, and the words of peace and pardon had been poured into her ear the "go in peace" of the very Saviour, who now had come in person to fill her heart with hope and her soul with joy; and hope, and joy, and heaven itself were all so vividly impressed upon her pallid face, that but for the poverty in which she was enveloped, and the lights around her bed, and the tears of the widowed woman (so soon to be a childless mother) who knelt beside her, she might have seemed to the excited imagination of Lady Oranmore not a dying woman, but an angel not a spirit ascend- ing to the sky, but one descended thence, to speak by her looks of the happiness of heaven. She felt all this, for she had hardly time to think it, or to place herself on her knees in a distant corner, where she could see without being seen, before the voice of the priest was heard, and the mother hushed her sobs, and the girl seemed to try and still her laboured breathing, in order to catch the import of his words. It was the Sacra- ment of Extreme Unction which he was about to ad- 36 BLIND AGNESE minister, and Lady Oranmore soon became absorbed in her deep attention to that most touching ritual, by which the Catholic Church invokes the pardon of an offended God upon every faculty of the dying person. The service was in Latin, but the priest translated each separate invocation into Italian, which every one present understood, and none seemed more entirely to comprehend, or more fully to enter into their spirit and their meaning than the invalid herself. She an- swered every prayer as well as her failing voice would let her, holding out her hands spontaneously, and it almost seemed joyfully, for the sacred oil with which they were to be anointed ; and when the last and most sacred of all rites was given, when Jesus, as the Viati- cum, the companion of her voyage, descended into her bosom, such a sweetness stole over her pale face, that Lady Oranmore felt as if she could have gazed upon her for ever. Never before had she seen such a con- scious joy in the hour of death. But the priest and the people were all departing, one or two sisters of charity alone remaining to aid the mother in the last offices to her dying child; and thus reminded that she herself was only an intruder, she turned to look for the child who had so unconsciously conducted her hither. Agnese was kneeling a little way apart, in the very attitude in which she ever knelt before the altar, only now she held in her clasped hands the string by which her dog was fastened, while the animal itself lay at her feet still and quiet, as if well accus- tomed to such scenes, and possessed of an instinctive consciousness of their awful nature. In a few minutes more, however, the child arose, laid a piece of silver BLIND AGNESE 37 on the pillow of the invalid, and glided softly to the open door. Lady Oranmore followed her directly into the open street, which, lately so full of light and people, was now as dark and silent as the grave ; and she could not help shuddering at the idea of this poor child, whose misfortune would have rendered her so peculiarly helpless in the hour of danger walking alone at that late hour through the deserted city. Suddenly as this thought crossed her mind, she resolved to fol- low and see her to her home; but she did not tell Agnese of her intention, nor did she even acquaint her with her presence, for she had a sort of desire to accompany her without her knowledge, and to behold her in a place where she could not be supposed to be influenced by the presence of strangers. In taking this resolution, no thought or fear of personal annoyance presented itself to her. She was little in the habit of calculating consequences, and at this moment was wrought up to a pitch of enthusiasm which carried her so far beyond the ordinary rules of prudence, that she ever afterwards felt as if through- out the night she had been acting in a dream. With all her courage, however, perhaps she was not sorry to find that Agnese's route, traced out for her with un- erring certainty by Perletta, brought her to a part of Naples with which she herself was perfectly ac- quainted ; so it was with more of curiosity than of any other feeling that she followed the child into one of the poorest houses of the poorest streets of the city, and up flight after flight of stairs, into a small close room, where, by the light just dawning in the east, 38 BLIND AGNESE she could dimly discern a table and a chair, and in one corner something like a bed, with a human figure stretched upon it. "Agnese," said a voice from beneath the coverlet, which was unmistakably that of the old dame of the fountain. "Grandmother!" replied the child, kneeling by the bed. "Where have you been, my child?" "I have been with Him, mother; He went to visit Sister Rosalie." "Sister Rosalie, who is Sister Rosalie, Agnese?" "She is of the Order of Penance of the Blessed Father St. Francis. All Naples know her well, mother. She lived among the poor, and served them as she would have served Jesus himself had she lived in the .days of Magdalen and Martha." "Mother," said Agnese again, after a little pause, "when I heard His bell, I guessed it was to the poor He was going ; so I took the piece of money which the lady gave me, for Rosalie is very poor, and the little she has she gives it to those who are even pporer than she is." "It is well, my child ; you did right. Now, come to bed, Agnese ; it is time you took some rest." "Say rather it is time to rise, mother, for day is dawning in the east, and I have promised Francesco to bring him the corporals this very evening. Sleep still, dear mother. I will call you when your hour arrives." The old woman made no answer she was already fast asleep, and then Agnese set about her task with BLIND AGNESE 39 as much precision as if in perfect possession of her eyesight. Lady Oranmore watched her for a few minutes; but fearing the old woman might awaken and dis- cover her at her post, she at last reluctantly withdrew. The Church bells were all ringing, and the people everywhere astir in the city by the time she gained her Palazzo, and, feeling far too excited for sleep, she ordered her carriage, and drove at once to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, with the intention of ques- tioning Francesco concerning his blind protege. For this purpose she thought it best to go at once to the door by which she had seen him enter the Church in his search for Agnese; but it must be confessed that when he himself opened it to her little tap for admit- tance, she felt rather embarrassed how to begin the conversation. After the awkward pause of a moment, however, she succeeded in shaking off her little hesi- tation, and in saying, with all the frankness so natural to her 'You will think me mad, I suppose, if I tell you I have come to make inquiries about the blind child I saw you speaking to yesterday. She has in- terested me most strangely." "The signora's madness is not so strange to me," said the old man, with a smile, "for it is one in which I share." "But who is she what is she what makes her so unlike other children of her age?" "Who is she? She is Blind Agnese. What is she? A little beggar-girl that is her only dignity, except when children call her, in sport, 'the Little Spouse of the Blessed Sacrament,' so devoted is she to this 40 BLIND AGNESE mystery of love. And what makes her so unlike other children? Even He himself who loves them all in- deed, but who seems to have called this one more especially to live at His feet." "I can comprehend this child being very dear to God, but I cannot fathom the mystery of such deep thoughtfulness in one so young." "That is as much as to say we cannot fathom the mystery of His deep love for his creatures. But if the signora will believe me, there are many little ones full as thoughtful as Agnese, only we do not often see them, for they perish early young flowers they are, forced into premature bloom, to be cast on the path of the Lamb in heaven. And then," yet more earnestly the old man went on "and then, see you not, lady, that God is so good! He seldom denies one gift without bestowing a greater in its place, and if Agnese is blind, He has yet given her to behold her Saviour in His own Sacrament of Love, by a clearness of spiritual perception which the saints might even envy." "And has she been ever thus?" returned Lady Oranmore. " Was she never a child like the rest ? Or is this a second nature, the offspring of her misfor- tune?" "She has been thus ever since I have known her, but possibly it is a mixture of nature and of grace. There was a calm and thoughtful nature to begin with, and the grace of God took that nature and replenished it with sweetness." The old man raised his eyes to heaven, his coun- tenance overflowing with the very expression of sweet- BLIND AGNESE 41 ness of which he spoke. Lady Oranmore began to think him almost as interesting, and quite as incom- prehensible as Agnese herself. She had yet to learn the spirit of joy which Jesus pours out upon the soul that touches Him, as it were, in the Sacrament of His Love. "Tell me how you first became acquainted with her, for you say, 'since I have known her/ " she said. "It was about this time last year. I had some cor- porals and other linen to be washed for the altar, and I went into the church to seek for some child who might do it" "Child!" echoed Lady Oranmore; "I should have thought an older person better suited to the task." "It is only a fancy of my own. The signora must understand I always give them to a young child to wash. It seems to me He will be best pleased after- wards to repose in the Blessed Sacrament, upon linen which only such innocent hands have touched. And then, He so loved the little ones the sweet and loving Jesus ! Surely the signora has not forgotten how He bade them to approach, and would not have them to be forbidden, seeing that of such is the kingdom of heaven." Lady Oranmore was silent. The loving faith of the old man seemed to rebuke her own hardness and in- credulity of heart. And, finding she made no answer, Francesco proceeded "As the signora already knows, I went into the church, and there, just as she beheld her yesterday, was blind Agnese kneeling before the altar. It seems to be her natural position. I never saw her in any 42 BLIND AGNESE other at her prayers. Not liking to disturb her I went back again, and returning in half an hour found her still in the same attitude of devotion. This gave me a feeling of curious interest about her, so I waited until she rose of her own accord, and then followed her to yonder orange grove, and to the fountain, where an old woman sits, preparing iced water and lemonade. If the signora ever passes that way, and feels weary with her walk, she will find a chair placed pleasantly in the shade the perfume of the orange and acacia will revive her the lemonade is excellent and then the signora will be doing an act of charity to blind Agnese, for that old woman is her adopted mother." "That old woman I know her well. But is not, then, Agnese her real grandchild?" "God only knows to whom the orphan really be- longs. I questioned the old woman, but all she could tell was, that she herself had been an itinerant water- seller, and that one day, in the course of her trade, she had offered refreshments to a foreign lady sitting at the corner of the street, with an infant in her arms. The lady eagerly accepted a glass of water, but before she could carry it to her lips she fainted way. Happily she had fallen into the hands of a good Samaritan. The old woman had her carried to her own home; but it was a hopeless case ; the poor lady was dying." "Dying!" said Lady Oranmore, in a strange, un- natural tone; "of what, I pray you, was she dying?" "Poor lady, of hunger in the first instance, but I fear of a broken heart in the second. She had not long to live, but she had time at least to tell her story before she died." BLIND AGNESE 43 "And that story?" "It was a sad one. She was not of Italy; but in the distant land from whence she came, religion, it seems, is made a subject of oppression, and he who dares to worship God after the fashion of the ancient Church is liable to fine, imprisonment, and perhaps to death." "No, no," said Lady Oranmore, "not now to death, my friend. But tell me of the lady." "Her mother, it seems, was of the king's religion, and made it a part of her creed to hate all who did not think fit to profess it." "Was it thus she spoke of her mother?" Lady Oranmore asked, in a quick, agitated voice. "Alas, no, signora! Her words were full of ten- derness and love. It was I who spoke, in the bitter- ness of my soul, to think how religion could ever be made a source of disunion between child and parent." "Her heart was always loving and forgiving," said the lady, with difficulty repressing her tears. "The signora knew her, then?" "Go on, friend. What next?" "But little. Poor lady ! her story was as short as it was sad. She married a Catholic, became one, and displeased her mother. Still, in her husband's love, and the approval of her own conscience, she was happy and so she might have remained to this very hour, had it not been for another law of that unhappy land, by which, as well as I could understand it, one brother conforming to the king's religion might claim the property of the elder." 44 BLIND AGNESE Lady Oranmore groaned aloud. "The gentleman," pursued Francesco, "was one of three brothers; and the youngest of three was such a one as I have described. So one night, just after the birth of the poor, blind child, he came, claimed the property as his own, turned the sick lady, the new- born babe, and another child, some years older, out of the house, and sent them adrift upon the world." Lady Oranmore now sobbed aloud. "The signora has a good heart she can feel for the distress of those poor outcasts of religion. That night they took refuge in the house of a poor retainer, who braved the anger of the new lord, to show his grati- tude to the old one. It was necessary, however, that they should fly the country ; for the renegade, not con- tent with reducing his brother to beggary, had likewise accused him of malpractices against the government. On hearing these sad tidings the mother of the lady relented; she came and begged her daughter to reside with her; but the wife felt it both her duty and her happiness to cleave to her husband; so a very few hours afterwards they were together on the wide waters of the ocean, seeking, with their poor blind child, in a foreign land, the protection denied them in their own." "And the eldest child?" asked Lady Oranmore, quickly. "Ah !" said Francesco, shaking his head sadly, "that was the deepest grief of all I think to the dying lady. She could not tell what had become of it. It must have been left behind in the hurry and confusion of their flight, which, of course, was made in the hours BLIND AGNESE 45 of darkness. But unhappily they only missed it on boarding the vessel in which they were to sail, and no entreaty could prevail on the captain to delay their voyage even for an hour. Poor mother! She never mentioned her lost one without piteous moans. The murder of her husband scarce seemed to have made such an impression on her mind." "Murdered! Good God! was, then, poor Edward murdered ?" Francesco looked curiously at the lady. "Ill luck attended them from first to last," he said. "They were scarcely in the Italian seas before their vessel was attacked and taken by pirates. The poor gentleman fell fighting gallantly, under the very eyes of his unhappy wife." "Alas ! alas !" cried Lady Oranmore, weeping ; "my poor, unhappy May a prisoner among pirates !" "She was not with them long. Two or three Nea- politan vessels were in sight, so the pirates took every- thing of value out of the ship, and then set it on fire. The lady was rescued from this grave of mingled fire and water, and landed on the coast, from whence, with her infant in her arms, she begged her way to Naples. Happily she had learned our language from her husband, who had been brought up among us education being, it seems, one of the blessings denied in his own country to men of the proscribed religion ; and yet, starving, heart-broken, helpless, and a stran- ger, how she managed to make her way so far has ever been a mystery to me." "Go on, old man! What next? I conjure you, what next?" 46 BLIND AGNESE "Why, finding herself so near to death, she sent for a priest to make her peace with Heaven. From him she received all the last rites of our holy religion. The old woman has often told me since, that it was a touch- ing sight to see; for nothing would content her but she must have her infant in her arms when she received Jesus in the Viaticum; so I always think it was then and there the child imbibed her strange love for Him in His Sacrament of Love. Surely He passed in that hour from the bosom of the mother into the heart of the child!" "And then ?" sobbed Lady Oranmore. "And then," echoed Francesco, "she died, as might have been expected. In peace she died. God stilled the violence of the storm which had swept her young days in sorrow to the grave. To his fatherly tender- ness she consigned her child; and in the sacramental embraces of her Saviour, she herself went down to death, amid such sentiments of love and peace as St. John may have felt when resting his head on the very bosom of his living Lord." "And left no message no memorial?" "I had forgotten. She gave a packet to the old water-vendor, charging her to keep it safely, together with the signet-ring which she wore upon her finger. Poor thing! She fancied some of those whom she loved so well might one day come and seek her out, and adopt the poor blind child for the sake of its dead mother. She was mistaken, however; years have passed away, and Agnese knows no other relative than the poor old beggar-woman whom Providence sent as the protectress of her infancy." BLIND AGNESE 47 "Old man ! old man !" cried Lady Oranmore, wring- ing her hands in anguish, "accuse me not I am the mother of that unhappy creature." "Yes," she continued, after a long pause, during which her sobs and tears had prevented her from speak- ing ; "I quarreled with her because she obeyed the dic- tates of her conscience, and became a Catholic; and when I afterwards beheld her driven a fugitive from her native land, I stole her eldest child, intending to undo the wrong I had done her, by making her the heiress of all my wealth. I had not had the child a year when it disappeared, and God forgive me if I have done him wrong, but I have ever believed it was stolen by its unnatural uncle, and perhaps put to death, lest it should hereafter prove a troublesome claimant of his wealth. But you wrong me if you fancy I aban- doned my unhappy May, without inquiry, to her fate. I did all I could to find out the place to which she and her husband had retreated. You see yourself this was no easy matter, and it was all the more difficult because of the wars which so often interrupted the communica- tion between the countries. Unable, however, any longer to endure suspense, I have spent the last two years wandering about Italy, seeking my lost child from city to city, but until this day without the slightest clue to the right one." Francesco was moved at her evident distress. "Providence has been good to the signora," he ob- served at length; "he has been over her in all her wanderings, and has at last guided her to the very spot where she may recover all that remains to her of the treasure she has lost." 48 BLIND AGNESE "Old man," cried Lady Oranmore, dashing away her tears, "where is this precious packet? Come with me, I pray you I must see this old woman this very instant." "It is not in possession of the old woman, signora; she confided it to the care of the Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration; their convent is not far from hence: if the signora pleases, I will gladly guide her hither." "I thank you," said Lady Oranmore, lowering her len had not Francesco given her the support of his been seated; but she staggered, and would have fal- len, had not Francesco given her the support of his arm. "The signora is not well," he observed; "had she not better defer this visit?" "No, no," cried Lady Oranmore, impetuously; "any- thing is better than suspense. I must see this packet. Yet surely, I have not a doubt Agnese is my grand- child, the child of my poor, unhappy May." Francesco was well known at the convent, and the superioress made no difficulty in submitting the packet and the signet-ring to Lady Oranmore's inspection; the latter gazed at it long and silently, through her tears. "Yes," she murmured, "it is her own handwriting, I cannot be mistaken; and this is her signet-ring, which I gave her myself on her wedding-day. I must have this packet," she said, suddenly looking up; "it will be needful, should the identity of the child be dis- puted by her relations." The superioress coloured; but no human respect could deter her from her duty. BLIND AGNESE 49 "The signora must pardon me," she said; "I doubt not it is all exactly as she says, but the packet was in- trusted to my care, and should any others hereafter inquire for it, how am I to show that I was justified in delivering it now?" Lady Oranmore pulled a pocket-book from her bosom; it contained a lock of golden hair, and a few papers, yellow and worn, not so much with age as with constant reading, and perh?ps also with the tears of the reader. "Here," she said, "is all that remains to me of my ill-treated child. Never does this packet leave my bosom; sleeping or waking it is ever on my person. See here is the copy of her marriage certificate the original, I doubt not, is sealed up in your packet, and here is a long letter addressed to me, on her change of religion ; it is in English, so you cannot understand it ; but here is something that you can the note in which she informed me of the barbarous conduct of her brother-in-law; happily, she wrote it in Italian, that it might not be deciphered, should it fall into hands for which it was not intended. Read it, read it." The superioress took the note from the lady's trem- bling hand. It told, in sweet and touching language, the misfortunes of the writer of her husband's flight, a few hours after the birth of his child on a groundless suspicion of treason of the rage of his brother at the escape of his victim of his cruelty, in turning her and her children out of their home and of the blindness which had fallen on the youngest, in consequence of cold caught by the sudden exposure. It named the place to which she had retreated, and the arrangements 50 BLIND AGNESE which her husband was making for their flight into Italy; and it ended by a moving appeal to a mother's love for an only child, beseeching her to pardon and send her such a benediction as, had she been dying, she might have craved at her hands. It was impossible to doubt the evidence of this note ; handwriting, seal, and signature, all perfectly agreed with the packet already in the possession of the nun. She no longer had any difficulty in surrendering it into the hands of its new claimant. Lady Oranmore eagerly broke it open and found it to contain, as she had expected, the marriage certificate of May Netter- ville, with the copies of the baptismal register of both her children, as well as the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, which, in Ireland, was generally sus- pended from the neck of a new baptized infant. "Yes," said Lady Oranmore, "it is sufficient; this will make Agnese the heiress of her mother's fortune, and, perhaps, even the lawful claimant of her uncle's ill-gotten wealth should the man ever become a Ca- tholic again, as, in a fit of remorse, I sometimes imagine he will." She spoke in English ; the superioress, therefore, did not understand her; but there was a harshness in her tones which she did not like; and how, indeed, could it be otherwise ? The voice is so often an index to the thoughts, and Lady Oranmore's were, at that moment, less with her unhappy child than with the man who had done her wrong. "There is a lock of hair which has escaped the signora's observation," said the mild religious, hoping thus to recall her to gentler meditation. BLIND AGNESE 51 Lady Oranmore took it up ; it was indeed a lock of her own hair, and tears gushed in torrents from her eyes at this new proof of the enduring affection of her child. The superioress saw she had produced the wished- for emotion, and she went on, although with some em- barrassment, caused by the fear of giving pain. "There is yet another visit which, perhaps, the sig- nora would like to make before she leaves the con- vent." Lady Oranmore shuddered she felt she was summoned to the grave of her child. "It is true," she stammered ; "I had intended to have asked it, as soon as I could find courage." The superioress took her arm, and in a few min- utes they were in the little cemetery belonging to the convent a lovely spot it was, shut out from all, save the eye of heaven, by the tall ilex trees with which it was surrounded each little lowly grave was sur- mounted by a cross, telling of the hope of those who slept beneath, but bearing neither name nor date upon it. Name and date were unneeded there, for the slum- berers in that sanctuary of peace were all the faithful spouses of a crucified God, who had written their names in the palm of His hand from the day, when, by their life-long dedication to His service, they had spiritually died for His love to the world and them- selves. One grave there was, however, which was not so nameless it was beautiful, with many flowers springing from the turf, and white with the blossoms of the orange and the myrtle, which had fallen in showers upon it ; and the cross above it bore a prayer for the repose of the soul of May Netterville, to whose 52 BLIND AGNESE remains the rare privilege of burial within the ceme- tery of the convent had been accorded, because (so the inscription stated) she had died far from her home and her own country, poor, and alone, and friendless, in a foreign land. The superioress pointed to the name, and then, with intuitive delicacy, silently withdrew, leaving the unhappy mother to her own re- flections. Bitter, very bitter, because mingled with much of self-reproach, they must have been, and when, half an hour afterwards, the nun returned, she saw that Lady Oranmore had been weeping violently, and guessed, from the disordered state of her dress and bonnet, that she must have been prostrate on the grave of her child. "Weep not for her, dearest lady," said the nun, kindly; "she died happily, and she rests in peace. See, we chose the sweetest spot in all the cemetery for her, just beneath the shadow of this beautiful myrtle and