translated in "O'Curry's Lectures," pp. 222, etc.] It is quite certain
that the early colonizers of Ireland, to whom Mac Firbis thus alludes,
were a portion of that great Celtic wave of population which passed
from East to West over Europe, leaving the same earthern mounds and
cyclopean stone structures behind as monuments wherever they went; but
it is equally certain, that if these ancient colonies visited Assyria,
and Egypt, and Greece in their peregrinations, as Mac Firbis believed
they did, they did not carry with them Assyrian, or Egyptian, or
Grecian masonry or architecture into Ireland. The raths and cashels
which they constructed were exceedingly simple in their character, and
in very few indeed of the former is there the slightest grace of
stonework to be discovered. Caves were very often formed under the
raths; and Mac Firbis states that under the rath of Bally O Dowda, in
Tireragh, he himself had seen "nine smooth stone cellars," and that
its walls were still of the height of "a good cow-keep." Nor were the
contents of the ancient Irish dwellings less simple than the buildings
themselves; for we find by the Brehon Laws that "the Seven valuables
of the house of a chieftain were--a caldron, vat, goblet, mug, reins,
horse-bridle, and pin;" the first-mentioned articles indicating
clearly the usages of hospitality, which always formed the
predominating institution of the Irish. The same book of Brehon Laws
refers to "a house with four doors, and a stream through the centre,
to be provided for the sick"--such, apparently, being the ideas at
that time of what a hospital should be.

{783}

It is hard to say when the popular notion originated which attributes
the ancient raths and mounds to the Danes. It is quite dear that Mac
Firbis knew very well they were not Danish, though the idea must have
prevailed when he wrote, (A.D. 1650;) for his contemporary, Lord
Castlehaven, speaks of withdrawing his troops, during the civil war of
1645, within one of the "Danish forts," which were so numerous in the
country; and such was the fashion of attributing all our antiquities
to a people who had impressed the memory of the nation with such
terrible and indelible traditions of themselves, that even Archdeacon
Lynch, the author of "Cambrensis Eversus," supposes the Danes to have
been the builders of the round towers. Dr. Molyneux, who wrote toward
the close of the same century, treats us to a whole book about "the
Danish Forts and Mounds;" but we know perfectly well that the Danes of
Ireland resided only in the seaport towns and their vicinities, and
had no dwellings, and consequently no raths or mounds in the interior
of the country.

Besides the earthen and stone forts, which, it must be remembered,
were inhabited in the early Christian as well as in the pagan times,
and down to a period which it is impossible now to define, we have
several remains of the early Irish habitations, called _cranogues_.
These were small stockaded and generally artificial islands, in the
smaller lakes, and were only accessible by means of boats, ancient
specimens of which, hewn out of a single tree, have been found in the
vicinity of the cranogues in recent times. Some of these cranogues are
known to have been occupied in comparatively modern times; and the
strong timber stakes by which they were generally surrounded are, in a
few instances, still found singularly fresh, and with indications of
having been connected by a strong framework.

Of the state of the building arts in Ireland during the early
Christian period we are enabled to form a tolerably accurate idea,
both by the large number of remains still existing, and by the notices
on the subject which we find in historical documents. Many of the very
earliest Christian edifices devoted to religion in Ireland were built
of stone; but it is clear, nevertheless, that the national fashion was
to construct them of timber; and this fashion the Irish had in common
with the Britons, or, we should rather say, with the Celtic nations
generally. Strabo says the houses of the Gauls were constructed of
poles and wattle work; and we learn from Bede, that among the Britons
building with stone was regarded as a characteristic Roman practice.
We know that both in Ireland and Britain there was a national
prejudice in favor of the custom of employing timber to construct
their churches. The first three churches erected in Ireland--those,
namely, constructed by St. Palladius in his unsuccessful mission
immediately before St Patrick--were of oak. Long after this time, in
the sixth century, St. Columba lived in a wooden cell in the island of
Hy, as his biographer, St. Adamnan, relates; and the use of timber for
their religious edifices was much in favor with the Columbian monks
wherever they settled. So late as the year 1142, when St. Malachy was
building the church of the famous Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont, in
Louth, he received some opposition from one of the local magnates,
because he had undertaken to erect it in an expensive and solid manner
of stone; the argument of this person being, that "they were Scots,
not Frenchmen," and that a wooden oratory in the old Irish fashion
would have sufficed.

