stay, was it the children's waggon? I cry your mercy, but I clean forgot I was in a holy archbishop's house, when I saw the women servants, and the lady, and the nurses, and the little ones."

is

"You didn't surely, Robert," said the lady. "This idle talk.”

your

66

May be so," said he, carelessly; "for when we were at length admitted to the right reverend presence, had he been the holy father himself, instead of the miserable bastard bishop that he was, he could not have demeaned himself more proudly.

"He looked at us, and we well deserved it... at all these Catholic gentlemen of birth and blood drawn from veins that were knights in the battle field, when his miserable ancestors were scullions. . . . He looked upon these gentlemen as if they were scarcely worthy to kiss the dust beneath his feet. And in answer to our humble petition, which Digby read in a voice and manner-I wish you had heard that, father," turning to the priesthe was pleased to say,

"That the measures of Elizabeth, which these gentlemen were pleased to deem severe, would be found mild in comparison with those which were soon to be passed and executed in earnest!....* You must be instructed, sir,"" turning again to the priest, "that in the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it had been thought advisable to pursue a middle course in their regard, inclining rather to mildness than severity; not amounting to absolute impunity, nor yet to punishment equal to their merits; this conduct being adopted by

Butler, E. C., from Bartoli, lib, iv., c. 3.

her majesty's ministers, because they could not foresee what would take place at her decease; for if the wrath of Heaven should then have placed a popish king upon the throne'-you mark that reverend father-" The priest bent his head significantly.

"He might retaliate upon the Protestants.'" "He might retaliate upon the Protestants that persecution which they had inflicted upon the Catholics during the reign of her majesty, in like manner as they had revenged the sufferings of the Catholics in the reign of that pious child, Edward VI., upon the Protestant subjects of Mary. But thanks be to God,' concludes the pious archbishop, these apprehensions are at an end; the king, his most sacred majesty, is firmly seated upon his throne, and is blessed with issue who are our security for the future. Thus the time is come when we may act against the Catholics with due severity,'-ergo, without mercy-in other words, exterminate them...

"I never spent morning in which I learned so much, as on that visit to his grace, the married Archbishop of Lambeth, and," he concluded as he folded the paper, "and," with a dark vengeful look that gave a dreadful expression to his countenance, "I for one am not going to forget it."

The answer of the priest to this last speech, was to repeat, in a monotonous manner, the following passage of Scripture from the Vulgate: I give it you in the English version:

"And the congregation of Israel came to Rehoboam, and said, Thy father made our yoke grievous, now,

therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father and his heavy yoke which he put upon us lighter, and we will serve thee; and the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying unto them, come to me again the third day; and the king answered the people roughly, after the counsel of the young men, saying, my father made your yoke heavy, I will add to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions,' Fiat voluntas dei!"

Catesby turned angrily from the priest, whose air of tranquillity drove him, as it was intended to do, wellnigh distracted, and said in a cross, hasty manner to his mother,

"I am raging with hunger, and you will not give me any supper."

"I crave pardon, my son, your news has confounded my senses, I think: I will see to your providing directly." And she left the room.

Then Catesby turned to the priest, and fixed his eyes upon him with almost stern severity, saying,

"And is it always to be thus ?-are dust and ashes for ever to be thrown upon and smother the flame? Such smouldering eats into the very heart of life.”

The priest lifted up his head, and eyed him with a keen, meaning, half reproachful glance, as much as to

say,

"Even you !-do you not understand me?"

And then bending his eyes upon the floor, his countenance resumed its accustomed expression of serenity. "Only satisfy me that it were not wrong... the other, warmly.

said

"What wrong?-To struggle for a sinking cause, to peril life and estate for a perishing faith, as so many holy martyrs have done before you. If you mean that— who said that was wrong?"

"To shed blood though," said the other, roughly, "the blood of one's fellow-creatures-is that wrong?"

"Distinguo," said the priest, "undoubtedly, to shed blood, save in a just cause, is wrong-nay, is a sin unto death: but who declares it wrong to shed blood in a just cause? Every child can answer you that. The cause in which blood is shed, constitutes the action a glorious deed of heroism, or a cruel murder. The man who sheds blood in self-defence, is acquitted ever, by the rude jurisprudence of human institutions-how much more, in the higher court of conscience. The man who sheds blood in defence of another, is not only acquitted, but honoured as a hero-the man who sheds blood in defence of our holy religion, is considered as a sainted martyr."

And having pronounced this decision, as if answering some indifferent question in metaphysics, the father sank back in his chair, and resting his folded hands against his bosom, began very composedly to turn his thumbs, as if lost in meditation.

Robert rose and paced the room with quick and impatient steps: nature pleaded against the sophistry of the casuist. The abhorrence of bloodshed is common to all who are unaccustomed to it: he remembered the only occasion on which he had committed an act of violence, and he shuddered still at the recollection.

"The casuists," continued the father, as if speaking

to himself, "have been much divided upon the subject of assassination, or more properly abstraction of life without open battle; for that term assassination is a mere vulgarism, derived, I know not from what fable of some old Eastern shiek or man of the mountain, as he is called. Abstraction of life without open battle may, probably, for there is a probable opinion on both sides, be justified by various reasons, under given circumstances: though questionless in ordinary cases, it is a crime of the deepest dye."

"Thou shalt not kill-" shouted a voice within Robert's heart, as if from some supernatural source. He started as if he had really heard it.

"But the commandment, sir," said he, approaching the priest.

"Oh, sir!" said the Jesuit, bending his head in ironical submission, "I cry you mercy: when did you set up for a doctor in Israel, an expounder of these matters?" Catesby shrank back abashed.

Nothing could appear to one of his habits of mind more offensively presumptive and absurd, than for him to set himself up as a judge or arbiter in things appertaining to moral philosophy or religious doctrine, he continued his walk, and the priest his soliloquy.

"The commandments taken in their first apparent and abstract and unmodified sense are evidently inadequate for our direction in the various contradictions of life: we must take them with allowances-with exceptions-with such allowance and with such exception as men called upon by holy church for our instruction in such matters have decided upon. Abstraction of life without open