we took all the rarest flowers of our gar- den to plant them on her grave. We did not then know that she had a mother; but I well remember it was agreed among us, to receive her precious remains with all the love and reverence a mother's heart would have been consoled to offer, or see offered to her child." Lady Oranmore could not speak her thanks just then, but, before she left the convent, she pressed Mother Matilda's hand to her lips, and besought her, in moving terms, to continue her kind care of the grave, where all her own hopes of happiness lay buried. Then with a myrtle branch, which she had brought BLIND AGNESE 53 from thence in her hand, she left the convent, leaning as before on the arm of the good Francesco. "And now where does the signora wish to go?" he asked. "She is tired, and would she not like to go to her palazzo for a little repose?" "No, no," said Lady Oranmore; "I can have no repose until I have embraced my grandchild. Let us seek the old water-seller at her stall." "Ah, poor Benita," said Francesco, shaking his head, "it will go hard with her to lose her darling; I greatly doubt she will break her old heart." "I should be very sorry so to grieve her," said Lady Oranmore, compassionately. "Think you she would come with me ? I would gladly give her a home." "It is kind of the signora to say so but no I think Benita would not be happy that way either ; she is too old for new friends and a new country. Bet- ter to promise the child shall sometimes return to visit her." "That I can readily do," said Lady Oranmore, sigh- ing, "for I also have an attraction in the grave of my child, which will often bring me to revisit this land. "Yonder is the orange grove, where we shall find Benita and her grandchild; and now that the signora has found her own, may heaven prosper her as she deals rightly and fairly by the child, whom Providence has so wonderfully restored to her care." Lady Oranmore changed colour; her conscience told her she was neither going to act rightly nor fairly by the child or its dead mother; for well she knew that mother's heart, and she felt that May Net- terville would rather have bequeathed her little one to 54 BLIND AGNESE the care of the poorest beggar in the land than to the guardianship of any one who would tamper with her faith. "But, what then?" thought Lady Oranmore, seek- ing her excuse, as all worldly-minded people do, in the expediency of the thing. "The happiness of my poor May is no longer dependent on the religion of the child; and, besides, she did not bequeath Agnese to me. I found her for myself; and this, surely, gives me a right to do as I please; and if I do not please to bring her up a Protestant, she will not only lose her chance of the broad lands of Netterville, she will even forfeit all right to the estate she ought to inherit from me ; for the next in succession is a Prot- estant; and I know him too well to suppose he will forego his legal claim from any sense of justice to- wards me or mine." By such a train of reasoning as this she contrived to stifle her own scruples on the subject; but feeling instinctively that her arguments would have little weight with Francesco, she made no other reply to his observations than the very significant one of quickening her footsteps on her way to the fountain. Three days afterwards Agnese knelt for the last time before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, in her favourite church, and Francesco stood beside her ; she was in tears, for she had that morning bid adieu to the kind old woman who, for so many years, had cherished her as her own ; and now, a yet more cruel separation was awaiting her, in her parting with Fran- cesco, and her farewell to the dear little church where she had enjoyed so many hours of calm and heavenly BLIND AGNESE 55 devotion. Little less sorrowful was the old man him- self. Something there was in Lady Oranmore's man- ner which made him tremble for the future religion of his darling, and he was sorely perplexed how to fortify her against this danger, and, at the same time, to avoid filling her mind with fear and distrust of one, whom it would be her duty henceforth to reverence as a mother. Small time had he to revolve the matter in his own mind, for a servant entered the church to say, that the travelling carriage was at the door, and her ladyship desired the presence of Agnese. The child arose; but Francesco laid his hand on her shoulder, and said to her, in a voice so solemn that she was startled by its strangeness "Tarry yet another instant, my child, and listen to my words. Agnese, Jesus is on that altar: He is looking on you listening to you; and if ever, on this holy spot, you have promised to be faithful to Him in the Sacrament of His love, renew that prom- ise now; give it into the hands and heart of the Im- maculate Mother, and she will place it for you in the sacred heart of her Son." The words of the old man seemed to penetrate Agnese's very soul; she sank on her knees, and said, in a low but earnest voice "I do promise to be faithful to Jesus, even unto death." "Unto death," repeated Francesco; "ay, that is the right word for the child of martyrs. Be faithful to Jesus unto death, if you would have Him faithful to you unto life everlasting. Agnese, they may seek to make you desert the religion in which He alone is to 56" BLIND AGNESE be found ; but believe them not, my child. Never pray in a church where He is not." "I will not," said the child; "but how am I to know ?" With something almost like inspiration, Francesco answered "Ask whether a lamp is burning before the altar. If there is not, leave the church, for Jesus is neither in it nor of it. 5 ' "I will, Francesco." "You may have much to go through of trouble and persecution, my child. But here is a picture; it is of the sacred hearts of Jesus and of Mary, and they are wreathed together by thorns." Agnese kissed and placed it in her bosom. "Thorns, Agnese," proceeded Francesco, "are rude to the touch, but the flowers they guard are always the most safe, often even the most full of sweetness. What heart so pure what heart so sweet what heart so sorrowful as the heart of the Virgin Mother of God. And of her it is written, 'She was a lily among thorns/ Think of this, my child ; and should the thorny diadem ever descend upon your brow, receive it lovingly and thankfully, seeing it will make you resembling to her." There was so sad a foreboding in Agnese's heart, as she listened to these words, that, in her fears for the future, she almost forgot her present sorrow, hardly heard the remaining words of Francesco, was hardly conscious of his final benediction, although she had fallen on her knees to receive it, hardly even felt Lady Oranmore embracing her as the child of her lost May. She only knew distinctly that she was leaving BLIND AGNESE 57 the land where Jesus dwelt upon every altar; and, sinking back in a corner of the carriage, and burying her head in the neck of Perletta, the Little Spouse of the Blessed Sacrament murmured through her tears "Oh ! that the dove would descend and give Him to my prayers !" CHAPTER III ! that the dove would descend and give Him to my prayers!" It was Agnese's last prayer on leaving Naples; it was her first on arriving at Oran- more Castle. Her troubles, in fact, seemed about to commence just where most little heroines of romance find a termination to theirs that is to say, in a loving protectress and a magnificent home. Not that she had felt positively unhappy during the journey; her feelings had been rather stunned than excited by the sudden change in her position; she could not perfectly understand its reality, or compre- hend how it was, that a few days before she had been the grandchild of a poor water vendor, and now stood precisely in the same relationship to a lady ranking among the richest and noblest in the land. Neither did she imagine herself so entirely separated, as, in truth, she was, from all she loved and cared for upon earth. She would revisit Italy, so Lady Oran- more had promised her grandmother; she would sit once more beside Benita, near her orange-shaded fountain; she would kneel with Francesco before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament ; and then nothing, she knew, could separate her from Jesus ; His altars were everywhere, and He was everywhere on His altars; and never did she pass a single day during their jour- ney without seeking Him there. Long before Lady Oranmore or her attendants were 58 BLIND AGNESE 59 awake, Agnese was on her way to the church of the town or village in which they had spent the night. And for this happiness she was indebted to the un- erring sagacity of Perletta, who knew her wishes quite as well as she did herself. She had only to say, "Alia chiesa, alia chiesa!" and Perletta looked to the right and looked to the left, pricked up her ears, and set off directly in the direction in which the church bells were ringing, nor did she ever fail in the object of her search. Sooner or later the church was found, and the blind child conducted through the gates, and along the aisle, and up even to the very rails of the sanctuary ; and there Perletta would coil herself com- fortably up into a little round ball, and fall fast asleep ; while Agnese, on her part, reverently knelt down to pray, by the modesty of her attitude and tenderness of her devotion unconsciously preaching the sweet Jesus to all who saw her. It cannot be supposed that Lady Oranmore par- ticularly fancied these lonely expeditions, yet she did not forbid them, because unwilling to commence her guardianship by such a disagreeable act of authority; and finding, at last, that Agnese always returned with- out accident, she took confidence in the good guidance of Perletta, and lost all her anxieties on the subject, if, indeed, she did not forget it altogether. Her mem- ory, however, was suddenly refreshed by a rather un- pleasant incident which took place on their arrival at Dover. They had only landed the night before, but, though feeling sick and giddy from the rough sea voyage, Agnese could not resolve upon giving up her visit to the church, so she rose early, and, descending 60 BLIND AGNESE into the street, shook the ribbon round Perletta's neck, and said, as usual, "Alia chiesa ! alia chiesa !" Alas! for poor Perletta! For once her sagacity was completely at fault. She had hitherto always had a clue to her destination in the ringing of the bells, the thronging of the people without, the low murmur of prayer from within; but now, in vain she snuffed the air in vain she ran backwards and forwards, up the street and down the street. The poor dog was completely bewildered. It is true she came to a church, but the doors were closed; the bells were silent; not a creature was lingering near it. Perletta was not used to see deserted churches, so she very naturally passed it by. Her next essay was the market-place. There was plenty of people here, and something more than the murmur of voices among its buyers and sellers. But Perletta understood markets quite as well as she did churches ; and, being a dog of sagacity, knew this was not precisely what Agnese wanted, therefore she trotted on until she arrived at the theatre. It so happened that a celebrated actor was to perform there that night, and hundreds of people were already at the doors to secure themselves places. Perletta began to think she was right this time, but a kick from an impatient bye-stander speedily convinced her of her error, and, howling with pain, she ran off so fast that Agnese had some difficulty in keeping up to her paces. On their way back, they once more stumbled upon the church; and this time the bells were tolling, for a funeral was to take place there that day. What wonder if Perletta was deceived. She trotted up the steps, and, finding the gates still BLIND AGNESE 61 closed, very contentedly coiled herself up at their en- trance, thus giving Agnese intelligibly to understand that she had accomplished her mission, and would go no further. The blind child took the hint and sat down on the steps, resolving to wait there until the church should be opened. But minute after minute passed away, and no one came. And now the poor little Italian began to shiver in the cold; yet, perhaps, it was not altogether the unaccustomed rawness of a British morning which made her tremble: there was a vague fear also falling around her, which seemed to penetrate and chill her very heart. It was so strange to her that a church should be there, and no one to enter it; that the bells should be tolling, and no one found to obey the summons. Poor Agnese! she was not much of a philosopher, I am afraid, for at last, finding herself disappointed in her hopes, and fright- ened and confused, she could scarcely tell wherefore, she put her arms around the neck of her faithful Perletta, and burst into tears. Her foreign dress, her desolate attitude, the dog, which everywhere betrayed the secret of her blindness, soon drew a crowd around her; and innumerable were the conjectures, some in jest and some in earnest, elicited by her singular ap- pearance. "Who is she? What is she? Has she lost anybody, or has anybody lost her?" Sometimes the spectators addressed these queries to Agnese, some- times to each other. The child grew every moment more bewildered. She felt the crowd pressing heavily around her; she heard their questions, though she could not understand their import. And once she even rose with the intention of making her escape, but sud- 62 BLIND AGNESE denly recollecting her inability to do so, she sat down again, trembling violently, and weeping more bitterly than ever. "Do be quiet," said an elderly gentleman; "you ter- rify the child with your chatter. What is it, my little one, and why do you weep so sadly?" he added ad- dressing Agnese. The blind child did not understand this speech, but she answered in the only English word she could as yet perfectly pronounce "Church church!" "She must be a furriner," said a sailor. "They are used to having their churches always open in furrin parts." "That's it," said another. "Look at all her furrin gew-gaws. I suppose that this little Papist spawn is one of the party from the packet last night." "A Papist!" said a tall, evangelical-looking person, with a very vinegar aspect; "the Lord preserve us. It would be a charity to send her to the poorhouse, poor benighted individual." "It would be a greater charity to see her safe home to her friends, I should say," said Agnese's self- elected champion, indignantly eyeing the vinegar- faced evangelical. "Harkee, Mr. sailor, what inn did this foreign party put up at?" "Star and Garter, sir; and I won't take upon me to say, this young un was among them. But there wor some furrin parrots, that I'll take my oath of; they were chattering at such a precious rate as they stepped out of the packet." "Well, we can but try. Come along, my little maid ; BLIND AGNESE 63 I will see if I cannot make out your friends for you," said the gentleman, taking her hand; and Perletta, starting forward at the same moment, Agnese had no choice but to obey. The inn was easily found, and Agnese restored to her grandmother, who had begun to feel exceedingly alarmed by her absence. "Explain to your grandchild, madame," said the old gentleman, with a caustic severity of phrase, which might hardly have been expected from one of his sin- gularly mild and benevolent appearance, "that we are a commercial people, and have no idea of giving more than is asked for anything, however important. Six days in the week we keep for ourselves; the seventh we give to God. 'Tis what He himself demanded, and we stick to our agreement. We are too business- like to do more than is necessary; it would be a waste of both time and capital." The old gentleman spoke in a kind of jesting earn- est; and Lady Oranmore felt so provoked both at the truth and freedom of his words, that she did not thank him, perhaps, quite so graciously as she might otherwise have done. The reserve did not seem at all to afflict him, however ; he patted Perletta on the head, shook Agnese by the hand, and, in reply to her little speech of gratitude, uttered in Italian, but made quite intelligible by its tone and manner, he only answered "It is nothing, my child, absolutely nothing ; only as you are a Papist, and do not belong to this mercantile people, perhaps you had better go back to the land from whence you came. I am told you can there waste your time in the churches all the day long, if 64 BLIND AGNESE you like it; if, indeed, waste of time it be, to bestow it on Him who is the Lord of time as well as of eternity." He laid his hand on her head as he spoke in token of farewell; and the action recalled Francesco so vividly to her mind, that Agnese burst into tears. The stranger cast one more glance of compassion upon her, bowed to Lady Oranmore, and abruptly quitted the room. As soon as he had fairly closed the door, the latter tried to make Agnese comprehend the in- utility of seeking for open churches in England upon any day but Sunday. Had she told her the sun had left the heavens, the blind child would probably have been infinitely less astounded. To all her ladyship's arguments, as to the necessity of attending to busi- ness, the duty men owed to themselves and their chil- dren of unceasing toil from morning until night, Agnese only answered "Then He is left alone, no one to pray to Him all the week long ; no one to worship Him; no one to love Him; and yet, He is there, only that we may love Him and speak to Him quite at our ease." Lady Oranmore felt at last she was only wasting her rhetoric ; so she ceased to argue, and endeavoured to console the weeping child by assuring her that, on their arrival at Oranmore Castle, she would take her to the village church which she had always been in the habit of attending herself ; and in which, on Sun- days, at least, she might pray all the day long if she liked it. Agnese did not seem quite so enchanted with this assurance as her ladyship had expected; in fact, she began to doubt seriously as to the nature of her BLIND AGNESE 65 grandmother's religion. The prediction of Francesco appeared on the point of fulfilment, and she felt it was not, perhaps, in vain that he had required her so solemnly to promise to be faithful to Jesus even unto death. How far she was right in her conjectures my readers already know; but, although Lady Oranmore had fully resolved upon changing the religion of her grandchild, she yet shrunk from inflicting the pain which she felt such a resolution would cause to its object. The possibility of Agnese's resisting her au- thority never, for an instant, occurred to her mind. "Such a mere child," thought she; "what on earth difference can it make to her?" And yet, something in her own heart told her there was a difference a difference which she had felt herself a difference which would be yet more distasteful to the feelings of Agnese, than she was forced sometimes to acknowl- edge she had found it to her own. She determined, therefore, to do nothing in a hurry, but to wait until Agnese's Italian recollections had faded away, and until her young heart should have been chilled into in- difference by the absence of all the sight and cere- monial of the Catholic Church, which she fancied had nursed it into its fervent religion, before venturing to propose a new form to its worship. She little knew the strength of mind, young as it was, with which she had to deal, still less did she comprehend the endur- ing character of that faith which had early stamped itself on Agnese's heart, for she felt that she herself at the same age had been totally without any fixed religious principle of any kind, and that, at the bare instigation of a superior, she would have gone quite 66 BLIND AGNESE willingly to any church, chapel, or meeting-house in the land. With such a recollection in her own heart, it was not difficult to argue herself into a belief in the growing indifference of Agnese a supposition, certainly, in some degree countenanced by the quiet way in which the latter received the customary Sun- day speech of "We cannot go to church to-day, Agnese ; the weather is too cold, or too damp, or too foggy. Remember we are not in Italy, dear child." Poor Agnese! she remembered it all too well; but she also had taken her resolution "to wait and see ;" and, strong in her determination of passive resistance, she suffered nothing of this bitter recollection to be visible in her manner as she left Lady Oranmore's presence, and sought in the solitude of her own little turret-chamber spiritually to unite herself to the various services of her church. After the accomplishment of this first beloved and for her daily duty, there was nothing the lonely child loved so well as to ramble by the sea-shore, under the guidance of Perletta, or to sit and muse away the hours on the sunny spot which r>he had chosen for her summer seat among the cliffs. I know not by what secret instinct she was led, yet certain it is, that she chose the holiest spot in all the country round, and one which the peasant never passed but with bare head and reverent mien, for the scene of her lonely meditations. And it was fair as it was holy; lovely even in its ruins was the little church which crowned the cliffs, and looked down, in its calm sanctity, on the broad waters of the Atlantic, beating idly and angrily against the rocks below; lovelier still, if possible, the BLIND AGNESE 67 quiet cemetery by which it was surrounded, and in which every wild flower the country side could boast of seemed to have made for itself a garden prim- rose, and violet, and wood anemone, and wild sorrel clustering among its tombs in rich abundance, and con- trasting their scentless blossoms with the sweet flowers of the May, and the meadow sweet, and that white wild rose which is so fragrant and so fair, that though it blooms freely by the way side, it is not out of place in the garden of a monarch. Agnese could not see them, but the summer's breeze often reminded her of their presence ; and something there was in their soft perfume recalling the orange-scented groves of her native Italy, and bidding her dream sweet dreams of the land which now, more than ever, she deemed to be the land of Jesus. She did not know that a church, where once He dwelt upon the altar, was close at hand, or that her favourite resting-place was a tomb-stone, beneath which, perchance, some village saint lay bur- ied. But there was a holy stillness ever resting on the spot, which soothed her spirits; and so, by degrees, she came here oftener, and lingered longer, until the servants learned to seek her, whenever she was miss- ing, among the ruins of St. Bride's ; and the very coun- try people came to call her lowly resting-place among its tombs the summer seat of Lady Oranmore's blind child. Here she nursed her soul in that deep thought which Lady Oranmore fancied had disappeared, only because it was no longer visible on the surface, but which, in truth, became all the deeper, now that it could no longer flow forth into the observances of religion. Had she remained in Italy, in the free exercise of her 68 BLIND AGNESE religion and under the guidance of its ministers, thought would have resolved itself into action, and action would have been made pleasant and sanctified by thought. As it happened, her life became one uninterrupted medi- tation; and a state of things so unnatural to one of her tender years soon told its tale upon her bodily health. She had not been three months at Oranmore before there seemed every probability that the observa- tion of Francesco would be realized in her regard, and that the flower would early fall, which circumstances had thus forced into premature bloom and sweetness. Lady Oranmore watched the vivid flush on the cheek, and the strange brightness of the eye, and she trembled for the life of her darling; but she could not pene- trate the secret of her malady: she had not sufficient sense of religion herself to be able to comprehend how its deprivation might affect a mind which, like Ag- nese's, had fed on it from infancy. She knew not how the daily prayer of the blind child was for the dove, that it might descend how her nightly dream was of the dove, that it had descended. Neither did she see the bitter tears in which she was accustomed to in- dulge, when believing herself alone and un watched, in her lonely rambles on the cliffs. One there was, how- ever, not quite so ignorant of Agnese's sorrow one, ever hovering near her and around her, even in the hours when the child fancied herself alone; and some- times a light step in the grass, or a sigh, or a long- drawn breath, almost betrayed the presence of this in- visible guardian. This had occurred so frequently of late, that by degrees a kind of mysterious awe began to mingle with her musings; she never felt as if she BLIND AGNESE 69 were quite alone. It was always as though a spirit was lingering near; and one evening (it surely could not have been her fancy) she even imagined a sweet, low voice pronounced her name "Agnese !" Trembling violently, she started to her feet, but no answer was returned to her eager questions, only she thought she heard a deeper sigh, and then a receding footstep, and then all was once more silent as the grave. Agnese sat down again, for she felt she could not stand, and her heart throbbed so wildly that she almost fancied she could hear it beating; a few min- utes afterwards she was once more startled by the sound of her own name, but this time it was Lady Oranmore, who came to tell her that the next day, being Sunday, she would take her with her, if she liked, to Divine Service at the Church of Oranmore. Agnese listened, but she was not glad, and she thanked her, but it was mechanically. There was no real joy in her words and feelings. She did not feel sure Lady Oranmore was a Catholic, and it was therefore with depressed spirits and trembling heart that she pre- pared the next morning to accompany her to Church. If ever our angel guardians give warning of the pres- ence of danger, as I devoutly believe they often do by their secret inspirations to the innocently unconscious, Agnese received such a warning in the hour when she stepped over the threshold of that Church. She felt as if the very air were too heavy for her breathing. The service had commenced already, and she paused for a moment, in hopes of catching those dear, famil- iar sounds to which she had listened from her child- hood, until it almost seemed as if she understood them 70 BLIND AGNESE by mere force of intimacy with their terms. Alas ! the language that now met her ear was not the language of the Mass, by which the Catholic is made equally at home in the observances of his religion, whether he attend them in the wigwam of the savage Indian, or the cathedral of the civilized European. It was not the language of the Mass, and the words of Francesco flashed upon her memory. "No! no! not here!" she said, quick as lightning, resisting the hand which urged her into the well- cushioned pew of the Oranmore family. "Under the lamp! under the lamp! It is there I ever pray the best !" "There is no lamp here," said Lady Oranmore, thrown off her guard by the suddenness of the request, and closing the door of the pew, into which she had now drawn her grandchild almost by force. Agnese heard, and for one brief instant there was a struggle in her heart, a struggle such as seldom occurs more than once in the life of a human being, but which sometimes earlier, sometimes later, is almost sure, not only to come at last, but to be made far oftener than we imagine the turning-point at which the happiness or misery of an eternity is decided. "What will Lady Oranmore say? what will the people think?" It was so her human nature ques- tioned; but in truth it required something of the faith and courage of a martyr to brave the scrutiny of the hundred eyes that would be fixed upon her, if she attempted to leave the Church. But it must be done no Latin Mass, no lamp. Jesus was neither in the Church nor of it, and not another instant might the Little Bride of the Blessed Sacrament kneel be- BLIND AGNESE 71 fore an altar where He was not. One prayer to Him one word to Perletta, and, before Lady Oranmore could interpose to prevent it, the pew door was un- fastened, and the long length of the Church traversed, with a steady heart, although it must be acknowledged a most uncertain footstep. Up to this point Agnese had managed to restrain herself to a walk; but no sooner had she gained the portals of the building than, yielding to the fear of being pursued, she shook the ribbon round Perletta's neck, and set off at a rapid pace towards her summer seat upon the cliffs. There, casting herself on her face, she burst into tears; by degrees, however, her agitation subsided, and she fell fast asleep, yet even in her dreams the scene of the morning was not absent from her imagination, and more than once she murmured half aloud, "Jesus is not here where is He, then ? my God, where is He ?" "Jesus once was here," said a sweet, low voice in her ear. Agnese started up, fancying at first the words to be only a portion of her own dream. But now she was wide awake, and still the plaintive melody of that voice was heard. "Time was that He was here, and yonder church was His house and home. But sacri- legious feet have defiled the sanctuary, and sacrileg- ious hands have overturned the altar, and now the thistle and wild nettle grow, and the fox has made for itself a home, even here where He once dwelt in the very sacrament of His love for man." "Where am I? where am I?" said Agnese, scarcely able to believe her own ears, and tempted to fancy she was again in Italy, or dreaming of it, so familiar were the soft Italian in which those thoughts were uttered. 