It is a curious circumstance connected with this Abbey of Mellifont,
that it is the only Irish edifice of a date older than the
Anglo-Norman period in the ruins of which Dr. Petrie discovered any
bricks to have been used; and we know that it was erected by monks
whom St. Malachy had sent to study in the monastery of St. Bernard, in
France; whence the allusion to {784} Frenchmen made by the Irishman
who had objected to the style of the building. Still it is plain that
the ecclesiastical edifices of stone were very numerous in the country
at that very time; for a few years after St. Gelasius, the Archbishop
of Armagh, caused a limekiln of vast dimensions to be constructed, in
order, as the annalists say, to make lime for the repairs of the
churches of Armagh which had been allowed to fall into decay.

The primitive wooden churches were, at least in some instances,
constructed of planed boards, and were thatched with reeds, the walls
being also frequently protected by a covering of reeds, for which, in
later times, a sheeting of lead was sometimes substituted. This use of
lead sheeting became very general in England; but we may presume that
it was employed in comparatively few cases in Ireland. Sometimes,
instead of boards or hewn timber, wattles were employed, and these
were plastered with mud, the wattles being formed of strong twigs
interlaced. We shall presently see that the use of wattles for
building purposes was in vogue in Ireland up to comparatively modern
times. It is stated in the life of St. Patrick, that when that apostle
visited Tyrawley, in the county of Sligo, finding that timber was not
abundant, he erected a church of mud--so ancient is the custom of
employing that material for building in Ireland--a material, however,
which never could be rendered as suitable for the purpose in our moist
climate, as it is found to be in some of the southern portions of
Europe.

From the very introduction of Christianity, we repeat, stone and
mortar were frequently employed for the building of churches in
Ireland. A building of this description was always called in Irish
_Damhliag_, a word literally signifying "stone church." This term is
still preserved in the name of Duleek in the county of Meath, where
the old stone church so called, and which is supposed, on good
authority, to have been the very first such edifice erected in
Ireland, is still in good preservation; it was built by St. Kienan, a
disciple of St. Patrick, who died in 490; and its age is thus
established beyond any doubt. The stone building, or _Damhliag_, as
Dr. Petrie has remarked, is always latinized by the old Irish writers
_templum, ecclesia_, or _basilica_; while the wooden building is
simply called oratorium.

The ancient Irish churches are almost invariably small, seldom
exceeding 80 feet in length, and not usually being more than 60 feet.
The great church or cathedral of Armagh was originally 140 feet long;
but this was almost a solitary exception. The smaller churches are
simple oblong quadrangles, while in the larger ones there is a second
and smaller quadrangle at the east end, which was the chancel or
sanctuary, and which is separated from the nave by a large
semicircular arch. The entrance door was always originally in the west
end, and square-headed, the top lintel being generally formed of a
single very large flat stone; but in every instance the square-headed
western doorway was in process of time built up, and another doorway,
in the pointed style, opened in the south wall, near its western
extremity. The windows are extremely small, and very few, generally
not more than three, two of which are in the sanctuary, and all being
in the south wall; they are frequently triangular-headed, formed by
two flat stones leaning against each other; and it is probable that in
many cases they were never glazed. The sides of the doorways and
windows are inclined, in the manner of the cyclopean buildings--a
style of architecture with which they have more than one point in
common; for enormous stones are frequently used, the single stone
being made to form both faces of the wall. Polygonal stones are
employed, without any attempt to build in courses; and even flat
stones are often placed at angles, when, with the aid of very little
skill, they might have {785} been placed horizontally; while another
singular feature often to be observed in the oldest Irish stone
churches is, that the side walls and ends are built up independently,
and not bound together at the corners by any interlapping stones. All
these peculiarities are to be found, in a very marked degree, in the
extremely curious specimens of seventh and eighth century buildings in
the South Islands of Arran; and, with the exception of some Christian
_cloghanes_, and some stone-roofed oratories like those near Dingle,
all these early Christian edifices have been built with lime cement.