72 BLIND AGNESE "Where are you?" returned the voice. "In the churchyard of lone St. Bride's on the very spot where, if tradition tells the truth, St. Patrick built his first altar, and said his first Mass in the land of Erin.* "Then I am close to the Church of Jesus, and I knew it not," said the wondering child. "To what once was a church of Jesus. The church is now in ruins; and they who hare made it so have run a public road right among the tombs of the dese- crated dead. Well! well! nature has been more con- siderate than man, as they say she ever is in this land, and so she has made the holy resting-place of our fathers beautiful in flowers, some of the pale blos- soms she has garnered here even vicing, methinks, in beauty with the fairest that you know of in your own fair land." Agnese was too much lost in astonishment to an- swer; and, after a moment's pause, the invisible went on "Would that you could see them! The crowds of primroses; the clusters of white roses; the delicate little hare-bell ; the wood anemone ; and that other, the wild sorrel the fairest flower that grows, to my mind 'lady flower,' I would name it, if I had my way; it is so fragile and so fair, that it looks like to Mary, and ought to be called after her. There I have gathered some of each for you, and they shall be to you as a relic of this holy spot, where (so the poor people say) no worm or creeping thing is ever found, to defile the slumbers of the dead below, or to mar the beauty of the flowers above." * Tradition in the north of Ireland. BLIND AGNESE 73 "Come hither," said Agnese; "I am blind, and I cannot see; but if you are not the guardian spirit of these tombs, come hither, and take my hand in yours, and lay my head upon your bosom, and speak to me of Jesus. Never have I heard any one speak of Him as you do, since the day I left that land where He is everywhere, and everywhere people love Him." Agnese felt the unknown draw near; and the hand that was laid on hers was small, and soft, and delicate, evidently the hand of a girl, and a very young girl, too. "Neither a spirit, nor yet of Italy, am I," the voice replied; "although I use its language." "Not of Italy," said the blind child, sadly. "Then you know not of its churches, where the lamp is ever lighting, and where Jesus ever dwells." "Do I not?" said the voice, with sudden quickness. "To what purpose, then, have I listened so often to tales of that fair land, and of one sweet saint who sleeps among its flowers?" There was something inexpressibly mournful in its tones, as it added, after a moment's pause "My child, no blood of Italy is flowing through these veins ; yet have I dreamed of it so often that it seems to me, if the kingdoms of the earth were set in array before me, I could choose it out from among all the rest, and oh! believe me, I should choose the fairest" "And the holiest," said Agnese, eagerly. "I know not that. It is holy, indeed, to cling to the thought of Jesus, as they do in your land; but holier still to suffer persecution for His sake; and that is what we do in ours." 74 BLIND AGNESE ''Halloa! young woman," cried another voice, "saw you ever a man pass this way within the last half hour?" The new speaker was a hard-looking elderly man, standing on the other side of a hedge and deep ditch which separated him from the churchyard. He spoke in Irish, probably imagining he would be more easily understood in that language; but Agnese's unknown companion answered him in English: and the voice, so lately full of plaintive melody, was now as clearly expressive of cold contempt as were the words it ut- tered. "Squire Netterville is early in the field this fine Sun- day morning. Well ! the better day the better deed, I suppose. And what may be the present game a rebel or a priest ?" "If it were a rebel, I need not go much farther," re- turned the surly voice, in the same language in which he had been addressed. "Every Papist is alike a croppy man, woman or child all tarred with the same brush." "True; and not very extraordinary either. When the brush is in such clumsy hands as Squire Netter- ville's, no wonder, we all take a touch of the tar. Why, they say the very parson in your fine church up yonder is not altogether free of taint. To be sure he is only a wolf in sheep's clothing a cowardly renegade so Squire Netterville will know how to excuse him." "Will you give an answer to my question, or shall I jump over the hedge and thrash one out of you!" roared the man, stung to the quick by the biting sar- casm of the speaker. BLIND AGNESE 75 "Mother of heaven!" burst from the lips of the terrified Agnese, who now pretty well understood English, the language in which the conversation was kept up : but her companion only answered "To thrash a woman! truly it would be a deed worthy of Squire Netterville's ancient fame!" "See if I don't, then," cried the man, stepping back a few paces, and taking a flying leap at the hedge. Unluckily for him, however, he missed his footing, and tumbled hopelessly into the ditch, from whence he emerged in a very deplorable condition, covered with mud, and not altogether free of blood, drawn from him by the thorns and briars which had saluted his ;descent. The ironical laugh of his tormentress rang through the air. "Squire Netterville has dirtied his coat; but, if re- port speaks true, it is not the first time he has daubed his escutcheon by a fall." Squire Netterville was busy at the moment in brush- ing the mud off his coat ; but he looked up scarlet, at this wicked allusion to his apostasy, and shook his horsewhip in the air. Suddenly, however, changing his intention, he caught Agnese roughly by the arm. "Here, you beggar's brat, take this fi'-penny, and tell me whether you saw any one pass this way of late." "I am blind, sir; I cannot see," cried the terrified child, trembling from head to foot beneath his grasp. "You lie, you young rebel!" growled the savage, with a terrible oath, whirling his horsewhip, at the same time, so close round the head of the shrinking 76 BLIND AGNESE child, that it lifted her long curls from her brow. Twice he repeated this manoeuvre; but the third time it would have descended in right earnest, had not some one suddenly flung her arms round Agnese, and re- ceived, on her own person, the blow that was intended for hers. It was her invisible friend, who thus inter- posed in her behalf; and she was a young girl, not, perhaps, more than sixteen years of age. Yet was there no sign of fear on her flushed cheek, or in the proud eye which she fixed upon the squire. He him- self seemed to quail for a moment beneath its steady gaze. "Squire Netterville surpasses himself this morning," she said; and it was impossible for human voice to convey deeper abhorrence than hers expressed at that moment. "To hunt an old man, as if he were a mad dog, is not enough for a zeal like his; he would set the seal on his good deeds by the murder of an in- nocent child." "You have seen him, then. Now, hark ye, young mistress! if you will not tell me which way he took, I will leave a mark upon you which you will carry with you to your grave." "You have done that already," said the girl, draw- ing one hand across her brow, from which the blood was flowing rapidly. "I will do it again, then, if you don't choose to an- swer my question." "Now, look you, Squire Netterville," the girl an- swered, proudly; "and mark what I say. I might pre- tend I didn't know the man for whom you are looking or that I hadn't seen him, but I scorn the poor evasion. BLIND AGNESE 77 I do know him; and I have seen him; and I know which way he went ; and where he is at this moment. And now, if you flog me alive for it, you shall not get another word from me about him." "I will flog you alive both of you," shouted Netter- ville. "Here, you little wretch," he cried, shaking Ag- nese by the arm : "have you found your tongue yet, or do you want a cut of the whip to make you speak?" "I am blind ! I am blind !" screamed the child, cling- ing, with all her might, to her self-elected champion. "Peace, child, he shall not harm you," said the latter. "Shan't I, though shan't I?" vociferated Netter- ville, lifting his whip, and making a cut in the air, which, however, fell short of its object, and descended right upon Perletta, who had sprung up on hearing the screams of her mistress. "Curse the brute it spoiled my aim," said the sav- age, dealing, at the same time, a kick at poor Per- letta, which sent her flying through the air. Here, Rover! Rover!" he added, whistling and making a well-known sign to the fierce blood-hound by which he was accompanied. "Do not set the dog, Squire Netterville; do not set the dog. It will destroy the poor beast," said Agnese's defender, earnestly, stooping as if to pick up something from the ground. "That's what I mean him to do. Here, Rover, have at him, my boy have at him !" said Netterville, patting the blood-hound encouragingly on the back. "You will have it, then," retorted the girl. And still holding Agnese with one hand, she drew the other suddenly back, and flung a heavy stone at 78 BLIND AGNESE the dog, before the squire could interpose to prevent her. Never was stone sent with a truer aim or better will: it hit the savage beast right in the eye; and, howling with pain, and half blinded in his own gore, Rover rushed ingloriously from the field of battle. Netterville uttered a fearful imprecation. "If you have injured him I will ring your head off your shoulders ; anyhow, I will teach you what it is to meddle with my dog, my young mistress." And, half beside himself with passion, it is hard to say what he would not, indeed, have done to his daring antagonist, had not another man shouted out from the other side of the hedge. "What are you doing here, squire ? Why, the priest was down on the beach half an hour ago ; one of our people saw him sneaking about. There, let the chil- dren alone. If you have a score to wipe out with them, it will keep for another time, I suppose." "Ay, ay ; it will keep," said the squire, with a brutal laugh. "And I am not the man to forget it either. You are down in my book for a drubbing, mind that, you she croppy," he added, scowling terribly at Ag- nese's defender, while he turned to the blind child herself, with something like an awkward attempt at good nature. "There, little one, I suppose you are blind, as you say so ; pick up the fi-penny yonder, and buy a plaster for your dog." "Touch it not, child," said the young unknown, fear- lessly and authoritatively to Agnese. "Touch it not; the coin of the blood-hunter can bring you nothing but sorrow. And you, bad man, take back your money BLIND AGNESE 79 and enjoy it while you may, for the curse of the widow and the orphan is on it; and the day is coming fast when the wealth so won in crime will heap shame, and woe, and degradation, and fruitless tears, and vain repentance on your head. And now, why are you so still? and why do you stare so wildly? Away, away! the chase is onward, and the prey escapes you while you linger here." The squire did, indeed, stare wildly at her; but the man who had come to seek him having, by this time, cleared the ditch rather more successfully than he had done himself, took his arm and drew him rapidly down the mountain-path. "Do not cry, dear child do not cry," said the girl to Agnese, her voice resuming all its former tender- ness of tone; "they are quite out of sight now; and the dog is not much hurt, and will, I am sure, be able to lead you safely to the Castle." "Oh, do not leave me," cried Agnese; "I dare not go home without you." "Well, then," said the other, a little reluctantly, "I will walk with you as far as the gates of the avenue." But when they had reached this point, Agnese clung to her still, and cried so piteously, that almost, in her own despair, she was forced to proceed with her to the castle. Lady Oranmore met them on the steps, and nearly forgot Agnese's bold secession from her Church, in terror at the vision of her pale face and the blood-stained forehead of her companion. "It is nothing," said this last, in answer to her lady- ship's horror-stricken looks; "at least, nothing but 8o BLIND AGNESE what they may look for who find themselves aban- doned to the tender mercies of Squire Netterville." "Netterville, again !" cried Lady Oranmore. "What wickedness is that man plotting now?" "Nothing new, madam," said she; and the girl's kindling eye strangely contradicted the assumed non- chalance of her manner. "Only plying his ancient trade more vigorously than ever: hunting priests and Papists from land to water, and from water to land, as if they had only been sent by Providence to serve as otters or wild foxes for his especial amusement." Lady Oranmore shuddered. She had once detested priests and Papists as much as Squire Netterville him- self ; but of late her thoughts on the subject had been rapidly changing. She made no direct reply, however, although she kindly, and almost affectionately, joined Agnese in her entreaties to her unknown protectress, that she would come in, and suffer the wound on her forehead to be properly cared for. They were both refused, with a look of proud embarrassment, which Lady Oranmore took, at first, for natural timidity; so she would listen to no excuse, hurrying her guest, with a kind of good-natured violence, into the castle hall, and from thence to her own private sitting-room, to which none but her especial favourites ever found ad- mittance. The blood rushed into the stranger's face as she crossed the threshold; and for a moment she stood gazing so silently around her that Lady Oran- more might again have fancied her overcome by shy- ness, had not something in her look and attitude con- tradicted the idea. In spite of her shabby dress for to say the truth, the close, black gown she wore was BLIND AGNESE 81 both old and faded, and deserving of no better title in spite, too, of her blood-stained features, and the uncouth bandage which she herself had wrapt around her forehead, the girl still looked as if to tread the hall of princes was no new thing to her. She was thinking (that was plain), but not of the present splendors with which she found herself sur- rounded ; it might, perchance, be the memory of some distant time to which her mind reverted, and, for a moment, a look of pleasure stole over her face, despite the settled look of pain there. "I have never seen you before," cried Lady Oran- more, suddenly, "yet is your face familiar to me, as if I know you from your mother's arms." The girl sighed more deeply than before ; and with- drawing her eye slowly from an arm-chair, of antique fashion, upon which they had been a long time rivet- ted, fixed them steadily on the speaker's face; and said, after a moment's pause "Have you never felt that before, Lady Oranmore? Have you never found a conversation a turn of thought a mere word, perhaps, come upon your ear, as if it were the echo of one long listened to before? it is so, likewise, with pictures and with landscapes, and it may well be with faces, also. We look upon them, as if they had been with us in a dream already." "Strange girl!" cried Lady Oranmore; "what is your name?" "Grace," answered her visitant, shortly and with peculiar emphasis on the word. "Grace what? you have another, I suppose?" "I have no other, lady; or if I ever had, they have 82 BLIND AGNESE taken it away they who hate us for our race and for our country but yet more, thanks be to God, for our religion." "You are a Catholic, then, and have suffered for your faith?" "I have suffered in the person of those I loved. My father had a brother, who, being of the law re- ligion, the law gave him a right to dispossess his el- der of his fortune. He had no scruples in his con- science no kindness in his heart to deter him from the deed and so he did it; and the poorest tenant on the land was, on that day, a richer man than he who, a few hours before, had been lord of all." "Good God! whose child are you?" cried Lady Oranmore in great agitation, catching the speaker by the arm. "The child of oppression, madam." "But you are so like your story is so like ," faltered Lady Oranmore "Like the story of many another crushed heart and fallen race in this unhappy land," the stranger coldly rejoined. "Nay, if fame speaks rightly, lady, even among your own kith and kin, such things have hap- pened before now." Lady Oranmore dropped the arm she held, and breathed a long-drawn sigh. "Stay with me, child," she said at last. "If you have no home, no relation, no friend, you shall find all these in me, and more." Moved, it would seem, by a sudden impulse, the girl stepped forward, knelt down, and kissed Lady Oranmore's hand. There was nothing abject either in BLIND AGNESE 83 the look or manner with which this lowly action was performed, although there was something of humility (all the more touching, perhaps, for the proud heart from whence it came), mingling with the deep and pas- sionate gratitude by which it was inspired. "Stay with me," repeated Lady Oranmore, earn- estly, as she felt the girl's warm tears falling on her hand. "I thank you, madam, for the kind thought and the kind word ; but God is good, and He has not left me friendless. And as for my home, it is better than His, who had no spot whereon to lay His head; and so it is surely good enough for one who would fain, though she does not, follow in his footsteps." "Indeed but you do, though," said Agnese, for the first time joining in the conversation. "You bore the hard word and the hard blow for me this very day; and surely, that was what he would have done has done already for us all." "No, I do not,"- said the girl sadly. "He prayed for his persecutors, and, God, help me, I little love the man who made me an orphan." She kissed Agnese, and pressed Lady Oranmore's hand once more to her heart.' "May God keep you and guard you ; and, surely, He who would not break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax, will give a blessing, if even for your kindness this day to a nameless creature." "Stay with me," Lady Oranmore once more whis- pered through her tears. "I cannot, madam; I am wanted and waited for elsewhere. Yet, pardon me if I add another word: it 84 BLIND AGNESE is about the child. Be not worse to her than Squire Netterville. He might strike the body, he could not harm the soul. You can, madam, and you will, if, for her worldly interests, you seek to warp her conscience. She is a Catholic; in God's name let her remain a Catholic still." "She shall," said Lady Oranmore. "It is well, madam. And in His name I thank you, who said, in behalf of the little ones He loved so well 'He that shall scandalize one of these little ones, that believe in me, it were better for him, that a mill- stone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.' " CHAPTER IV Ave Mary! night is shielding In its darkness, earth and sea Yet, ere yet, to slumber yielding, Lift we up our souls to thee. Forehead brent, and wrinkled brow, Voice of age, and infancy, All are turned upon thee now All are whispering prayer to thee All, if not in careless gladness, Still mid thoughts that make it be Sweeter, far, to share thy sadness, Than to smile apart from thee. Ave Mary! night is shielding In its darkness, earth and sea Yet, ere yet, to slumber yielding, Lift we all our souls to thee. ClNG to me again, dear Grace. Never have I heard music that I loved so well, since the night poor Rosalie went up to heaven." Agnese was seated, as usual, on her summer seat; but this time she was not alone. Her unknown de- fendress was at her side, for, though she obstinately refused to return to Oranmore Castle, she often met the blind child upon the cliffs near to St. Bride's churchyard, and there she would sit or walk with her for hours, and sing her hymns, tell her tales of mar- tyrs and of saints, and speak to her in tones so full of love and sweetness, that, in her own despite, the lat- ter was forced to confess the nameless Grace had be- 8S 86 BLIND AGNESE come dearer to her than any one on earth besides dearer than Lady Oranmore than Francesco or even, she hardly dared (it seemed so like ingratitude) to say it, than poor, old Benita, the voluntary protec- tress of her forsaken infancy. GRACE'S SONG Oh! Erin, my country, beloved of the sea, Which clasps not an island more beauteous than thee; Shall I tell of thy glories, or weep for the day When, like snow in the sunshine, they melted away? Or say, shall I sing of thy joy, when that sea Bore a saviour, a saint, and apostle to thee: And, sole amid nations, thou beautiful isle, The cross that he preached was received with a smile? Yes! hallowed for ever thrice hallowed the spot, Where the blood of the martyr besprinkled it not; And religion was seen for the first time below, Not a stain on her garments, or shade on her brow. "No! I cannot sing that; and it is not true, now," said Grace, suddenly breaking off her song. "Woe is me! the cross has been well drenched in blood since the day when St. Patrick bore it in peaceful triumph through the land. Well, well ! it is not we who have shed it ; and it is better to be the children of persecu- tion than its parent." "Dearest Grace, how strange you are! One while so gentle and so sad, and then so so " "So fiery and so passionate is it so, my little sis- ter?" For by this affectionate appellation, the Irish girl had, early in their acquaintance, learned to address Agnese. BLIND AGNESE 87 "No! no! not quite that. But still you are a mys- tery; even Lady Oranmore says she cannot under- stand you." "Lady Oranmore ! What does she know of me ?" "Nothing! but she would give a great deal to know something. She says you have interested her strangely." "And what says our little sister?" said Grace, play- fully, and yet with a shade of anxiety in her manner. "What can she say but that she loves you dearly, for your own sake, and for the sake of the sweet hymns you sing ; but most of all, for the sake of Him whom you know and worship as she does herself." "No! not quite as you do, dear Agnese; for you worship Him in his own spirit of meekness, while I bring Him but a proud and angry heart, which, God help me, I often find it difficult to subdue." "But no one has done me any wrong, and so I have nothing to subdue; and then, they say, the blind are always patient." And, as ever happened when she alluded to her blindness, the voice of Agnese became so full of plaintive melody, you felt as if her soul was rather steeped in heavenly sweetness, than herself grown calm in the endurance of her sorrow. "I wish, then, I was blind," said her companion, quickly; "for then, perhaps, I should be patient also." "There is a blindness for you also, Grace. If you choose to take it, close your eyes to yourself. Open them to Jesus. Behold His sufferings if you will, but blind yourself to your own." "And that is what I am trying to do ; but then, see you, little sister, I am like a child playing at blind- 88 BLIND AGNESE man's buff: I bind my eyes willingly, yet I cannot help sometimes taking a peep from under the ban- dage." "But surely it is sweet to suffer for the sake of Jesus." "Yes, dear Agnese, in one's own person, very sweet to suffer," said Grace, eagerly, and there was no touch of human pride in the lofty enthusiasm of her look and tone. "Very sweet it is to say, and feel, 'I might be rich, and I am poor ; I might move among the lofty of the land, and lo! I am a beggar, an outcast, a wanderer on its surface.' My God!" she added, rising from her seat, and looking like a beautiful in- spiration, as she cast her eyes upward and proceeded "it is sweet to suffer thus for Thee; to suffer in one- self, and by oneself; but it is hard to endure it in those we love better than ourselves harder still to look upon the man who did it, and not to feel all one's human nature up in arms against him." "And against yourself," suggested Agnese gently. "And that is very true, my sweet Agnese. I feel my anger does deeper injury to myself than to my human foe." "Forgive him, dearest Grace ! perhaps of him also, Jesus would have said He knows not what he does." For a moment the young girl looked as if she thought her foeman knew very well indeed what he was about; but she tried to shake off the feeling and the look; and then she said, with all the truth of her generous heart "From my very soul I do forgive him, and morning and evening I pray for him ; and not for him alone, but BLIND AGNESE 89 for all (and their name is legion) who have done us wrong." "You pray ah, dearest Grace, where do you pray ? How often have I asked in vain this question, and yet Lady Oranmore says, there is no law now against the free exercise of religion." "No, Agnese, but there is one against large as- semblies of people; you know rebellion is rife through the land, and our doughty militiamen are not always so discriminating as to make it certain they would not mistake for a political meeting one solely intended for the purpose of worship." "But surely not if it were held in a church?" "Church church," repeated Grace impatiently, "I tell you we have not a church left standing within twenty miles, and when we do meet to pray, it must be by the hill side, or the sea shore, or in the fields, or the caverns of the islands Church, church ! Come with me, and I will show you how, even in the be- ginning, they treated such of our churches as they thought it not worth their while to steal ; and then, lit- tle sister mine, you will no longer wonder if a church has become a kind of religious luxury, to which in this part of the island we are as yet almost strangers." She took Agnese's hand, and led her by a rocky path up to a ruin, perched picturesquely enough on the very brow of the hill. "See here, Agnese! But I forget you cannot see; well, these ruined, blackened walls around us were once a church." "A church a real, real church!" cried Agnese, with a look of most joyful surprise. 90 BLIND AGNESE "A real church," repeated Grace, "and you may kiss the ground, Agnese, for it once was steeped in the blood of martyrs. A hundred years ago, or more," she continued, "and this was a stately building. Neither art nor labour had been spared in its erection. Perhaps, like the Israelites of old, men gave their time and talents women, their ornaments of gold and sil- ver, their rings, their bracelets, their costly stuffs, purple and fine linen, for the enrichment of a temple to the Living God. They built it for themselves, and by themselves; and so, good, easy folk, they thought they had a right to worship in it as they pleased. They were mistaken, however, and so they soon discovered to their cost. It was early of a Sunday morning, and the blue waters of the Atlantic flashed and glimmered beneath the rising sun, and the white cliffs looked whiter still, and the very flowers seemed to spring more gladly from the turf, as if rejoicing in the glor- ies of the summer tide. It was a Sunday morning, and thousands came thronging down from the moun- tains, and thousands came flocking up from the val- leys, every cabin gave its quota of inhabitants, men and women, and children, infants even in their mothers' arms, to swell the living tide which poured towards the newly erected church upon the cliffs ; and happy young hearts there were among them, and happy old ones too, I dare say, for the bishop was to be there that morning, and to give it the Sacrament of Confirmation, the strength so needed for the storm of persecution, which just then had begun to sweep over the land. Some few there might perhaps even be, who came to receive the rite, after having wept and BLIND AGNESE 91 done penance over former vacillations from the faith, but the holy chrism would be also poured upon brows, from whence sin had not yet dashed the innocent dews of their baptism, for in those days of uncertainty and tribulation, children, almost infants by their age, were often admitted for Confirmation, either that they might not die without it, or that they might derive from it the courage they were often called upon to exert, even in their tenderest years. The church was, therefore, crowded. Within it there was peace, and love, and hope, and prayer ! without it ! but I must not anticipate. Enough that information had been given, of the bishop, and the Mass, and the holy rite ; and suddenly, in one of the pauses of the service, a sound, the well-known tramp of the soldiery, was heard. People began to listen in breathless silence the bishop ceased to speak the bell was rung no longer, and still the sound without grew louder the tramp, tramp, tramp, more distinct upon the turf. At length it seemed almost under the walls, and then it ceased, and the shrill notes of a bugle rang through the air. Some one looked forth from the window. Mother of God! the Cromwellians were upon them! They were unarmed, therefore they did not think to fight, neither did they seek to fly. They knew their doom too well. There was no hope for them beyond the church ; so they barricaded the doors, and crowded round the altar, where mercy alone might be found for them. Now mark you, Agnese, if these men were rebels, the soldiers might have broken open the doors, dispersed the people, or taken them to prison; or if they were wild beasts, they might have fired in at the 92 BLIND AGNESE v window, and, packed and cabined as they were, ten rounds of shot would have sent them to their doom. But they were neither rebels nor wild beasts they were simply Papists. Prison would have been too easy, and such a death too speedy. There was a bet- ter vengeance in the heads and hearts of Cromwell's band of ruffians. Higher than door or window, they piled up wood, and hay, and straw, and every combus- tible thing they could lay their hands on, and, with a wild shout of triumph, set the whole of it in a blaze. The red light upon the windows soon told the fell deed to those within. At first they sat gazing upon one another, like men stupefied by terror, and then, as if moved by one simultaneous impulse, they all knelt down at the feet of their bishop, men and women, im- ploring absolution; children, so lately full of childish joy, now screaming, and struggling, and clinging to his feet. Good old man! he wept over them, and blest them; but tears might not quench that funeral pile! The windows soon melted away in the heat, and then the red fire poured rapidly in, flying like a living crea- ture along the walls, taking the rafters of the ceiling, licking up everything it found that might give its fury food, until the soldiery without, no longer seemed so terrible as the circling flames within, and half mad with heat, and smoke, and terror, the miserable victims sought escape by flight. And now a terrible scene ensued, as it has been described by one who shared in its barbarities ; wretches, scorched, and burned, and blackened, beyond the semblance of human beings, shouting, screaming, raving in their madness, the mighty crowd swaying hither and thither in its various BLIND AGNESE 93 efforts at escape, as some rushed to the gateway (the doors had long since been burnt into cinders), and others clambered up to the window to cast themselves down, and each and all were driven back into the piti- less flames, at the point of the yet more pitiless sol- dier's lance. At length the shout and scream were heard no more, and silence fell on the multitude the silence of despair; and then the bishop rose he had hitherto remained prostrate at the foot of the altar, and over the dead and dying, the faithful shepherd looked. They knew him in the midst of their agony and fear, they knew him, and guessing his intention, bowed down their heads to receive his absolution. They were spoken those words which gave them hopes of the peace in heaven they had never known on earth; and then the bishop once more lifted up his arms to impart his final benediction, and in this at- titude, and while yet the words were quivering on his lips, he fell down dead before them. In an instant afterwards, the whole of the building gave way with a terrible crash, and all was over. "This is the tradition of the country; it is but one tale amid a thousand others, and it has been repeated, even in these our days of enlightened civilization. Not twenty miles from these very ruins, and not three months from the hour in which you have listened to this story, three Catholic chapels have been burned to the ground, by men who write themselves worthy de- scendants of Cromwell's ruthless soldiers. And now, dear Agnese, see you not how our forefathers were forced to worship God in secret and in lonely places, and can you wonder if we, their children, have often 94 BLIND AGNESE neither hearts nor means left to do otherwise than they did?" "Dear Grace," said Agnese, "I could almost fancy I was listening to a tale of the old Christian martyrs." "The martyrs of the old Christian times were better off than we. They suffered for their faith, and their very foes denied them not their crown. Verily! ver- ily! ours have been wiser in their generation. They have robbed us of the glory of our martyrdom to clothe us in its shame. True, they persecute us as Papists, but then, it is as rebels that they hang us. It was so in England also. They did not put a man to torture and to death for being a Catholic, but only for refusing an oath which no Catholic could in con- science take." "And yet, at Oranmore Castle, I have heard them talk so often, as if we were the persecutors, and they the persecuted," replied Agnese. "Yes! poor, injured lambs," said Grace, laughing through her tears. "They preach liberty of conscience, and then show us fire and faggot when we dare to take it, yet I ought not to grumble at these laws, for they made a Catholic of my grandfather." "I should have thought they would have kept him a Protestant." "They did not, however. He was travelling for the first time through the north, for he had been educated in England, and he came suddenly upon a vast as- semblage of people, hearing Mass in an open field, every man bare-headed, and upon his knees, although the mud was deep beneath, and the rain descending in torrents from above. He went home and became a BLIND AGNESE 95 Catholic, for he said there could be no true religion upon earth if the faith which produced such fruits were false." "I do not wonder!" said Agnese. "Oh, that I also might be present at such a scene!" "Dear Agnese ! I have told you why, just now, we fear to meet in public. There is yet another reason. The priest, the only one now left in this immediate district, has most unjustly become suspected as a rebel and a favourer of rebellion, and informations to this effect have been lodged against him." "But he is not he cannot be a rebel!" cried Ag- nese. "Far from it. He holds rebellion in abhorrence, as a foul offence against the laws both of God and man, and it is mainly owing to his influence that the people about here have been kept from joining in the wild cry of vengeance which, north and south, and east and west, is sweeping through the land. He knows this, and therefore he has rejected many an opportunity of escape, which has offered itself, to foreign shores. He will not even give up his ministry among them, though the mere fact of saying Mass to some hundreds of people must lead in the end to an unfortunate dis- covery. The very first day I met you, Squire Net- terville was almost on his track; and if I had not kept him in play, by my idle chatter, the father would have been caught long before he had reached the cave, where, woe is me, he is forced to find a home." "Ah! that is the reason you were so saucy and so brave," said Agnese, smiling. "Yes, Agnese ! but do you know I got a scolding af- 96 BLIND AGNESE terwards? The father said, I had no right to do evil that good might come of it, or to work up the wild passions of the man to frenzy, even to save a priest's neck from the hangman's rope; so you see I had my horse-whipping for nothing after all, Agnese." "For nothing, except the pleasure of saving him, dear Grace." "Ah, that was a pleasure, and to see the Squire tumble into the ditch, too, was an agreeable little di- version of its kind," said Grace, laughing merrily. "But it is all in vain; he is saving hundreds from the certain death which is ever the consequence of rebel- lion, but his own will be sacrificed in the effort. Well ! well ! we must not repine. The Good Shepherd gives His life for his flock, and if ever there was a good shepherd, Padre Francesco is the man." "Francesco, is that his name ?" said Agnese, a whole host of recollections rushing upon her mind "but not my Francesco," she added with a sigh "He is not a priest." "Like myself he is without a name, but we call him Francesco, because he was ordained in Italy, and that was the name he took in the religious order to which he belongs. And now, see you not, little sister, what a dilemma I am in ? I would trust you as myself, but I fear, if I take you to our rock-cave chapel, Lady Oranmore may miss you, and her servants track you out." "I see," said Agnese, "and I must submit." She covered her face with her hands, and tears from her sightless eyes trickled slowly through her fingers. "My child, my child," cried her companion, "I can- BLIND AGNESE 97 not bear to see you weep; you are unhappy, dear Agnese." "How can I be otherwise, so far from my own dear land, in the very bosom of which the sweet Jesus dwells, and what is there for the blind child but Jesus ? You have the flowers and the fruits, the bright blue skies, the stormy waters, and the pleasant earth but Jesus is all in all to me. My God and my all! my present consolation and my future joy ! Oh ! that the dove would descend and give Him to my prayers !" "You shall have Him," cried Grace, suddenly; "weep no more, my own Agnese, but meet me to- morrow in St. Bride's churchyard." "Ah! no, dear Grace, not for worlds would I en- danger the safety of the father of the flock." "It will not be endangered," said Grace. "I have thought of all go to Lady Oranmore; tell her all I have said to you. Say to her that I know her to be honour itself, and that our secret will be safe in her keeping; and tell her furthermore, that the life of your nearest relative upon earth is involved in this confidence, for the priest is your uncle, Agnese, the brother of your father, and, Mother of God! I can keep the secret no longer, I am your sister." The .words had scarcely burst from her lips, before Agnese was in her arms, and for a long time the young sis- ters, so long separated, and so strangely re-united, wept together in silence. "Yes, dear Agnese," said Grace, at last speaking through her tears, "the tall, grave-looking man, who rescued you from the crowd at Dover, and who would not speak Italian, lest his own mission should be endangered by any discovery, 98 BLIND AGNESE of his calling, was your father's brother. After the persecution which drove your father and my father, Agnese, from his native land, this brother, who, being next in age, might have claimed the property had he chosen to change his religion, resolved, on the con- trary, upon renouncing the little that was left him, and becoming a priest, in hopes of supplying the spiri- tual wants of the poor tenants of Netterville. Be- fore, however, he went to Italy," continued Grace Netterville, yielding to the gay humour which often found her even in her tears, "this good uncle of mine resolved on committing a petty robbery " "Robbery !" cried Agnese, with a look of horror. "Yes, robbery," said her companion laughing out- right. "But I believe he could not have been hanged for sheep-stealing, seeing it was only a poor lamb that he abstracted." "But what good could the theft of a lamb do him, dear Grace?" "Not much good to him, certainly, but a great deal of good to the poor animal itself: I was the lamb, Agnese. He foresaw that my grandmother, Lady Oran- more, would bring me up in the religion of the worldly-wise, so, one day, when I was playing in the shrubbery, he pounced like a great eagle upon me, and bore me in his talons to a convent in Italy, where I remained for many years; and he was bringing me from thence when he stumbled upon his other niece at Dover. He did not then know who you were ; but as Lady Oranmore made no secret of your story, he found it out soon after your arrival at Oranmore : and from the hour when he gave me to understand I had BLIND AGNESE 99 a sister, I haunted your footsteps, darling. I used to follow you along the cliffs, dreading, at every turn, lest you should miss your footsteps and tumble over, and I be deprived of my little sister. And I used to sit beside you for hours in the churchyard of lone St. Bride's, longing so longing to take you into my arms, that I felt it quite impossible to address you coldly as a stranger. I followed you even to Lady Oranmore's church." ''Into her church!" "To it ; not into it, darling. And then, indeed, when I found your religion endangered, I resolved to speak out. I was even tempted to rob Lady Oranmore's sheep-fold of another lamb ; but your first words con- vinced me there was no need. A faith so vivid I had never seen; and I felt directly you were the stuff of which a martyr might be made, but an apostate never." "But surely you named me once?" "Yes !" said Grace, laughing. "Like a baby with a new toy, I could not resist the pleasure of seeing how it would sound to talk to you: and so I tried to say your name just in the careless, common-place sort of way in which I should have done if I had known you all my life. But, bless my soul, you jumped up and looked as frightened as if a ghost had spoken to you out of the grave you were sitting on. I declare I caught the infection, and ran away much faster than I should have done if a ghost, or Squire Net- terville himself, had been at my heels." "Squire Netterville! Grace, Grace! do you not know ?" "I yes, yes! I do know, Agnese. He is the third ioo BLIND AGNESE of those ill-fated brothers the renegade to his religion the traitor to his blood the blot on his escutcheon the stain on the fair name of Netterville for ever !" "Hush, hush, dear Grace! remember he is our uncle." "It is true ; and I am silent. But how did you know that or did you only guess?" "Lady Oranmore told me long ago. And now, dear Grace " "Not Grace in earnest, sweet sister mine. I was called after my mother, and my name is May, but I thought it would cause Lady Oranmore to suspect me ; and then, you know, May means Mary, and she was full of grace, and the mother of grace itself. So the name was not ill-chosen; only it did not suit me very well. Don't you think I ought to have called myself Graceless ?" "Indeed I don't," said Agnese earnestly ; "and I was going to have told you, my gracious, graceful May, that I loved your invisible presence long before you said a word to me. I used to feel as if my guardian angel was seated at my side." "Not your angel, but your guardian only, dear one. And now, adieu until to-morrow. Meet me here at six o'clock, and I will bring you to an uncle something better than Squire Netterville, and a grandmother not better, but full as good as Lady Oranmore." "A grandmother, dear Grace?" "Yes, Agnese! the mother of the three brothers is still alive. She had a high spirit and a noble heart; and when she found the part her youngest born had played in this domestic tragedy, she sent him word BLIND AGNESE 101 that she would never look upon his face again. She would neither break the bread nor drink the cup with one who was a renegade to God a traitor to his blood. So she shook the dust from off her feet, and went forth from the halls of Netterville for ever." "And then," said Agnese. "And then, like her eldest son, she sought first a refuge in the cottage of a peasant, but finally followed the fortunes of Francesco, in whom she has concen- trated the affections she has taken from his brother. He is, indeed, her rich consolation for the disgrace which has fallen on her name. She loves him as a saint, reveres him as a martyr ; and poor, and old, and paralytic as she is, she often says she is happier with her priestly son in his cave by the sea-shore, than ever she was amid the rank and riches of her sunnier hours." "And you, dear Grace? It makes me sad to think that you should have so poor a home, while I, who have really been used to poverty from my childhood, am set at my ease in yonder castle." "Console yourself, my own Agnese; the cottage or the cave, by the wild sea waves, is the home of my choice. When I asked to be allowed to leave my con- vent, in order to nurse my dear, old grandmother, my uncle represented to me the sort of life I would have to lead, and she herself wrote to dissuade me from the project. But I answered almost in the words of Ruth: The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die, and there will I be buried : the Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee.' And never, for an instant, have 102 BLIND AGNESE I repented of my words. But my task is nearly over. She is very old now broken down, perhaps, less by age than by the heavy sorrow which has come upon her through her children. Every day may be her last ; and I almost pray that the last may be soon." "She longs to see Jesus, I suppose," said Agnese, innocently. "It is not that ! it is not that !" said Grace Netterville, clenching her hand, and speaking through her closed teeth. "But he will soon be taken in their toils; and once taken, will be executed by martial law that is to say, without judge or jury justice or mercy. They have marked him for their prey ; and oh ! how I trust she may be dead, if it be only one day or hour, before they have succeeded in hunting him to his doom. Think, Agnese, think what a blow for the mother's heart to know that her second Cain has shed the blood of his brother Abel." "Good God! It is, then, Squire Netterville who is hunting down his brother?" "It is, indeed, he who has lodged information of a rebel-priest lurking in the neighbourhood. But O Agnese," cried Grace, speaking with a kind of agony in her voice and manner, "I would not do the man injustice; I do not believe he knows the wrong he is doing ; I do not believe he knows him to be his brother : and sometimes, I have half been moved to go to him and say he, for whose neck you are weaving the hangman's hope is the son of your mother. But then, I dare not do it: I could not risk the life of the noble and the kind upon the chance repentance of such a man." BLIND AGNESE 103 "O Grace! do not speak of him so proudly. His sin is terrible but think how terrible his doom. He has cast off Jesus, and Jesus has abandoned him to the devices of his own heart even to the unconscious seeking of his brother's blood." "Terrible! terrible! it is, indeed, Agnese," said Grace, sitting down, and covering her face with both her hands. "We will not speak proudly or harshly of him," the blind child continued, kneeling down and taking Grace Netterville's hand in hers. "We will pity and forgive him ; we will pray for him ; we will even love him, for the sake of the sweet Jesus who loved him once who loves him, perhaps, even at this instant, for the future penance by which he will repay the past sins of his life." "Dear Agnese, what a sweet little saint you are," said Grace, stooping reverently to kiss her forehead. "Would that I could feel as you do." "We will pray for him, most especially to-morrow," Agnese went on to say. "We will pray for him in our wild chapel by the sea-shore, when Jesus descends in the midst of us, and for our sakes reposes on the hard rock, instead of the golden altars to which, in happier lands, He is invited; then we will pray to Him with all our hearts and souls for this unhappy man. We will say to Him My God, I give thee all, my own interests, and the interests of all who are dear to me my hopes, and fears, and joys, and sorrows ; the life of this dear uncle, and the heart-break of his mother. I abandoned them to thee ; I will ask nothing for them or for myself, only grant me, in exchange, 104 BLIND AGNESE the conversion of him who has caused as all our sor- row." "Surely, dear child, He will grant you such a prayer as that." "Surely He will," answered the Little Spouse, with a look of most loving confidence. "Other things the sweet Jesus may deny us ; but mercy he never refuses, whether we ask it for ourselves or for another." "You put me to the blush, Agnese. I thought I had forgiven him long ago, but I see it was only with half a heart, while you have done it with a heart and a half. Well, you will see to-morrow how fervently I will pray for the man's conversion." "Do not call him 'man/ that way," pleaded Agnese. "Do, dear Grace, try and think of him as your uncle, and yet more as the creature of Christ Jesus crucified, who suffered for him and died for him as well as for us all." "Yes! it is very true," thought Grace Netterville, as she stept into the little boat which was to convey her to her home among the rocks. "Squire Netterville is the creature of Christ crucified, and my father's brother ; my own uncle, and the uncle of the only real little angel I ever met with on earth and that is Ag- nese." CHAPTER V TTHE day was dark and stormy, the boat tossed roughly on the waters, and Agnese shivered with fear and cold, as the spray dashed wildly over her face and person. "You are cold, Agnese," said her sister, the sole other occupant of the boat, and manager of its oars. "I am afraid," the blind child answered; "it seems so strange to be tossing up and down so wildly, and not to know the reason why." Grace Netterville took the cloak off her own shoul- ders and put it round her sister. "There, dear child," she said, in her most cheerful voice, "with your pretty dress beneath, and my old frieze above, you look like a travelling fairy, or a prin- cess in disguise. But would you rather I should put back to land? It is a wild morning, and almost too rough for you." "Oh, no," cried Agnese, after a moment's hesita- tion ; "I am going to Him, so I ought not to be afraid." "You need not, dear one. Did not Peter walk to Him in safety over the stormy waters? and why not you?" "Thank you, Grace, for putting me in mind of that ; I will think of it, and try and not be afraid again." Grace said no more, for the storm was rising fast, and it was all she could do to manage her little vessel ; at last, however, she succeeded in nearing the island 105 io6 BLIND AGNESE towards which its course had been directed, and in guiding it into a creek, serving as an entrance to one of those caves everywhere so common on that part of the Irish coast, and