From the rudeness of the masonry in the buildings of the early
Christian period, a very curious argument has been adduced in favor of
the Pagan origin of the Round Towers. Some persons, in fact, do not
hesitate to argue that, as the Round Towers frequently exhibit a
better style of masonry than the ruined churches in their
neighborhood, they must have been erected by some _earlier_ race of
builders, thus adopting the very opposite to the correct and natural
conclusion which the premises would suggest. Such persons must have a
very misty idea of Irish history; they do not appear to be aware that
there is no country in Europe, except Greece and Rome, of which the
ancient history can boast of such a clear and consecutive series of
written and traditional annals as that of Ireland. This is the
acknowledged opinion of the most learned investigators. There is,
then, no room whatever for any such conjectural race or epoch as that
which the theory in question would suppose in Irish history; there is
no room for such wild hypotheses as may be framed, for instance, to
account for the remains of extinct civilized races in the interior of
North America. Any one who has the singularly distinct chain of
ancient Irish chronicles present to his mind must be aware of this
fact, and must know perfectly well that there was no mysterious
unknown race in Ireland before the introduction of Christianity who
could have built the round towers--even if it were probable that such
a race would have built these, and left no other fragment of stone and
mortar work in the land! As to the disparity sometimes to be observed
in the masonry of the towers and the ancient churches beside them, it
can be explained without any such absurd hypothesis. It is clear from
the mouldings of the windows, and other architectural details, and
even from the statements of our annalists, that some of the Round
Towers are not older than the eleventh or twelfth century, and
consequently their masonry might well be superior to that of churches
built some four or five hundred years before them. But, even when the
builders were contemporary, they were not such dull craftsmen as not
to have understood perfectly well that a more careful style of
workmanship was required in an edifice which they should carry to a
height of 120 or 130 feet than in one of which the walls would not
exceed 10 or 14 feet in elevation. In fact, a little consideration
must show any enlightened man that the theory to which we have
referred is utterly untenable.

Mr. Parker, a high authority on questions of architectural antiquity,
has, in his valuable series of papers on the subject in the
"Gentleman's Magazine," thrown considerable light on Irish mediaeval
architecture. One point, of which he has been decidedly the first
observer, is, that all the details of an ancient building in Ireland
seldom or never belong to the period at which the building was,
according to record, erected. This is an extremely carious fact; and
there can be no doubt of Mr. Parker's accuracy on the point; but it
appears to us that he invariably finds his remark verified in castles
and abbeys of the Anglo-Norman period in Ireland. To what, then, is
the peculiarity to be attributed? Could the architects have been
Irish, and could they have adopted their principles from the study of
older edifices {786} in England? On this point we are not aware that
he comes to any conclusion; but, in describing the interesting details
of Cormac's Chapel, on the Rock of Cashel--one of the most valuable
remains of mediaeval architecture in the empire, and which was built
some fifty years before the Anglo-Norman invasion--he says, "It is
neither earlier nor later in style than buildings of the same date in
England; and with the exception of a few particulars, agrees in detail
with them." From this we may conclude, that before the arrival of the
Anglo-Normans the Irish architects were fully up to the contemporary
state of their art, though subsequently the Anglo-Irish fell into the
anachronisms which Mr. Parker so frequently points out.

When Henry II. resolved on spending the Christmas of 1171 in Dublin,
there was no building in that old capital of the Ostmen sufficiently
spacious to accommodate his court; and a pavilion was accordingly
constructed for the purpose of plastered wattles, in the Irish
fashion, on a site at the south side of the present Dame street This
mode of constructing houses must have been very convenient in times
when the face of a country was liable every other year to be
devastated by war, and when it would have been folly to erect a
habitation intended to be permanent. The destruction of all the
dwellings in a territory at that time, was not quite so ruinous a
catastrophe as it might seem to us, especially as it was a very usual
thing to have the granaries under ground.

The employment of wattles for one purpose or other, in the
construction of buildings, appears to have been very long retained in
Ireland; and they seem to have been constantly used by the masons as
centering in the building of arches, as may be seen from an
examination of any of the ruined abbeys or castles throughout the
country, where the impression of the interwoven twigs will always be
found in the mortar of the vaulted roofs and arches. Mr. Parker
appears to have been particularly struck by this circumstance, which,
however, is familiar to every Irish antiquary; but he tells us that he
has found the same thing in a few instances in England.

A French gentleman, who travelled through Ireland in 1644, has left us
a curious account of the mode of constructing their habitations
employed at that time by the rural population. He writes: "The towns
are built in the English fashion, but the houses in the country are in
this manner: two stakes are fixed in the ground, across which is a
transverse pole, to support two rows of rafters on the two sides,
which are covered with leaves and straw. The cabins are of another
fashion. There are four walls the height of a man, supporting rafters,
over which they thatch with straw and leaves; they are without
chimneys, and make the fire in the middle of the hut, which greatly
incommodes those who are not fond of smoke."