with which this little island, in par- ticular, was almost honeycombed throughout. The sea penetrated a considerable way beneath the rocks, but they were now floating upon smooth waters, and a few lazy strokes of the oar sufficed to bring them to the shallows, where a strong hand laid hold of the boat and drew it high and dry upon the sands, and Grace Netterville jumped out. "God save you, Dan," she said to the man, at the same time assisting her little sister to follow her ex- ample. "The same to you kindly, mavourneen," replied the man; 'you have had a rough passage of it, Miss May." "Aye, aye," rejoined Grace, or May, as we ought now to call her ; "the white horses are playing strange pranks out yonder upon the ocean." " 'Tis a spring-tide, too," said Dan, "and if the wind continue in this quarter, his reverence won't read Mass dry-shod this blessed mornin', I'm think- ing." "Well, well," said Grace, with her merriest laugh, ""his reverence can change his shoes afterwards, and most of his congregation, God help them, have no shoes to change." "Merry Asthur, to me, if you ever said a truer word nor that, Miss May," said Dan, holding his own bare foot to the light of the bog-wood torch which he had kindled during this conversation, and now pre- sented to his young mistress. BLIND AGNESE 107 May took it, and twining her other arm round her little sister's waist, and whispering to her not to be afraid, drew her forward into the cavern. It grew very dark as they proceeded; and had it not been for her blazing torch, May Netterville might have found some difficulty in steering clear alike of the sharp-pointed rocks everywhere scattered around, and of the pools of water, some of them looking fearfully black and deep, which had been left there by the high tides. Presently the dark wall of rock receded upon either side, springing up into wide and lofty arches over their heads, and instead of the stony surface which had wounded her feet sadly, Agnese felt she was walking on smooth sands, though even these in- dicated, by their unusual moisture, the presence of the ocean at no very distant period of time. An enor- mous mass of black stone, perfectly detached from the surrounding rocks, stood in the midst of this kind of cavern chamber; it resembled, in some degree, a boulder- stone of unusual size, only the back part, which rose considerably higher than that in front, was fashioned into something of the likeness of a rude stone cross, while the lower portion was quite flat enough to admit of its serving for an altar, a purpose to which the lighted candles, in their tin or wooden candlesticks, and the few poor vestments laid upon it, sufficiently indicated it was now to be devoted. Behind this Druid-like looking altar, in a little nook, where she was completely screened from observation, May Netterville placed her sister, kneeling down at the same time beside her, and still holding her round the waist, in order to give her courage. She had io8 BLIND AGNESE previously cast away the bog-wood torch, which a wide fissure in the rocks above caused to be no longer needed. Daniel, however, was apparently of a dif- ferent opinion regarding its necessity, for he picked it up, while it was yet smoking on the floor, re- lighted it from one of the candles burning on the altar, and very gravely presented it to his young mistress. "What is it, Daniel?" said May, it must be con- fessed, a little pettishly. "Why waste the good bog- wood? I don't want it here." "Maybe not, Miss May, but somebody is wanting you for all that. Here is little Paudeen without says the mistress is in a great hurry to see you, and won't have you wait for his reverence's Mass." "Is, then, my grandmother ill?" said May, rising hurriedly from her knees. "Not as I know on, Miss May; but Paudeen says she is very wake and low like, and his reverence would have stayed with her till you came, only old Norrishea is dying, and he was forced to go off to the other side of the island to see her, and so he bid you come as quick as you could." Daniel looked as if there was more the matter than he chose to tell of, and May turned anxiously to her sister "My grandmother wants me, darling; will you be afraid of staying here alone? I will come or send for you directly after Mass." "Oh, never mind me; I am not a bit afraid, dear Grace," said Agnese, earnestly. "Agnese," whispered her sister, in a low voice, "I BLIND AGNESE 109 feel as if our grandmother were to die to-day pray for her to Jesus, dear one." Agnese kissed her sister's hand in token of assent, and May, taking the torch from Daniel, threaded her way rapidly among the pools of water, and soon dis- appeared at the entrance of the cave. She had not been long gone, when the poor people began to ar- rive from the mainland, dropping in by twos and threes, and crowding towards the altar, before which they prayed so fervently and so loudly, that the air seemed filled with the murmur of their voices. A whisper of "hush, his riverence" soon afterwards announced the coming of the priest, and, amid many a blessing given and received, Father Netterville ad- vanced to the foot of the altar, where, after a few minutes spent in deep recollection of spirit, he began to vest himself for the celebration of the Divine Sac- rifice; and now the low, fervent tones of his voice reached Agnese's ear, and she drank them in as the sweetest music, for theirs was the genuine language of the church, and the announcement to her of the true coming of Jesus. The bells rang out the "Gloria in Excelsis," and her heart re-echoed the song of the angels, which it is intended to recall; the Gospel was said, and, to her vivid faith, it was as if she stood up* to hear that voice which once spoke its wisdom throughout Israel. The "Holy, holy, holy" of the preface, found her walking in spirit beside Him on His entrance into Jerusalem and "holy, holy, holy," she once more said in spirit, with the bright bands of the cherubim and seraphim, who well she knew were crowded into every nook of that dark cave, in the i io BLIND AGNESE solemn hour of the consecration, when the word was spoken, though not aloud, which drew Him once more from the bosom of His Heavenly Father, to receive the adoration of His earthly creatures. Upon that rude rock He was amid the wild waves, and the moaning winds, and the prostrate people and not in spirit only, but in the very form which He took from Mary. Joy was in Agnese's heart, for now she knew she was kneeling in very deed at His feet; and so she said the "Our Father," as she might have said it had she been present when He taught it to His disciples, waiting still to hear, and repeating all the words, as if from His very lips she took them. At the "Agnus Dei," she kissed in spirit His sacred hands, imploring the gifts of His mercy from them. At the "Dominus non sum Dignus," she craved a yet closer union with Him, saying over and over again, with clasped hands and streaming eyes "Oh, that the dove would de- scend and give Him to my prayer." And, if not sacramentally, spiritually at least, He did descend into that loving little heart, blessing it so entirely by His presence that she became as one insensible to external objects, unconscious of the presence of others, and deaf even to the strange muttering sounds that now filled the cavern, giving fearful evidence of the coming storm. Long, indeed, before the conclusion of the Di- vine Sacrifice, the people had begun to look upon each other with pale faces and anxious eyes here and there those who had wives and children gathered them together, and then hurriedly departed and, just after the consecration, Daniel, approaching Father Netterville, whispered a few words in his ear. BLIND AGNESE in "Tell the people to depart directly, if there is time," was the hurried answer. "There is plenty of time, if they go at once, for the tide won't be at its full for another hour. But won't your riverence lave it with them ?" asked Daniel, anx- iously; "it wouldn't be safe to remain much longer." "Then see that the people do not linger," replied the Father. "I must finish what I have begun" and, satisfied of the safety of his flock, he resumed the in- terrupted service with as calm composure as if his life were not perilled by the delay. Daniel lost not a moment in communicating this mandate to the congre- gation, and a simultaneous rush instantly took place to the entrance, but the faithful fellow lingered yet a few minutes longer, looking wistfully towards the Father, until, at a sigh from this last, he also reluctantly withdrew, and now there only remained the priest at the altar and the blind child, and but we must not anticipate. A few minutes more brought the service to a conclusion, and then Father Netterville likewise left the cave, in total ignorance of the presence of another human being within it, for, as I have said already, Grace had placed her sister in a nook behind the rock, where she was completely hidden from ob- servation. The ceasing of his voice roused her at last from her dream of prayer, and then she began to wonder why it was she heard no longer any stir among the people. At first she attributed this to the thousand voices of the storm, which every moment raged louder and louder, but at last she became conscious of her solitude, and, chilled with cold and a thousand vague apprehensions, listened anxiously for the footsteps of 112 BLIND AGNESE her sister, seeking in vain to conjecture the cause of her absence. Poor child, she was little aware of the real nature of her situation that May, at the bedside of her dying grandmother, was wholly unconscious of the danger to which she was exposed that, when the north wind and the spring-tide came together, the cave was often many fathoms under water, and that Father Netterville had himself departed in the very last moment when an escape by a boat was possible. Minute after minute of the hour noted by Daniel passed away, and every minute brought the danger nearer to its unconscious victim. Rapidly the advanc- ing tide poured itself into the dark, deep pools, filling every empty nook and cranny with its water, then it dashed madly against the rocks, which at first bravely repelled the foe, sending it upwards to the caverned roof in showers of spray; but wave followed wave with irresistible perseverance, and at last they also were surrounded and submerged, their sharp, black points appearing yet a moment longer above the sur- face of the foam, and then swept entirely out of sight beneath one triumphant billow. This obstacle overcome, the waters flowed in more calmly, and, al- though deafened by the storm, and drenched by the spray, Agnese was not entirely aware of her danger until the tide swept her very feet, like a greedy mons- ter crouching for its prey. Then all at once the truth flashed upon her mind, and, springing to her feet, she endeavoured to clamber up the steep sides of the rock, close to which she had been kneeling. In a calmer moment, even with the full possession of her eye- sight, she could not have succeeded in such an under- BLIND AGNESE 113 taking, but now, under the influence of that instinct for self-preservation which often suggests, and en- ables us to accomplish things we should have other- wise deemed impossible, in the twinkling of an eye, how or in what manner she never afterwards could explain, Agnese found herself panting and trembling on the altar above. A loud groan soon announced to her that she was not its only tenant, and she might have fancied Father Netterville to have been the com- panion of her danger, had not the succession of groans and cries which followed been mingled with impreca- tions and blasphemies which she felt never could have been issued from the lips of a priest; and, after lis- tening for a few minutes, unable, even in that hour of terror, to restrain her holy indignation, she cried out in Italian "O man! cease to blaspheme your Saviour cease to crucify your God anew." An icy cold hand was laid on hers. "Say, child, is there no hope ? Must we indeed per- ish thus?" "I trust not," said Agnese, speaking with some dif- ficulty in English, which the shock had almost ban- ished from her memory. "God is good. He yet may save us." "Fool! there is no hope," roared the voice. "Do I not know this cavern well? In a few minutes more the waves will have reached this rock, and even if they do not rise much higher, their strength alone will sweep us from its surface." "And if indeed it be so," said Agnese, with a calm- ness which, in such an hour, and from so young a H4 BLIND AGNESE creature, was, in truth, sublime, "know you not, man, that each of us must die in the very hour when God doth call us? Oh, creature of Christ Jesus crucified," she added, suddenly changing her tone, and grasping the terrified wretch by both his hands, "why should you fear to die ? Has He not also died for you ?" "You talk bravely," said the other in a scoffing tone. "Have you, then, no fear of death, that you pretend not to shudder at its approach ?" "What for should I fear death?" the child replied, in her sweet, broken English. "I have often asked to go to Him, and if He say, 'Come to me over the stormy waters,' why indeed should I be afraid of going?" For a moment the man fixed his eyes in wonder upon this frail child, so fearful by nature and yet so fearless now. There she knelt, calmly, as if before some sainted shrine, her hands crossed, her head bowed, her lips moving, not in impatient murmuring, but in prayer. A huge wave almost dashing him from his rock of refuge, soon recalled him to remembrance of his own fearful situation, and, uttering a terrible imprecation, he cast his eyes upwards, not, alas! in supplication, but despair. Through the wide rent chasm in the roof, he could see the bright, blue skies above, looking down upon him, calm and holy, as if to rebuke his desperation, but the next moment a dark shadow passed him and them. At first he thought he had lost his eyesight, then a vague hope began to creep into his soul. He strained his eyes until the balls seemed starting from their sockets. It was in- deed as he had hardly dared to fancy a human form was visible above, and a face of ashy paleness was BLIND AGNESE 115 gazing through the chasm. "Mother of God!" cried the voice of a woman, "the child is below." It was May Netterville who spoke. She had found her grandmother apparently sinking fast, but even this deep anxiety could not banish her blind sister from her thoughts. She felt uneasy at having left her alone, and, fore- seeing the impossibility of going in search of her her- self, sent little Paudeen down to the shore, with di- rections to inform her the moment he should see Dan- iel returning from the cave. As we have already seen, this event occurred much sooner than could have been expected, but Paudeen, who knew nothing of the high tide, and who was well aware that, under all ordinary circumstances, it would be at least half an hour before he could make his appearance, thought it would be no great injury to his employer if he spent the interven- ing moments in bird-nesting along the cliffs. The consequence was, that he missed Daniel altogether, and the latter had been some time on shore, when May Netterville, becoming feverishly impatient at the long delay, left her grandmother to the care of an attendant, and went in search of him herself. He was soon vis- ible coming from the cliffs ; but the instant she named the child, the alteration in his countenance filled her with horror. "What is it, man ? Speak ! speak !" she cried, strug- gling with her apprehensions. "The spring-tide the spring-tide," gasped the man ; "the child is lost." For a moment May Netterville felt as if life were ebbing from her veins. One hope remained. ii6 BLIND AGNESE "Father Netterville !" suggested Daniel, "maybe his riverence brought her back with him ?" "No, no," cried May*; "he knew not she was there." "Yonder he is, coming over the cliff; he must have landed full a quarter of an hour ago; no boat could live in such a surf as that," and Daniel pointed with a tremulous finger to the mighty billows that now dashed against the beetling rocks, marking the entire line of coast with their sheets of foam. White as ashes, and shaking from head to foot. May turned her eyes in the direction of his hand, and saw indeed there was no hope among those breakers. But she was not one to sit down in despair while a chance or possibility urged her to exertion. "A rope, Daniel, a rope. Through the chasm in the rock she may yet be saved!" Daniel took the hint, and, in an inconceivably short time, had joined her at the "Devil's bite," as the open- ing into the cave was named among the people, bring- ing with him a basket and a rope, .such as was used by the bird-nesters on the cliffs, to lower them to the objects of their perilous pursuit. He was accom- panied by the men from whom he had borrowed the machine, and May recognized among their faces some of the most reckless and well-known smugglers on the coast, men of lives so desperate, that at any other time she would have shrunk from their contact, but at this moment she cared not who or what they were, so they could give her assistance in her need. "I see her, I think," she said to Daniel. "She must be saved, Daniel, she must be saved." Daniel cast a despairing glance, first down into the BLIND AGNESE 117 deep chasm, then on the old and knotted rope by which the basket was to be suspended. "It is sartin death to whoever thries it," he muttered between his teeth. "She must be saved," repeated May. "Will they hold the rope firm and steady, Daniel?" "The rope 'ill hardly bear a man's weight, let alone a child along wid him," said one of the smugglers, giving the basket a contemptuous kick with his foot. "It is worn and twisted almost out iv its strength al- ready." "It will bear mine, then," said May, fixing her brave eyes on the man who had spoken. "Yours, a-chorra," cried Daniel. "No, rather nor that I will thry it myself; and Miss May, darlin, I know I needn't say a word about the little ones at home, for you war always tindher and kind, and a mother like to them as had no other, and so were all y're race afore you, for the matther of that, barrin the ould rogue up at the hall, my heavy curse upon him for the shame and sorrow he has brought on the name." While speaking these words, as rapidly as ever they could come out of his mouth, Daniel busily employed himself in arranging the rope and the basket for immediate descent, but May Netterville touched him on the shoulder. "I thank you, Daniel ; but I put no man's life in peril mine will be sufficient." "You will perish in the attempt, Miss May; see what a depth it is below, and iv the rope twist ever so little, you will be dashed to atoms against the rocks." "Men do these things every day for birds' nests," ii8 BLIND AGNESE said May, speaking rapidly, but rather to herself than to her companion, "and shall I not do it for Agnese ?" "Only look down, Miss May," continued Daniel "Iv yer senses fail iv the rope break look down a- lanna, look down!" May Netterville did look down, and felt her brain grow dizzy as she looked. The descent was fearful, and the rocks beneath, all the more terrible for the darkness in which they were partially enveloped, while the roar of the winds and of the waves, coming up in hollow and confused murmurs from out of the depths below, seemed to tell of the certain death awaiting her among them. "Think of the ould lady, think of his riverence what would they say?" pleaded Daniel in his most imploring accents. Miss Netterville made no reply she was battling with the mighty terror which had seized upon her, and which almost threatened to deprive her of her senses ; but the struggle was over in a moment ; down to the very bottom of her heart she sent her fear, down so deep, that she herself was no longer con- scious of its existence. "What would they say, Daniel? They would say I had done my duty." "Lower away, my men, lower away !" she cried, seat- ing herself in the basket, her free, firm voice belying the deadly paleness of her lip and brow. "Stop, for the love of the great God above ye, stop," cried Daniel, laying fast hold of her by the skirt of her dress. "Let me go in your room, Miss May, and sure I will bring her back to you, iv I have to go BLIND AGNESE 119 look for her at the bottom of the say, only let me go in your room, a-chorra!" "Away, away," cried May Netterville, struggling violently to free herself from his grasp. "I am ould, and it's no great matther to any one whin I go!" sobbed the poor fellow, falling on his knees, and putting his arms round her and the basket, so that she could not move. "But, Miss May, darlin, all your young years are bright before you; do not cast them from you, as iv you war ungrateful to their giver." "Stand back, man, stand back," cried May; "you peril the life of my sister in these vain delays." The suddenness of the announcement threw Daniel off his guard ; he cast up his eyes and arms to heaven in the excess of his astonishment ; the smugglers seized the favourable moment, and Grace Netterville was half way down the chasm, before he had in any de- gree recovered the use of his senses. Small time had she for thought or terror, while hanging thus fear- fully midway in the air. Sight and sound, the boiling surge, the beetling rocks, the howling storm, all passed confusedly through her brain, and not until she was safely landed on the altar rock, not until she had clasped her blind sister with all the wild energy of her nature to her bosom did she fully realize the danger of her situation. "I knew you would come, I knew you would come !" sobbed the child, twining her arms round her sister's neck; and more moved, as it sometimes happens, by the prospect of rescue than she had been in the pres- ence of danger. "I knew He would send you to me." 120 BLIND AGNESE "Yes, yes! dearest child, but we must hasten away now, for the tide is rising fast. Ah!" cried May, re- coiling from another hand laid upon her garments, "you here," she added, when, her eyes becoming ac- customed to the dim light, she recognised the terror- stricken features of Squire Netterville. "Unhappy man! pray well to God, for death is coming fast on yonder breakers." "Save me, save me!" gasped the wretch, already almost choking in his agony. "I came to save my sister, and I will save her, so help me God," said May, resolutely, unbinding the girdle from her waist, and fastening Agnes to her own person with it. "May Netterville, May Netterville! by the blood that flows in both our veins, have pity on your father's brother." "Agnese first," said May, "I will send the rope for another turn." "There will be no time no time," shrieked the squire, as a huge wave struck him on the shoulder. "And what of my life what of the child?" said May, almost fiercely, in her deep disgust for his sel- fish egotism. "It is not my life I crave," sobbed the renegade at her feet; "it is my salvation." May hesitated: she saw there was, indeed, but little time to lose. A few more such breakers as the last would clear the rock of its living occupants; and her human nature struggled hard with the holy inspiration which suggested the sacrifice of her own life and that of the child she so dearly loved, for the sake of one BLIND AGNESE 121 who had been, not merely the destroyer of her own earthly prospects, but who could scarcely be held innocent of the lives of her parents. "Water may drown fire will not burn you," mur- mured the unhappy man. "You are innocent you may go to God; but I have the sin of Judas on my soul." "Save him, save him, dearest Grace," Agnese whis- pered now. May looked at her, and for a moment thought of sending her up with the squire, but she changed her mind, fearing that, in his selfish terror, he might seek to lighten the rope by casting her from him. "Even now," thought she, "he is so mad with fear, he sees not how easy it would be for him, a strong man, to rob a poor girl like me of the rope, which is our only chance of safety." "Save him, save him," Agnese once more pleaded, as she saw her sister's hesitation. But it needed not the urging. The large, noble portion of her nature had conquered the little, inferior part. May put the rope in Squire Netterville's hand, and saying "Place yourself in the basket, and hold fast the rope it is your only chance." "I cannot," said the squire; "my arm is useless. I put out the shoulder in climbing this accursed rock." "This, then, is the secret of your submissiveness," thought May. But she said nothing, merely passing the rope round the waist of her enemy, and securing him as well as she could to the basket. 122 BLIND AGNESE "Save yourself also, dearest Grace," cried Agnese. "Indeed, I am not afraid to stay alone." "No, dear child ; we will live and die together," said May, folding her arms round her sister, and giving the preconcerted signal for the hoisting of the rope. Up went the basket directly, and a shout of execra- tion hailed the appearance of the squire overhead : but May Netterville heard it not. With her blind sister bound tightly to her bosom, one hand yet clasping her for greater security, while the other grasped the stone cross of the altar, all her energies of soul and body were concentrated in the effort to preserve herself and her precious charge from being swept away by the breakers. Quicker and stronger every minute they came dashing over her ; one had scarcely retired, before another, yet more terrible, leaped into its place, threatening to bury her beneath its waters, and scarcely able to breathe, half drowned, half blind beneath the merciless showers of spray, her bodily power was rapidly failing, and even her high courage almost exhausted, when some- thing dark passed through the air, and the rope and the basket lay at her feet. Too late, too late all her strength was gone; sight and sense had nearly failed her : the hand that grasped the cross fell power- less at her side ; and the next wave would have borne her far from her rock of refuge, had not a strong arm been thrown around her, and a strong hand bound her and her half dead sister to the basket; and when next May Netterville opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the rocks, from whence she had de- scended only half an hour before. With the excep- BLIND AGNESE 123 tion of one old woman, busily occupied in the care of Agnese, there seemed no one near her. May felt as if she had been in a terrible dream. "Daniel, Daniel," she cried, sitting up, and trying to recall her scattered senses. "Surely, Daniel was with us among the waters." "To be sure he was to be sure he was," cried Dan- iel, darting from behind the rocks which had kept him out of sight, and crying and laughing both at the same time, in the excess of his delight, at once more hearing her speak. "And did you think, a-lanna, that poor Daniel was goin' to let you be dhrownded, for the sake of the precious ould rogue you sent us up in the basket?" "Hush! hush!" said Grace, something like a smile playing round her own pale lips, while she took her still insensible sister from the arms of old Moya. "But I thank God you are safe, Daniel. I never should have felt happy again, if you had lost your life in my service." "Now, may heaven's blessin' be upon you for that very word, Miss May," said the poor fellow, grate- fully. "And niver think, a-chorra, that I risked your precious life by puttin' my clumsy self in the basket along wid ye. No, no; I knew betther nor that, I hope. Manners, says I to myself; Misther Daniel, ladies first, iv you plaise. So wid that I made the rope tight round your own purty little waist; and stuck like an oyster to the rock whiles they were hoist' ing yes up." "I am, indeed, most grateful for your generous de- votion," murmured Grace, still speaking and feeling 124 BLIND AGNESE like one in a dream, so completely had her strength been exhausted in the struggle. "May I never sin, Miss May, if I didn't think the good people had been at some of their thricks, when, instead of the sweet little dove that went down in the basket, I seed the ugly ould squire, lookin' for all the world like a carcumvinted magpie, half dhrownded in its nest." "The squire; the squire!" cried May, springing to her feet, as all the particulars of her adventure now flashed on her memory. "Ah! now you look like yourself agin, Miss May; so I may vinture to tell you, I'm afeard there 'ill be wild work among the smugglers this mornin'. It seems Squire Netterville has been a huntin' some of thim for croppies these six months, so they swore they would spoil his sport for the future. And troth," continued Daniel, not looking, it must be confessed, much distressed at the prospect, "it's like enough they'll be as good as their word, for Shane iv the Lift Hand is among thim, and he fears neither man or devil, when he has a mind for a bit of revinge." "Good God, Daniel ! and whither have they brought him?" "Down yonder to the dead man's cave, Miss May; and a bad place it is; and many a bad deed it has seen; and not the last either, I'm thinkin', for Shane is a terrible man for a bit iv revinge ; and he says the squire swore three of his sons to the gallows, for rebels; and . But where are you startin' off to in such a hurry, Miss May?" BLIND AGNESE 125 "To prevent murder, to be sure," cried May. "Run, Daniel, to my uncle, and bring him hither directly. Moya, stay with the child, or rather take her to my grandmother's. And you, Daniel, run for your very life." And having rapidly given these directions, May Net- terville darted off, like lightning, in the direction of the dead man's cave. She was not a minute too soon. By the light of a torch, which one of the smugglers held in his hand, she beheld her unhappy uncle, bound, hand and foot, to a projecting portion of the rock, and gagged so tightly, to prevent him from screaming, that his face was completely distorted, and his eyes almost starting from his head by the pressure. The smugglers were crowding fiercely round him, with many a muttered threat and half-suppressed execra- tion; and a vessel full of tar, and a great heap of feathers, too plainly proclaimed the terrible fate in preparation for him. As she entered the cave, the quick eye of May Netterville took in all this at a glance, and without bestowing a thought on her own safety, or the risk she was running, she passed right through the crowd, and interposed her slight form between them and their victim. "What are you about, my men?" she cried. "Would you commit murder?" "We would give to the duoul his own," said Left- handed Shane, eyeing the squire with savage malig- nity. "Then you should give your own necks to the hang-* man," retorted Grace, fearlessly. "Think you not the 126 BLIND AGNESE whole country would rise to avenge such an outrage as this?" "The whole country would belie its own thoughts and feelings, then," muttered Shane. "From the young girl who, they say, is still to the fore, to step into his shoes, down to the poorest craytur on the es- tate, not a man, woman, or child that wouldn't dance with joy over the renegade's grave." "Now, at least, you lie, man," said May, drawing her slight form to its utmost height, and looking proudly on the wondering men. "For I am the young girl of whose will you prate so freely ; and I swear to you, if you do this deed, I will pursue you to the gal- lows. Yes ! though the broad lands of Netterville were to be sold for the money." "You talk big, Miss Netterville," said Shane, a shade of respect unconsciously mingling with his for- mer manner; "but you forget that you, also, are in our power." "I do not forget it," said May; "you shall kill me before you touch one hair of his head ; and see if the country will be as lenient upon you for the murder of the niece as for that of the uncle. Now, man, come on ! You may tar and feather us both together if you will." And in her lofty self-forgetfulness, May actually flung her arms round the neck of the man, from whose touch she would, at any other time, have re- coiled with as much loathing as she would have done from that of a serpent. "Miss Netterville," said Shane, impatiently, "I mane you no harm, but I have sworn to have the life of BLIND AGNESE 127 this man; and by the dark duoul I will have it: so stand back, iv you value yer own." Miss Netterville, however, stirred not an inch. "Work your will, if you list," she contented her- self with saying, "but it must be upon us both." The smuggler's brow grew dark, and he seized her with no gentle hand. "Loose him," he cried; "loose him! or by all the powers above and below, I'll do ye a mischief." But still May clung closely to her uncle, uttering scream after scream, in hopes of bringing some one to her aid. "Hould yer tongue, will you, or shall I make you ?" said the savage, fumbling in his pocket as if for a knife; happily one of the others now interfered, by catching hold of his arm, and' saying "No, no, Shane! For the ould one it's all fair enough. He's a spy and a thrayter, and desarvin' his doom. But you shan't touch the young one, with my good will." "Nor with mine, nor mine," echoed several voices among the men, many of whom knew May by sight, although not by name, and loved her for her good and gentle deeds among the poor. "Shan't I, though?" cried Shane, dropping May's arm, and turning round upon his new opponents. "Dhar-a-loursa, and who is to prevent me, I wonder ?" "He who would avenge her," said a voice at his el- bow. The smuggler turned, with something like fear depicted on his bold countenance, and met the eyes of Father Netterville gazing sadly upon him. "My children," continued the good man, looking slowly 128 BLIND AGNESE round, and recognizing many of his own flock in the fierce-looking group before him "what are you about, my children? Is it to see you commit deeds like this one that I have laboured among you for so many years ?" "Sure, y're riverence, he dhrew it on himself," said one of the men in an exculpatory tone, while others hung back, apparently fearful and ashamed at the re- buke of their priest. "What is he on the island for, at all, at all, the black villain, iv it isn't as a spy and a thrayter?" "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay it," shouted Father Netterville, "and who are you, my children," he continued more mildly, "that you should usurp the privileges he has reserved for himself? or is His arm shortened, or His eye no longer upon you, that you dare to take His deed upon yourselves?" " 'Tis a silf-defince, and not a vingeance," said Shane, speaking for the first time since the priest had entered the cavern. "For, by the gonnies, if we let him off now, he'll have a hempen cravat for some of our necks afore another blessed month is over our heads." "It is written," said the Father, sternly, "Thou shalt do no murder. Loose him, May," he continued, un- twining his niece's arms gently from around the pale victim's form "if he were ten times a spy, he shall go forth in safety from this cave;" and picking up Shane's own knife, which he had dropt upon the floor, Father Netterville deliberately cut his intended vic- tim's bonds, and loosed the gag which had all but choked him. BLIND AGNESE 729 As he did so, the features of the squire assumed their natural appearance ; his senses, almost banished by pain and fear, gradually returned; and he looked long and steadily on the face of his deliverer. Father Netterville returned his troubled gaze, and for the first time for many years brother looked on brother, until, like a second Joseph, the memory of the Chris- tian priest seemed to leap over years of injury and ill deeds ; his heart yearned towards the companion of his childhood, and, falling on his neck, he wept over him with a loud voice. "Brother, forgive me," murmured the squire, in an inarticulate voice. "My son, my brother, you are forgiven," said the Father; and then he lifted up his face, still wet with his tears, towards the crowd that now pressed around him, all their fiercer passions lulled into sympathy for one whose saintly deeds had won their love, full as 'much as his saintly character had commanded their respect. "My children, you must let this man go free. I will answer for him, that he will intrude upon you no more." "We will, your riverence for your riverence's sake, he is free." "Not for mine," said the priest, reverentially uncov- ering his head, "but let it be for His who died for him, and for us all." Involuntarily, the men lifted their hats. Bold and lawless as they were, and wrought, by ill usage, to many an evil deed, they were not merely susceptible of generous impulse in themselves, but deeply cap- 130 BLIND AGNESE able of appreciating it in others. And in their rever- ence for Father Netterville, as a minister of God, and yet more in their admiration of his meek forgiveness of the life-long injuries inflicted on him by his brother, there was not one among them, with the exception of Left-handed Shane himself, who would not now have risked his life in defence of the very man whom, five minutes before, they were intent upon torturing to the most hideous of deaths. Father Netterville read their altered feelings at a glance ; but there was something in Shane's eye which convinced him, he was not to be so easily persuaded or convinced. "In the name of Him who pardoned His enemies with His dying breath, I thank you, oh, my children. But you have a right to demand every security in my power to offer, and therefore he shall swear." "Swear!" echoed Shane, with a most disdainful movement of the upper lip "his oath ! the man who swore away his brother's life and lands poh! poh!" Father Netterville sighed it was indeed vain to put trust in the renegade's oath. He thought of an- other and a better security. "How did you bring him hither?" "We brought him blindfolded," said Shane, fiercely. "We wouldn't trust the renegade, even in his grave." "Then bind his eyes again," said Father Netter- ville, "and I swear to you he shall not look upon the light again, until he open them in his mother's cham- ber. To the bedside of a dying parent you will surely believe that he would not, willingly, bring strife and bloodshed." BLIND AGNESE 131 May undid the kerchief from his neck, but Shane snatched it rudely from her, and bound it so tightly round the eyes of Squire Netterville that he uttered an involuntary expression of pain. "Curse ye," Shane fiercely muttered below his breath, "it's better than the cravat you twisted round the necks of my brave boys." Father Netterville overheard the words, and, unwilling to try the temper of such a man much longer, he took the arm of his brother, and led him from among them. "Whither do you bring me?" said the squire hoarsely. "To the bedside of our mother. I would have her to bless you, my brother, before she departs." Squire Netterville shuddered, and suffered his brother to lead him forward in silence. The dead man's cave communicated, by an underground passage, with the one in which Father Netterville had found a temporary home for himself and his mother; and through this he now led the squire, but he paused at the further end of the gallery, and said to May "Stay you here, my child, and watch him, while I go in and prepare my mother." The squire seemed struggling with some terrible ap- prehensions. "Do not go in, brother ! Do not go in," he cried vehemently. "And wherefore not ? I will be with you in a mo- ment," said the priest; mildly and gently disengaging himself from his brother's detaining hand, he pro- ceeded at once into the recess of the further cavern a wild shout from their depth instantly succeeded his disappearance. May uttered an exclamation of horror, and darted after him like an arrow, and tear- 132 BLIND AGNESE ing the bandage off his eyes, the squire followed in her footsteps just in time to behold his brother seized and handcuffed by a party of soldiery, under the command of one whose name is yet held in execration by the Irish peasantry, as that of a man altogether reckless of human life, and, under the specious pretext of mar- tial law, steeped to the eyes in the blood of the guilt- less as well as the guilty. "You have done this," cried May, turning round upon Squire Netterville, with a flashing eye and quiv- ering lip. "Brother !" faltered the unhappy man ; "as God sees me, I knew not that you were my brother. It was only by a conversation I overheard this morning in the cave, that I learned I had a mother and a brother yet existing. I thought you had perished long ago." "My son my brother I do believe you," said Father Netterville, mildly. But May looked fiercely incredulous "Save him, then," she said, "if you would have us believe you innocent of his blood; you have brought these men hither; you can send them away again, I suppose, if you will." "Your pardon, madame," said the officer, coldly. "Mr. Netterville certainly gave information of a croppy priest lurking in these caves, who, some months ago, had been openly seen with a party of armed rebels but there his duty ceased. I alone am in authority here." Father Netterville might easily have brought wit- nesses to prove that he had been among the rebels only to induce them to disperse quietly to their homes, but BLIND AGNESE 133 he was silent, for he knew the man he had to deal with, and he felt that any one speaking in his favour was more likely to be hanged as a rebel than heard as a witness. In his fear of compromising others he even congratulated himself upon having, previously to his visit to the dead man's cave, sent his faithful Daniel on a message to the dying Norisheen, which would in- sure his absence for a least an hour longer, so fear- fully uncertain was life and liberty in the days when martial law held sway over the land. "My uncle is neither a rebel nor a croppy," said May, proudly, in answer to the officer's last insinua- tion. "We shall see that presently, madam," said the officer : "martial law is a great enlightener in these in- tricate cases. Mr. Netterville, will you kindly lead the young lady hence ? Justice is a hard-hearted dame, and loves not the presence of the young and lovely at her counsels; and, besides," he added, with a bitter sneer, "I would spare your feelings also the hard task of bearing witness against a brother." May cast a troubled look upon the speaker; there was something in his face which made her tremble, and, weeping bitterly, she threw herself at the feet of Father Netterville. He also read his doom upon that darkling brow, but, faithful to the principle which had guided him through life, he prepared to meet his impending fate in the same spirit of simple firmness with which he would have accomplished any other duty arising from his mission among a suspected and much persecuted people; and, when he spoke again, his voice was as calm and soothing as though he did 134 BLIND AGNESE not know that the hand of violence was about to hush its accents for ever. "Grieve not, my child, for I am innocent of all re- bellion; take your uncle to my mother, but say noth- ing to her of all this ! it would only give her causeless sorrow." May caught hold of his hands, and deluged them with her tears. "My uncle, my father," she whispered; "give me your blessing." "May heaven bless you, my own my only one," he answered, laying his hands in solemn benediction on her head, and then, stooping down, he gently kissed her brow. Well he knew it was his final blessing his last farewell to the child of his life-long love and care. "And now," he added, placing her reluctant hand in that of her less worthy relative ; "lead him to my mother. Brother, farewell! you are forgiven." May rose from her knees; she dreamed not of the instant death awaiting the priest, but the Squire knew it well, and he saw, by the emphasis laid upon the word "forgiven," that his brother knew it also. In that terrible moment, shame, remorse, and horror were all busy at his heart, so choking him and paralyz- ing all his powers, that he could neither ask forgive- ness of his victim nor yet return the embrace in which it was imparted ; cold, silent, and despairing he turned from the brother, whom unconsciously, but surely, he had pursued to the death, and followed the footsteps of his niece, looking, feeling, and moving all the while like one under the influence of a horrible night-mare. May laid her hand upon the curtain which separated BLIND AGNESE 135 her mother's chamber from the outer passage of the cave, and he would have stepped beneath it, had she not stopped and laid her hand on his arm. Mechani- cally he paused, and looked upon her, but it was with eyes which had lost all consciousness of her presence. "John Netterville," said May, with a kindling eye and heightened colour ; "you have come hither to-day as a spy on the life and liberty of the best and gentlest being upon earth the nearest and dearest yet left for me to love. Long ago, you drove my father and my mother from their home and their own country one to perish on a field of blood, the other to die in sorrow and in want. Me you have beaten, as you would not have beaten the very hound at your feet, and for all these things I have twice this day given you back your life; all I ask of you in return" she added, in softer and milder accents than she had used in the begin- ning "is, that the last half of your life may be spent in weeping for tho first." John Netterville listened to her at first with the same lack-lustre eyes and vacant stare, but as she pro- ceeded, his consciousness gradually returned, convul- sion after convulsion shook his frame; he tried to speak, but could not; the wondering girl was about to go and fetch him some water, but he caught her by the arm, staggering, as he did so, like a wounded man. Just th^n a hand from within drew aside the curtain and the tall, wasted form of a woman appeared at the opening, gazing silently upon him. "Mother, forgive me," burst from his lips, and he fell on his knees. The dying woman moved her bloodless lips; she 136 BLIND AGNESE was about to speak, when a confused sound of voices and footsteps was heard from without theni there was an ominous pause then a frightfully prolonged scream and then old Moya rushed into the cavern, exclaiming : "Gracious God ! they have murdhered his riverence." "Oh, curse him not, curse him not," cried May, ter- rified at the expression of the mother's face "bless him, mother, before you go." The dying woman opened wide her arms. "May God forgive you as I do my son, God bless thee !" John Netterville caught her to his bosom but the mother's heart was broken she was dead before she had touched his shoulder. The prayer of Agnese had been heard in heaven the sacrifice accepted in its utmost rigour. Father Netterville the good and the kind was dead. The shepherd had laid down his life for his flock, and the mother had departed in sorrow to her tomb; but the price was paid the prodigal was won and John Netterville wept over her corpse a peni- tent, indeed! CHAPTER VI "'T'HERE it is again," said Agnese, as out of the confusion of sound in the streets below, the Hymn of the Blessed Sacrament came faintly to her ear. "Look out from the balcony, dearest Grace, and tell me if he is coming this way." The Little Spouse of the Blessed Sacrament was laid upon a light couch, placed sufficiently near the open window to admit the visit of the soft summer breeze on her fevered brow. A loose, white dressing- gown was wrapt around her, for she had been very ill, and even now the colour on her cheek was all too bright for health, and the lustre of her eyes too daz- zling.^ May Netterville, who never left her night or day, was seated at her side, and Lady Oranmore, sorrow in her heart, and tears, which she vainly struggled to repress, often starting to her eyes, was standing in the very same balcony from whence, just one year before she had looked down on the illumi- nated street, and the holy procession, and the fair child now visibly dying beneath her eyes, passing, she could not but feel, from earth to heaven, and going gently, sweetly, almost imperceptibly to the bosom of that God whose path she had so often and so lovingly followed upon earth. It seemed as if she were indeed a child of especial predilection, and as if God had resolved upon grant- ing even the smallest of her wishes, before complying with the chiefest of them all, in calling her to Him- 137 138 BLIND AGNESE self. She had prayed to revisit Italy; and they had brought her to die among its flowers. She had mourned for the dear, familiar faces of her child- hood; and now, half as a mother, half as a nurse, the kind old Benita was ever at her side, while not a day passed without a visit from Francesco ; and many a sweet and loving word from him concerning that Sacrament of love, which formed the bond of union between the heart of the old man and the poor blind child. What more was wanting to the happiness of Agnese ? Yes ! one thing more to fill her cup to over- flowing one thing more, without which the contents of that cup would have lost their sweetness to her lips ; and so, that one thing more was granted. He who gave to her the creatures of her love would not deny Himself, whom she loved almost to the exclusion of His creatures; therefore, upon the feast of Corpus Christi, just one week before the period at which our present chapter opens, He, Himself, in her first com- munion, had allowed her, by her own experience, "to taste and see that the Lord is sweet." From that moment May Netterville fancied she could perceive more of heaven and less of earth about her dying sister. Each day she spoke less often, and every time she spoke her voice appeared to have a greater sweetness in it. Each day she grew more recollected in herself and more absorbed, or rather, I should say, more forgetful of herself, and more recol- lected and absorbed in Him, who seemed to have chosen, not merely this young spirit, but the very form in which it was enshrined, for the especial tem- ple of His presence. And each day something more BLIND AGNESE 139 of reverence seemed to mingle with May's love for the dying child; and she would sit for hours beside her, stilling the regrets of her own loving heart, and resolutely putting back the prayer that, in spite of herself, would sometimes rise to her lips for the avert- ing of a fate which yet she also felt to be less a death than a passing away from one life to another from the life of loving expectation to that of certain and intense fruition. These thoughts were in her mind just now, as, with a half-finished wreath of white roses in her hands, she sat waiting the arrival of Fran- cesco, who had promised to come and carry Agnese to Lady Oranmore's carriage. It was the first time she had been in the open air since she made her first communion ; and, indeed, it was only by reiterated en- treaties she had won the unwilling consent of her grandmother to be present at the evening benediction in the Church of the "Blessed Sacrament." The doctors had been appealed to, but they only shrugged their shoulders ; it was evident they thought her past hope or care; and so at last Lady Oranmore yielded, partly because she could deny nothing to her darling, and partly because she felt a kind of necessity in her own heart for revisiting the church where, just one year before, she had discovered Agnese. Besides, she knew it to be the eve of the Feast of the Sacred Heart, when we celebrate Christ's love for man; and possibly she might have indulged the vague hope that in this church God would give back to her prayers the treasure which, in this church, He had vouchsafed to her entreaties; perhaps even she felt that she had need to ask forgiveness for her I 4 o BLIND AGNESE faithless attempt to warp the conscience of the guilt- less being whom, in mercy to her sorrow, He had then confided to her keeping. She could not think of it now without remorse, only softened by the feeling, that from the hour in which she had given May Netterville a promise to that effect, she had never interfered with the religion of Agnese. In truth, she needed all the consolation which this thought could yield her, to enable her to look with calmness on the dying child, as she lay, day after day, on her little couch calm, still, and pale, her hands folded meekly on her bosom, and deprived, by her blindness, of the amusements and distractions of other invalids. To Lady Oranmore's fancy this state of compelled inaction added to the sufferings of Agnese ; yet it was not so in reality, for her heart and soul were so constantly with Jesus in the sacrament of His love, that Magdalen, at His very feet, could hardly have felt less need of external occupation. Such was her medi- tation, and such her attitude at the present moment; but after she had lain a little while quite still and silent, her eyes closed, and the bright colour coming up into her face, as the soft strains of the hymn rose louder, she whispered to her sister "It is louder now, dear Grace. Look out from the balcony and tell me if He is not coming this way." "No!" answered Grace. "I see not the procession, but yet it must be coming, the voices are so distinct. There, now it has turned the corner ; and but, holy Mother of God, what a sight to see!" she cried, sud- denly interrupting herself, and falling on her knees in the open balcony. BLIND AGNESE 141 It was, indeed, as she said, a sight to see. She was looking down upon a large square, full of buyers, sellers, idlers, animals, carriages, ludicrous exhibitions, and spectacles of all kinds. The Neapolitans, who al- most live in the open air, were all in their open stalls, pursuing their several occupations, and knocking, hammering, shaving, weaving, sowing, filing, and plan- ing; water vendors were preparing their beverages; fishwomen selling their fish; housekeepers cooking their dinners fish, chicken, and macaroni : and all the members of this vast assembly were screaming at the very top of their voices, when the procession of the Blessed Sacrament entered the square. Then, as if by magic, every voice was mute, every hat was doffed, every craft abandoned. The fish- women ceased to sell; the housekeeper to cook; the showman to display his wares; the jester even to crack his jokes; and every creature, of those busy thousands, was on his knees, awed into silence and the hush of prayer. Grace Netterville well might pro- nounce it "a sight to see." She did not look round again until some few minutes after the procession had passed from beneath the balcony; and when she did so, the square had resumed its usual appearance business and folly being once more mingled together, as the order of the day. "In truth, it is wonderful," she said, half aloud; "the faith of this people, and their devotion." "And which of them will be the better for it?" re- plied Lady Oranmore, coldly, for she sometimes sought a false peace of mind in contending against her conscience with the religion of her grandchildren. 142 BLIND AGNESE "Which of them will cheat the less, or quarrel the less, or gamble the less, for all this display of devotion which seems so admirable to you?" "Many, I should hope," said May. "But if it were only one, how often has Jesus preached to the crowd in Judea, and been contended by the conversion of a single individual? Zaccheus, for instance, the sole penitent in the crowd which left Jericho to meet Him ; Matthew, called to His especial service, from amid the multitude, that yet were employed in glorifying God ; and Magdalen, for we read of none but her con- verted iat the supper of Simeon." "It is true," retorted Lady Oranmore, "only one convert is particularly mentioned in each of these in- stances, yet it does not follow that many may not have been secretly drawn towards their Saviour, and converted at the same time, though in a less ostensible and singular manner." "Well," said May, "admitting it were, indeed, but one in that vast multitude below, He, who died for each individual, surely would not think the conversion of even one a useless labour. And though it were even not an entire conversion but only a crime the less one bargain fairly made one oath unuttered one irreverent jest unsaid surely He, who died for every separate sin, would not deem that He had been borne through the crowd in vain; and though even (which seems impossible) no single crime had been prevented no sinner checked in his evil ways were it but for the comfort of one afflicted heart for the giving of hope to one despairing soul for the re- minding of one in bodily suffering of all that He had BLIND AGNESE 143 suffered in the body for them surely, He who passed His life in the consolation of His creatures would not reckon that He had come in vain ; and though none of all these things were done, and that it was but 9 single spark of Divine love falling upon a spirit, in- nocent before, but inactive, for want of the high in- spiration of His charity, surely, surely, He who came to cast fire upon earth would not grudge His pres- ence, by which it had been enkindled." May Netterville paused in her passionate address, and mutually, as if by a single impulse, she and Lady Oranmore cast their eyes upon Agnese. The child was kneeling on the bed, and with her soft eyes closed, her long hairs parted smoothly on her fore- head, and her white robes flowing round her, she seemed like an answer to the thoughts of each. "Would He grudge it?" May could not forbear adding, in a whisper "Though it were only to visit such a soul as that." Then, without waiting for an answer, she passed to the bed, and drew her sister gently towards the pil- low, saying "Lie down, dearest; it is yet a long time to Fran- cesco's hour. Lie down, or you will be weary." Agnese lay down as she was desired, whispering, at the same time, with a heavenly smile upon her countenance "Is it not lovely, Grace? And did I not tell you, that here the very air was full of Jesus?" "Yes, indeed!" Grace answered, in the same sub- dued voice. "And it is sweet to live in such an atmos- phere of love and faith." 144 BLIND AGNESE "He is everywhere in Italy," returned Agnese; "in the people's hearts and on their lips, and in the churches ; and even in the very streets we meet Him." "And He is in the hearts of our own home people, too, Agnese, if you would but think it," answered May, in a tone as nearly of reproach as she could use towards the gentle creature she so tenderly cherished. "His faith and love are with us also ; only we are forced to lock up in our hearts the thoughts which these may prate of to every idle air. But you won't believe it." "Indeed, indeed, I do believe it, May; it would be strange if I could doubt it, after all that passed on that terrible day;" and Agnese shuddered, as she al- ways did whenever she recurred to the day of Father Netterville's murder. Poor child ! she had good reason to remember it with horror, for she had been with (old Moya at the moment when the latter, entering the cavern unperceived, became an eye-witness of the priest's violent death, which her cries soon revealed to her sightless companion; and the shock had gone far to destroy the little strength yet left Agnese, to contend with the various influences that were drawing her towards the grave. May Netterville walked to the window she also could never speak of that fearful event without a shud- der, and something more than a shudder of grief and horror, for indignation, in spite of all her efforts to prevent it, would mingle with her feelings; and it cost her many a battle with her proud and passionate nature to still the loathing ever rising within her, at .the bare recollection of the guilty, yet, as she could BLIND. AGNESE 145 not but acknowledge to herself, most repentant brother; and she was yet struggling with the storm which her sister's observation had awakened in her bosom, when a servant entered to tell her of a per- son asking an interview with her. May was so com- pletely preoccupied, that she could scarcely be said to hear him, although she mechanically followed him to a room, which he indicated by throwing wide the door, and into this she entered, without having formed one conjecture as to who or what the person was who de- sired to see her. He was sitting near the window, his back towards her, and his face buried in both his hands. May was startled, something in his attitude was so familiar, that she could not help fancying she had seen him before; but as he did not look up, or give any other indication of being aware of her pres- ence, she advanced a few steps towards him, in hopes of arousing his attention. Far from having this effect, however, the sound of her footsteps seemed to shrink him yet more completely into himself, and he bowed himself down, until his brow rested upon the table, as if thus he hoped more entirely to conceal his identity from her. May began to feel exceedingly awkward : "You sent for me, sir ?" she said, at last, in English, a secret instinct seeming to tell her that the man before her was not Italian. Something very like a shudder passed over the stranger's frame ; but he made no an- swer. "Pardon me, sir," continued May, with a little im- patience in her voice and manner ; "I would not hurry you if I could help it, but I have left the bedside of a dying sister to attend your summons." 146 BLIND AGNESE i "Believe me, I would not idly have intruded on your sorrow." "John Netterville !" cried May, recoiling a step in amazement, as the stranger, in saying these few words, stood up and removed his hands from before his face. "I knew you must loathe me ; I knew you must de- test and hold me in abhorrence; but I almost hoped you would forgive me," said that unhappy man, in a tone of despair; and, sitting down again, he passed his hands once more over his eyes, as if to shut out his niece's involuntary look of disgust. For one moment May was tempted to leave the room in contemptuous silence; and then she had to strug- gle hard against the proud and angry spirit which prompted her to pour out a torrent of stinging re- proaches on the fratricide. But she thought upon Him who but a few minutes before had passed be- neath her eyes, preaching peace, and mercy, and par- don unto men, and she checked the movement. She remembered how He from the very cross had pardoned all His enemies. His "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do," seemed to ring in her ears, and she resolved that she also would pardon, and not coldly or by halves, but fully, generously, and without conditions, even as He had done, when he said to the repentant thief "This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise" and, promptly answering to the in- . spiration, she flung her arms round her uncle's neck, * exclaiming "I will forgive you I do forgive you; and I pray you to pardon me, for I have been very guilty in my thoughts of you." BLIND AGNESE 147 John Netterville made no reply. This very unex- pected answer to his appeal roused all of good and human feeling that yet lived within him, and, com- pletely thrown off his guard by the suddenness of his niece's movement, he burst into tears. "Oh, hush, hush !" cried May, kneeling down beside him, and unconsciously kissing his hand, so moved was she to behold that strong man sobbing like a child. "Do not weep so sadly; I pray you not to weep so sadly. He is happy they are happy they are pray- ing for us even now and the love which on earth they felt for us both, they are at this very moment communicating to us, for each other. Is it not so, dear uncle ? for do I not begin to feel that you are my father's brother? and do you not likewise feel that I am your brother's child?" "I feel that you are an angel of pity and of peace to me I who have sinned so deeply against you. Yes, even more against you than against any other, al- though you are too generous to reproach me with the ill-treatment." Unconsciously May put her hand to her forehead. There was still a slight scar upon her brow. The squire had made good his threat she felt she would carry his mark to her dying day. "To lift my hand against a woman and my own niece, too ! But I did not know then who you were, and, without doubt, God permitted my ignorance, in order to make me more fully the instrument of my own chastisement. Not until long afterwards, when I heard you speak to Daniel in the cavern, did I know that you, or he, or my mother," he added, almost con- 148 BLIND AGNESE vulsively, "were yet in existence. From the hour when my own wickedness drove them from their home, I had had no communication with them, or with any other member of my family." "But why were you there at all?" asked May, sud- denly yielding to a curiosity she had often felt upon the subject of the squire's presence in the chapel cave "Why were you there? for you sent the soldiers to the other cave." "Both were to have been occupied; but the sea ran so high they were afraid of entering the one into which I, more prompt in wickedness, had run my boat an hour or two before; they managed, however, to make good their entrance into the other, and, in exploring it, they came upon the secret passage, by which it communicated with the dead man's cave, of which I myself was not aware." "But when you discovered who he was, of whom you were in pursuit, why did you not warn him of his danger ?" "I knew it was too late. The whole island was sur- rounded, and the affair had been put into the hands of a man who, as you saw yourself, knew not what it was to pardon or to pity. Still I shuddered to appear as the murderer of my brother, and so I thought I would linger in the mass cavern until all was over. In my horrow and agitation, I quite forgot the spring- tide, and, when I did remember it, it was too late my boat had disappeared, taken, probably, by some of the people in the hurry of departure, and as a last hope of safety I climbed the altar; but I put out my shoulder in doing so." BLIND AGNESE 149 May Netterville groaned the whole scene of that woeful day passed so vividly before her imagination, that all her old feelings revived, and she withdrew her hand; but remembering Him whose example she was trying to imitate, she repressed the impulse, and once more replaced it in that of her uncle. Slight as had been the movement, he felt it, guessed its meaning, and sighed as he said "You forgive me, May, because it is your duty ; but you do not you cannot love me no one will ever love me any more." "Do not say so indeed, indeed, I will love you," May answered earnestly "And there are others who will love you better : you have a wife, a child." "No," said the Squire, groaning "she is dead, and the child has learned to shudder at the sight of his guilty father." "Dead ! Good God !" cried May "I never saw her ; but they told me she was so young and so fair !" "And so she was, both young and very fair. And God is my witness that I loved her truly, and she loved me also, until that fatal day. Oh, my God! May Netterville, how I have been punished; and how He has made my crime to be my chastisement. The brother whom I murdered, not because I hated him, but because I hated the religion of which he was a minister. And I hated it, May! now, I must confess it, only because of its just denunciations against those who deserted from its holiness and truth And the mother whose heart I have broken And now, at last, my wife, the mother of my only child Oh, that was the worst of all! To know that I was loathed 150 BLIND AGNESE by one, who had so loved me that she now shrunk from my caresses, who used to smile so brightly at the very hearing of my footsteps to see her grow pale, and languid, and lifeless, in the untold horrors of her soul; to feel she was withering away in the poisonous atmosphere of my guilt; and at last to watch her dying dying, and not in my arms for even in the death agony I saw her struggle with the terror which the very touch of the fratricide im- parted; and I would not add to the anguish of that hour so she died in peace, believing herself alone, and little dreaming of the guilty wretch who lay gasping on the floor of her chamber, and who would gladly how gladly ! have exchanged places with any one of the victims of his crimes." "And the child, the poor child !" cried May, wring- ing her uncle's hands in her strong sympathy with his woe. "It was all the same he had marked his mother's brow grow pale as I looked upon her, and her voice to quiver as she answered my inquiries and so he learned to do the like! And unused as he is to tears, and almost too old for them (for the boy is nearly ten years of age), he almost screamed himself into fits when I took leave of him over the grave of his mother." May thought the agitation of the father, and the place which he had chosen for their parting scene, might have had something to say to this terror, and she ventured to suggest it to her uncle; but he only shook his head. "The mother's mantle has fallen upon the child my son both fears and hates me. But it is no mat- BLIND AGNESE 151 ter, for I shall never see him more. To-morrow I enter a convent of the Camaldolesi, and the rest of my days will be spent in complying with your request, May. The last half of my life will be spent in weep- ing over the first." "Then you have abandoned your child?" "No, May Netterville, I have not abandoned, I have but left him in better hands I have confided him to you." "To me?" said the wondering May. "See here," said the squire, "is a document signed by me, in which, under age as you are yourself, I have given to you the entire guardianship of my child. No one but myself has a right to interfere with your au- thority, and that right I resign entirely to you; and here is another deed, securing to you the whole Net- terville estates, to which I have no real claim. I have assigned you a guardian, because such was needful in the eye of the law; but he has promised to interfere in nothing, and to leave you as much mistress of your property as if he were not in existence." "1 am young for such a charge," said May, un- consciously speaking her thoughts aloud. "You are young in years, but, if I have read your soul aright, you will do your duty nobly. Take this paper, which will make you but mistress of your own. I have reserved nothing for my son he is a beggar on the face of the earth, as the child of a blood-stained renegade should be." "I cannot accept of it it is impossible," said May, resolutely; "however much I may admire such re- pentance, I cannot consent to be a gainer by it." 152 BLIND AGNESE "You cannot help yourself," said her uncle. "This is but a copy the original deed is in the hands of the lawyers who drew it up." "But surely," remonstrated May, "you have no right to will away from your son, however the property was obtained. He is now your heir." "I have every right the property is not entailed; and this is but an act of simple justice. Think you such ill-gotten wealth would prosper my child? Be- lieve me, it is only by removing it from him that I hope to free himself from that terrible judgment, which avenges the crime of the parents on the chil- dren, even to the third and fourth generation. And now, daughter and niece of my murdered brethren, let me hear you say once more that you forgive me !" This time May murmured her pardon through tears of real tenderness and pity it may be even of admira- tion for the heroism of soul which thus proportioned its penitence to the greatness of its crimes. Earnestly, also, she promised love and protection to her little cousin; and the unhappy man, having once more wrung her hand, abruptly quitted the apartment. For a few seconds after his departure May stood like a statue, revolving the past and future in her soul. In those few seconds her prompt and energetic mind had seized upon all the bearings of her position, and laid down the whole plan of her future life the edu- cation of her cousin in the religion of his forefathers the resignation of the property into his hands as soon as he had arrived at years of discretion, and her own subsequent entire renunciation of and retirement from the world. How well and religiously she ad- BLIND AGNESE 153 hered to that plan it is easy to conceive, for hers was peculiarly one of those happy characters with whom to will and to do is almost one and the same thing. While still wrapt in deep thought, she left the room, walked to that occupied by Agnese, placed the packet received from the squire in Lady Oran- more's hands, and said, like one awakening from a dream "Grandmama ! you asked me but a minute ago what good He did, when borne in the Blessed Sacrament through the streets below, and now I can answer your question for my enemy has been here and I have forgiven him." "Your enemy, dear May." "John Netterville, the murderer of my father and my mother, and of one who was even more than father or than mother unto me." "John Netterville ! and here !" "He has but this moment left the house!" Lady Oranmore, who knew her grandchild's strong feelings and unyielding will, looked upon her, aston- ishment mingling with her admiration. "Then you have forgiven him; my child, you have acted nobly. Well, I know it was a difficult, almost I had called it an impossible deed." "It would have been either or both, had I not so lately been kneeling before Him in the sacrament of His love. But the recollection of Him, and of His abundant forgiveness of His enemies, so softened my heart that the task was easy." "Now, indeed, dear May," said Lady Oranmore, affectionately embracing her grandchild, "I am willing 154 BLIND AGNESE to confess that He did not walk through the streets in vain." Agnese started from the sofa, and threw herself at her grandmother's feet. So quick was the movement there was no time either to foresee or prevent it. "Oh, grandmama, you believe in His eucharistic reality. You say Him. Then you will belong to the church where only He is to be found in the sacrament of His love?" "I do I will, my precious one," whispered Lady Oranmore, clasping Agnese to her bosom, and weep- ing like a child. May saw that the effort had been too much for Ag- nese; so she gently untwined Lady Oranmore's arms from around her, and laid her on the couch. "Go you with her to the church," whispered Lady Oranmore ; "I will follow soon ; at present I would be alone." She left the room, and there was a long pause during which May hung anxiously over her pale sister. "May," whispered the latter, as soon as she had breath to speak, "you have made her a Catholic." But May shook her head. "I think, dear Agnese, you have done more with your quiet love than I with my vehement and im- petuous nature. I would I knew how you did learn to love Him so." "I think I can tell you," said Agnese, hesitating; "at least in part.". "Do, dearest, if it will not weary you, for you are quite as much a mystery to me, with your deep and BLIND AGNESE 155 holy thoughts, as I fear my fiery ones sometimes make me be to you." "I should like to tell you," said Agnese; "it would be a kind of relief to me, for I have been thinking very much about it this morning, and it almost seems as if my thoughts went back of themselves to things I had nearly forgotten, and to the very beginning of my love for Jesus. I remember the first time I ever thought about it ; I was a very little child, and I asked what was my name. Benita said it was Agnese, and that Agnese meant Lamb and that Jesus also was called a lamb, and so, as my name was the name of Jesus, I ought always to try and be resembling to Him. And I asked how that might be and she said that lambs were gentle creatures, and very meek, and so, therefore, I ought to be meek likewise ; and from that time I did try very hard to be meek, and never to make the least movement like impatience; but still I could not help feeling very sad, because people used to call me poor Agnese, and poor blind child, and I knew, therefore, it was a misfortune to be blind; ancj this made me weep sadly that I could not see. The children, also, would talk to me of seeing this or seeing that, and I could not see at all, but I could hear them play, and laugh, and run around me, and I was afraid of running, for fear of falling, so I used to sit at the door and listen to them, and to feel so lonely in the midst of their merry romps, and so sad that the tears were often in my eyes whether I would or no. Sometimes, also, the little ones who did not know me, came to ask me to join in their games, but the others would check them, and say Hush, that is 156 BLIND AGNESE blind Agnese, she cannot play about as we do do not remind her of her misfortune. They did not mean me to hear them, but I could not help doing so; at other times, it has happened that ill-natured children have mocked me for the blindness which the others pitied. I could not cry then ; it would have been a relief if I could; but I felt too desolate to cry. Still I did not answer them unkindly. I tried rather to be kinder to them than before, for I had not forgotten that Jesus was meek, and that, to be like Him, I also must be meek likewise. One day my grandmama, Benita, said to me, 'Agnese, my little one, come with me, I am going to see some nuns, who love the Lamb very much, indeed, and who pray night and day before him.' 'Do they see Him, grandmama?' I asked; for I did not then know whether He were visible or invisible to those who had eyes for other things. 'They see the Blessed Sacrament, in which He dwells upon our al- tars, my child,' replied Benita. I was very glad to think I should see those who lived with the Lamb, and could tell me what the Lamb was like; and so I went with Benita to the convent, where Lady Oran- more took me just before we left Naples. Though I was such a very little child, I remember that first visit just as if it took place yesterday. Benita talked for a long time to the Superioress; but I was think- ing so much of the Lamb, and longing to go visit the altar where they always prayed before Him, that I did not much attend to what they were saying. At last one of the nuns asked me if I would come to the church. 'Is the Lamb there?' I asked, quite inno- cently; 'Because, if he is, I should like to go.' 'Yes, BLIND AGNESE 157 my child, the Lamb is ever on our altar/ replied the nun. Directly I heard that, I gave her my hand, and very joyfully accompanied her to the church. When we approached the altar, the air felt very warm; she told me it was the immense number of lights burn- ing upon it that made it so, and leading me to the side of one of the adorers of the hour, whispered 'Kneel down, my child; the Lamb is before you, on His altar throne.' I knelt down all was so calm, so solemn, and so still, I felt as if I had entered heaven. It was, indeed, as though Jesus Himself was at my side, speaking a new language to my heart, and steal- ing all His sweetness over it. I did not say anything to Him, or ask anything of Him; I only felt that He was near, and that was joy enough for me. By de- grees the quiet happiness grew more quiet, and the calm feeling calmer still; and I suppose," continued Agnese, making evidently a great effort to overcome her reluctance to speak upon the subject "I suppose I fell asleep for all that followed must, surely, have been a dream. I thought I was still kneeling between His two adorers at the altar" "Agnese," interrupted May, "did you think you saw them then?" "At the moment I thought I did. But it is all now like a vision, the memory of which has passed away, as is so often the case with dreams, and I cannot tell you in the least what they were like. I only remem- ber feeling that I might have thought them figures cut in stone, they were so unbreathing and so still, had not something about them seemed to say, that though the bodies were so motionless, the living souls within 158 BLIND AGNESE were wide awaKe, and full of life, bowed down before the 'Holy of Holies,' and only silent from intensity of love." "Agnese, you must have seen them," cried May; "you describe them to the very life, just as I saw them yesterday at the convent." Agnese's pale face flushed a little "I do not know, May, how that could be, as I have said it was all a dream and mystery to me. After I had watched these mute adorers for a few minutes in silence, a lady seemed to stand beside me; I do not know how or from whence she came, but there she was a lamb in her arms, and her eyes fixed upon me, until I felt their soft, sweet glances penetrate my soul." "Did you see her too, Agnese?" "I cannot tell you, May," replied Agnese, with a little uneasiness in her voice and manner. "I can only tell you that I felt as if a vision of beauty were at my side; and while I yet knelt, in awful admira- tion, her voice fell on my ear. May ! only to hear one tone of a voice like hers would make a paradise of the most desolate heart upon earth." "And what said the Mother of the Lamb? for surely it was she who showed herself to your sleeping fancies." " 'Namesake of Jesus, what would you have ?' It was thus she spoke and then, as if she had read the instant thought of my heart, she added 'that you may see ? Oh, ask it not. Rather pray that the light may be given to your soul which has been withheld by infinite wisdom from your body; for though with your corporal vision you might behold his Sacramental BLIND AGNESE 159 presence, still it is by the eye of faith, never refused even to the poor blind child, that man is taught to see Him there, as the angels do in heaven, in His divinity and His glorified humanity. Child of sor- row, I am your mother ! The mother of all the chil- dren of sorrow, as I am of Him who took their af- flictions on Himself all their afflictions. Not a pain of body, or of mind, that His creatures are given to endure, which He Himself did not first make sacred, and consecrate in His own person. For in the spirit He made desolate, and full of anguish and in the body, from the crown of His Head to the sole of his foot, the words of the prophecy were accomplished to the full, and there was not a sound spot left about Him no, not one single spot without its separate and distinct allotment of woe.' " "I have told you, May," continued Agnese, "that the voice of the Lady was very sweet so sweet, it was like being in paradise only to sit and hear it. And sweeter and sweeter it seemed to grow, as she pro- ceeded sweeter and sweeter yet. But, oh! so sad. And when she spoke about His woe, it moved my very soul to tears, filling and steeping it, as it were, in her own sorrow; and then, for the first time, I came to comprehend how she, like the Blessed One of whom she spoke, kept all the unmingled bitterness of her chalice to herself, giving only of its more soft and soothing sadness to her children. Yet, would you be- lieve it May, even at that moment the thought crossed my mind and a wicked one it was for such a mo- ment that if He had endured all other woes, He had not taken mine upon Himself? It was but a passing 160 BLIND AGNESE thought, repented of almost as soon as I was con- scious of it. But, as before, the lady answered to that thought. " 'Yes ! Agnese, of Him it may be truly said, that He saw and that He saw not. For you and with you He was blind, indeed, and yet, because of you, and even for your very sake, He refused not Himself the fa- culty of seeing. Blind He was to your sins, blind to all consolations of heaven or of earth. Closing His eyes even upon His divinity, one glance at which would have robbed His cross of its ignominy His passion of its woe. But blind He was not, to those who passed beneath His cross, wagging their heads in cold derision; and He opened them wide, and fixed them unshrinkingly on the mangled humanity in which He was atoning for the crimes of the scoffers : nor did He refuse them to look upon His mother. He was, indeed, a very prodigal of His woe; not merely con- tent to drink up the chalice which His Father gave Him, but rather sipping it, as it were, drop by drop, that He might more fully taste and savour all its bit- terness; and therefore it was, Agnese, that He would not lose His sight, since by that very sight He could draw suffering to His soul. And now, my child, you need not speak, for I know your thoughts. You will gladly suffer with Jesus, and as Jesus wills. Bow down, then, your heart, and bow down your very soul, and receive Him into your arms, and learn of Him, who was alone a victim but a willing victim-coffered solely because He willed it." "Dearest May," added Agnese, after a little pause of thoughtful recollection, "she had read my thoughts BLIND AGNESE 161 aright. So I bowed myself down body and soul, and held out my arms, and received the Lamb-child, Jesus, in them. He did not seem to stay there, but rather to sink into my very heart of hearts, and penetrate it so in sweetness that I felt quite dissolving in love and joy. Tears rushed into my eyes; and, though I could not speak, it seemed as if my spirit said to Mary 'Oh ! sweetest lady, leave Him with me thus, and never again will I ask to do ought but suffer.' And Mary answered, with heavenly gladness in her voice: 'He is yours, Agnese ; only try and will as he wills, and be- lieve never, in joy or in sorrow, will He cease to make His dwelling in your heart.' I awoke, dear May quite awoke, when she said these words ; for the nun touched me on the shoulder, and we left the chapel. But always since that day He is ever in my heart ; and though I do not see Him, I feel him there. And now, if I could see, I would not see; and if by a miracle my eyes were to be opened to the light, I would close them again, and never open them, if I could help it, until I was in heaven. For I would not willingly look upon thing or creature, however beautiful or however blest, before Ihad rejoiced in the vision of my God. And I shall see Him soon, dear May soon, although not quite yet. But soon very soon it will be now, as I think and hope." "Why, Agnese, you surely do not mean to go to heaven, and leave us all just yet?" said May, trying to laugh through the tears that were choking her. "I am sure I shall not live long, May. I know well I have been dying ever since I left Naples; only, at first, I was dying slow, and now I am dying 162 BLIND AGNESE fast. Do not cry, dearest, dearest May do not cry so sadly." "How can I help it, when I hear you say such ter- rible things? So short a time to have had a little sister, and now to lose her. No, no, Agnese! I can- not spare you yet." Tears came into Agnese's eye, as she answered "To leave you, May, is almost my only sorrow, I love so much to feel that you are near me. But though I leave, I do not lose you, nor you lose me, dear May; for then I shall love you with a double love the love of the sister who, on earth, so relied upon your care, and the love of the guardian spirit, who will watch over you from heaven. And, oh ! my sister, when I see Him if I see Him surely my first thought will be ^of you my first petition for you. Never, believe me, never shall I weary of kneeling at His feet, and praying for your welfare." Agnese looked so beautiful, as she made this prom- ise, that May felt inspired with something of the same heavenly longing so visible on her features. She kissed her brow, and whispered in a tone which had more of exultation than of sadness in it "You shall go to Him when he wills it, dear one; only remember to bequeath to me your sweet and lov- ing thoughts of Him, that I may also, for the sake of Jesus, close my eyes to all that is not Jesus ; and be to Him, as you have been, a very spouse in the sacra- ment of His love." "Ah!" said Agnese, "long ago the children used to call me His sposina; but I never really was so, and I never really felt so until the other day." BLIND AGNESE 163 "The other day! What do you mean, Agnese?" replied May, struck by the peculiar expression of her sister's countenance. "I was his spouse," whispered Agnese, "on the day when he came to me in the sacrament of His love, for then I promised to be His and His alone. And I don't mean half His, but wholly and entirely His own ; as in life, so to be faithful even unto death. Yes, May," continued the blind child, making a great and Evident effort to speak her secret, "I promised Him faithfully oh! so faithfully to be His; not only His, a child, but His, a woman. I asked Him, indeed, to take me away directly ; but if He chose to leave me here, I said I would live but for His love. So you see that was really my spousal day; and soon He ivill come and take me to Himself, and then I shall be with Him as His spouse, indeed." "Agnese ! but you should not have done this without asking." "I did not intend it, May ; but that instant it seemed as if I were so entirely His own that it was the most natural thing in the world to do; and then," Agnese added, seeing her sister's grave and anxious looks, "it is no great matter, for I shall not live to the trial. He is coming to take me away so soon." "I know not that I know not that!" said May, clinging, as human nature often does, to the expres- sion of a hope which yet it does not feel. "The doc- tors say there is no disease, and where there is no disease surely it is impossible not to hope." "Do not hope, my sister; the doctors do not know how entirely I have offered my life to Him." 164 BLIND AGNESE "But He may not accept the offering," answered May; "or He may receive it in another sense, giving you now to live, in order that, at a later period, you may consecrate to Him, in very deed, what now you have only given in desire." "No, May, do not deceive yourself; I feel that He has accepted the offering, in the sense and spirit in which I made it; the hand of death is upon me, dear- est. It is true, I have no disease, but " And May long remembered afterwards how the child had unconsciously laid her hand on her heart, in concluding the sentence "It is as if He Himself were stealing away my life." May made no answer; she was weeping bitterly. "May," said Agnese, after a silence of some min- utes, "what are you doing?" "Making a wreath of white roses for the novice whose clothing takes place next week, at the Convent of the Perpetual Adoration." "May, could you not make another for her, and give me that one?" "You shall have it, dearest." "And May," continued Agnese, feebly, "I wish you would change my dress, and put me on the one I wore when He came to me for the first time." May put aside the roses, which were all besprinkled with her tears, and she had soon wrapt her sister in the spotless folds of a white muslin wrapping- dress, and parted her soft, shining hair, upon her brow, and smoothed the long curls upon either side, but when she was about to crown them with BLIND AGNESE 165 her white roses, Agnese put aside the wreath, and said "Not just yet, dearest May; wait until He comes to take me away, for then I would be dressed as a bride, indeed, and brides always wear a wreath of flowers, Benita says. Ah, here is Francesco," she added, with a happy smile, as her quick ear caught the sound of the old man's footsteps on the corridor without. ****** * * * The poor children lingering near the Church of the Blessed Sacrament crowded round Agnese, as Fran- cesco lifted her from the carriage. Many of them had known, and loved, and reverenced her, even as a poor blind child, and now, in her better fortunes, it was one of Agnese's sweetest pleasures to repay their former kindness, by a thousand little generosities, as well as by the tenderest interest in all that concerned them. No wonder, therefore, they now crowded round her, saying to each other, in their great delight at her re-appearance among them "It is blind Agnese ; how glad I am she is not too weak to come; and now that she is once in the open air again, our sposina will grow as strong as she was before the foreign lady took her to that cold land, where the sun, she says, never shines so brightly as it shines on us." "You must pray for me very much to-night, dear little ones," said Agnese, pausing ere she ascended the steps of the church, in order to distribute her presents among them. "These are the last gifts I shall ever bring you." Francesco took her in his arms, and carried her into the church, for she was too weak to walk so far. 166 BLIND AGNESE "Where Colomba died, there let me pray for the last time," she whispered ; and, in compliance with the wish, the kind old man carried her, as nearly as he could, to the altar upon which the Blessed Sacrament reposed. There she knelt down she would kneel down, she said, as it was for the last time. So May knelt down beside her, and put her arm round her waist. She had grown so feeble, that without this assistance she could not have knelt upright. The service began, and May felt Agnese lean every moment more heavily upon her, as if every moment she lost more and more the power of self-support. Once or twice she whis- pered "You are weary, darling," but the child did not seem to hear her, and May desisted, for she did not like to disturb her more than was needful. "It is for the last time," thought she, "and so it is no matter." Something, indeed, seemed to say to her, that there was no hope, and that the child was dying fast. Suddenly, she felt her sinking from her grasp; it was at the very instant when the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was being given, and, with a calm courage, that afterwards seemed strange to her, she put both her arms round the dying child, and clasped her tightly to her bosom, until that sweet and solemn blessing had been given. For worlds she would not have deprived Agnese of His benediction at such a moment. When it was over, she made a sign to Fran- cesco, who soon saw how the matter stood, and car- ried Agnese into the open air. "Is she dead?" whispered May, turning in her anguish to the old man for comfort. BLIND AGNESE 167 "No," he replied, in the same tone; "but I greatly fear me she is dying." "What shall I do? the movement of the carriage will kill her outright. Look up, my own darling for God's sake, look up," said May, sitting down upon the church steps, and receiving her dying sister from Francesco's arms. "If the signorina does not mind," said Francesco, "there is a cottage close at hand, where I live; I could easily carry her so far. It is but a poor place, but I could easily carry her so far." "Oh, never mind about that," said May, impatiently ; "let us carry her there at once, and then I will go and fetch my grandmother." Agnese had by this time opened her eyes, and a bright smile passed over her face, as she listened to this little conversation. "Yes, yes," she whispered; "the poorer the better. For He was poor, and had no place whereon to lay His head." She looked yet more pleased, when they carried her into the little room, and she heard Fran- cesco saying to her sister: "The signorina must excuse my poverty; yonder heap of Indian straw is all the bed I have to offer to her sister." May, however, could not resist a sigh, while she smoothed down the poor couch, and covered it over as well as she could with a velvet mantle, which Fran- cesco brought up from the carriage. Upon this they laid Agnese ; but the child looked distressed, and tears rushed into her eyes. "What is it, my own darling?" asked May, her i68 BLIND AGNESE quick eye detecting in an instant the emotion of her sister. "He died upon a cross ; and would you have me go to Him on velvet?" whispered the child; for she had detected the soft nature of the material upon which she was lying in an instant. Tp many this might have been childlike, and of little meaning, but happily May could comprehend the feeling which made this child, who in her life had been so devoted to her Divine Lord, anxious to resemble Him even in His death. She made a sign, therefore, to Francesco, and while he once more raised Agnese, she gently removed the velvet mantle, so little in unison with the poor bed it covered. The child looked pleased at this new arrangement; but just as he laid her down again some other thought appeared to strike her, and she asked in which direction stood the church. "It is just behind," Francesco answered, wonder- ing a little at the question. "Dearest May," she said, imploringly, "could you not put me the other way, with my face towards the church ?" "For what purpose, dear one? It will only fatigue you, and, God knows, you are ill and weak enough already!" "To what purpose! O May, how can you ask? That I may turn my sightless eyes towards Him, and feel that His are bent lovingly upon me. Thank you, thank you, my own May," she added, as her sister silently re-arranged her pillow in the direction in which she wished it to be placed. BLIND AGNESE 169 *Now, indeed, I shall feel that I am 'dying at His feet." "Will you stay and watch her?" said May, with difficulty suppressing her heavy sobs. "I must go and break this news to her grandmother. I dare not trust it to the servants to acquaint her with such sorrow." Francesco willingly undertook the office, and May drove back rapidly to Naples. Lady Oranmore lis- tened to her sad story ; but she could not bring herself to believe that all would, indeed, be so soon over, as was apprehended by May, and the latter had not the heart to argue the matter with her. "She will know it soon enough," thought she; and while waiting the arrival of the physicians, who had been summoned to attend, she left her grandmother, and went and sat down sorrowfully in that room which Agnese had so lately quitted, and which she felt the child would never again enter, excepting as a corpse. Here the half-finished wreath of roses caught her eye, and, re- membering the request of Agnese, she took it up, and, though her tears fell fast all the while among its flowers, resolutely set to work, and succeeded in com- pleting it before summoned to attend Lady Oranmore and the physicians to the cottage of Francesco. They found the child evidently sinking fast, and one glance at her was sufficient for the medical men, who unani- mously declared that she had not an hour to live. This opinion was given to Lady Oranmore in so loud a whisper, that May was certain the child must have heard it, and, fearing the effect of so sudden an an- nouncement upon her, she turned towards her sister. Agnese was smiling brightly, and May felt she had 170 BLIND AGNESE both heard the fiat, and that the consequences were somewhat different from any which might have been expected in a similar case. She knelt down and kissed her forehead, saying, although it seemed so needless to ask the question: "You are happy, dear one?" "Yes, dear May," she whispered, in return; "but it was not for that I smiled." "For what was it then, Agnese?" "I was but smiling to think how they are mistaken, May." "Do you, then, think you are not dying ?" cried May, eagerly so willing was she to take hope, even from the thoughts of the poor child about herself. "I am dying, May, but not so fast as they imagine. To-morrow will be the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and I shall die then, and not before." May was silent ; she felt disappointed, though quite conscious how idle it would have been to have founded any expectations upon the fancies of a dying child. But she checked her rising sobs, for Agnese was speak- ing once again. "May, do you remember what you once read me about St. Elizabeth?" "What, dearest?" replied May, vaguely unable al the moment to think of anything but Agnese her- self. "Why, about all the little singing birds, that sang so sweetly, so sweetly round her pillow, when she was dying." "I remember now," said May. "I do not want them," replied Agnese, with a pecu BLIND AGNESE 171 liar expression in her voice. "The dove is the only bird I would care to have." "You will soon have your wish," said May, as she now comprehended what Agnese wanted "Padre Giovanni is at the door; Francesco went for him as soon as I returned." It needed no long time to arrange the conscientious affairs of the pure-hearted child; and when the as- sistants were once more admitted into the chamber, the Padre told May to prepare, as well as she could, a temporary altar for the reception of the Blessed Sacrament, which he was about to bring from the church, and administer as viaticum to her sister. Aided by Francesco, May had soon accomplished this task, lighted a couple of wax candles, and made what other preparations shortness of time and the poverty of the place would admit of. Afterwards, she rear- ranged the folds of Agnese's spotless dress, smoothed once more, and for the last time, the shining curls that she loved so well, laid (and this while the child did not withdraw it) the wreath of white roses upon them, and then took her usual place at the pillow of the invalid. Benita also knelt down by her nurseling ; but Lady Oranmore could not trust herself so near; so she went and sat at the open window. Agnese was now lying as one in a deep sleep, her eyes closed, and her hands folded on her bosom; but May knew well that this stillness, which seemed like slumber, was in truth but the very depth and quiet of her prayer ; so she also prayed beside her. For some time the room was wrapped in silence, only broken by the heavy sobs of Lady Oranmore, and even these be- i;2 BLIND AGNESE came fewer and fainter by degrees for the calmness of those around Agnese seemed to rebuke her less un- complaining sorrow something, too, there was in the look and temperature of the evening, which carried back her recollections to that of the preceding twelve- month, soothing even while it deepened her sadness. Just such a night as the one on which she had first made the acquaintance of Agnese was this on which she was now to take leave of her forever: and the same Jesus, whom then the child had followed so devoutly, was now coming Himself to visit her in turn. Lady Oranmore dwelt upon this memory until it almost seemed to her as if the visit of her Divine Lord, which, to any other, would have been an act of incomprehensible charity, was more like a deed of jus- tice to this poor child, who so often in her short life- time had followed in His footsteps. Just as this thought crossed her mind the Hymn of the Blessed Sacrament rose up through the open window, falling, in the midst of the solemn stillness of the hour, upon the hearts of all who heard it, like a strain from heaven; an instant afterwards, a sweet, low voice had joined itself to the melody. It was not in the streets below, and May instinctively turned towards Agnese it was, as she had suspected, the child was singing, in an undertone, probably quite unconsciously to her- self. May was about to check her, fearing the exer- tion might hasten death ; but she thought of the sing- ing birds of St. Elizabeth, and refrained. Francesco now opened the door and Agnese ceased to sing. "Hush," she whispered, "He is coming." May thought she looked as if she were already with Him in heaven. BLIND AGNESE 173 The Blessed Sacrament was placed on the temporary altar, prepared by May; Lady Oranmore fell on her knees, and her agitation became too great to admit of her attending very closely to the ceremonies which fol- lowed. But all was at length concluded; and for a long time after Agnese had received her Divine Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, unbroken silence reigned in the apartment. At last the clock struck eleven; May started, she remembered her sister's words, and she felt Agnese press the hand she held in hers. The half hour struck, and then the quarter. "It is time now," Agnese murmured; "I am going, May. Let me bid my grandmother good-bye." In obedience to this wish, May led her grandmother to the bed. Agnese first embraced the sobbing Benita, then, as Lady Oranmore folded her to her heart, she seemed to collect all her remaining strength, to say, as earn- estly as she could "Grandmother ! If you would die happy, you must die in the church which alone can give you Jesus for the comfort of that hour." Lady Oranmore turned away in speechless sorrow, and May bent in her turn over the dying child. "I love you best of all," Agnese whispered, "and so I say to you Love Him, and Him alone, and never creatures ex- cepting for His sake." "Never!" answered May firmly, after a moment's thought; and she kept her word. "May," continued the child, in an almost inarticu- late whisper, "had I lived, I should have hoped to serve Him in the perpetual adoration."* * The Convent of the Perpetual Adoration. This devotion was intended for the express purpose of repairing the neg- 174 BLIND AGNESE "Pray, dear one, that I may be an adorer in your place." A bright smile passed over the features of Agnese, and for some time she lay quite still; but again some disquieting thought cast its shadow over the serene beauty of her brow, and she tried to lift her hand to- wards her head. "What is it, dearest?" May whispered through her tears. "His crown was of thorns, and shall I die wreathed in flowers!" she said in a voice now barely audible. "Content you, dear one. There are thorns even among roses." Agnese thanked her by a smile such a smile as a seraph might have brought from heaven, and then she unfolded her arms from her bosom, and stretched them out until she lay like one extended on a cross. Her sister thought at first it was only a convulsive movement, and tried to refold the arms : but for once the gentle child resisted, and May then knew why she had altered her position, for Agnese whispered, "It was so He died !" and in that attitude, which love alone could have dictated to her heart, she waited for His hour.* How May dreaded the next tolling of the clock, lect, incredulity, and insult continually offered our Divine Saviour in His Eucharistic presence; and in those convents where it is established the nuns kneel in rotation, two and two, hour after hour, before the altar, thus realizing (as much as creatures may) our dream of heaven, and emulating in their ceaseless prayer those mysterious creatures, who rest "not night or day," saying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come." * A fact. BLIND AGNESE 175 something in her own heart seeming to say it would in- deed be the signal for the coming of the Bridegroom. It knelled at last upon her reluctant ear. The Feast of the Sacred Heart was come indeed ; but for yet a mo- ment longer Agnese lay quite still, her pale face grow- ing brighter and brighter in her celestial joy, until it almost seemed as if a visible light were shedding radiance on her brow. Suddenly she started up "Francesco !" she cried in a clear, low voice, "The Dove!" Even as she spoke, she extended wide her arms, and opened her eyes ; and, oh ! the light, the in- telligence, the love, that filled those once sightless orbs, as she fixed them (so it seemed to the beholders) on some object directly above her. But whether she saw, or what she saw is a secret known only to herself and to her God; for while yet in that attitude of rapt de- votion, without a word, without a sigh, she gave back her pure spirit to Him who had been the object of its ceaseless desires, and her lifeless form sank down upon the pillow, with arms still outstretched to the semblance of that cross, upon which He had died for the love of her. The soul of Agnese was with her God, and she was dead!" THE END ^SOUTHERN REGIONAL UBflARY FAdUTY A 000127926 4