The writer goes on to describe the fortified domiciles of the gentry.
He says: "The castles or houses of the nobility consist of four walls
extremely high, thatched with straw; but, to tell the truth, they are
nothing but square towers without windows, or, at least, having such
small apertures as to give no more light than there is in a prison;
they have little furniture, and cover their room with rushes, of which
they make their beds in summer, and of straw in winter; they put the
rushes a foot deep on their floors, and on their windows, and many of
them ornament the ceilings with branches." (The Tour of M. De la
Boullaye le Gouz.)

This description is applicable to those numerous, solitary, and gloomy
buildings called castles, the ruins of which are so conspicuous in
every part of the country, and a considerable number of which were
erected by the Undertakers, in the reign of James I.; while it must be
confessed that the mode of constructing the hovels of the peasantry,
as described in the preceding extract, has not undergone much
improvement, up to the present day, in many parts of Ireland.

{787}

Translated from the Spanish.

PERICO THE SAD; OR, THE ALVAREDA FAMILY.

CHAPTER XIII.

A tempestuous night covered the sky with flying clouds, which were
rushing further on to discharge their torrents. Sometimes they
separated in their flight, and the moon appeared between them, mild
and tranquil, like a herald of concord and peace in the midst of the
strife.

In the short intervals, during which this placid light illumined earth
and heaven, a pale and emaciated man might have been seen making his
way along a solitary road. The uncertainty of his manner, his
apprehensive eyes, and the agitation of his face, would have shown
clearly that he was a fugitive.

A fugitive indeed! for he fled from inhabited places; fled from his
fellow-men; fled from human justice; fled from himself and from his
own conscience. This man was an assassin, and no one who had seen him
fleeing, as the clouds above were fleeing before the invisible force
which pursued them, would have recognized the honorable man, the
obedient son, the loving husband and devoted father of a few days
since, in this miserable being, now fallen under the irremissible
sentence of the law of expiation.

Yes, this man was Perico, not seeking a peace now and for ever lost,
but fleeing from the present and in dread of the future.

He had passed days of despair and nights of horror in the most
solitary places, sustaining himself on acorns and roots; shrinking
from the light of day, which accused, and from the eyes of men, that
condemned him. But no darkness could hide the images that were always
before him, no silence awe their clamors. His unhappy sister; his
disconsolate mother; the bereaved old man, his father's friend,
haunted his vision; the reprobation of his honorable race oppressed
his soul; and more appalling than all these, the solemn, mournful, and
warning note of the passing bell, which he had heard calling to Heaven
for mercy upon his victim, sounded continually in his ears. In vain
pride insinuated, through its most seductive organ, worldly honor,
that he had, and that not to vindicate himself would have been a
reproach; that the injuries were greater than the reprisal.

A voice which the cries of passion had silenced, but which became more
distinct and more severe in proportion as they, like all that is
human, sank and failed--the eternal voice of conscience, said to him,
"O that thou hadst never done it!"

There came, borne upon the wind, an extraordinary sound, now hoarser,
now failing and fainter, as the gusts were more or less powerful. What
could it be? Everything terrifies the guilty soul. Was it the roar of
the wind, the pipe of an organ, or a voice of lamentation? The nearer
Perico approached it, the more inexplicable it seemed. The road the
unhappy man was following led toward the point from whence the sound
proceeded. He reaches it, and his terror is at his height when, unable
to distinguish anything--for a black cloud has covered the moon--he
hears directly above his bead the portentous wail, so sad, so vague,
so awful!

{788}

At this moment the clouds are broken, and over all the moonlight
falls, clear and silvery, like a mantle of transparent snow. Every
object comes out of the mystery of shadows. He sees _reija_ asleep in
its valley like a white bird in its nest. He lifts his eyes to
discover the cause of the sound. O horror! Upon five posts he sees
five human heads! From these proceed the doleful lamentation, a
warning from the dead to the living. [Footnote 185]

  [Footnote 185: Various witnesses have testified to this frightful
  phenomenon, which is naturally explained, the sound being caused by
  the wind passing through the throat, month, and ears of heads placed
  as located above.]

Perico starts back aghast, and perceives, for the first time, that he
is not alone. A man is standing near one of the posts. He is tall and
vigorous, and his bearing is manly and erect. He is dressed richly
after the manner of contrabandists. His bronzed face is hard, bold,
and calm. He holds his hat in his hand, inclining uncovered before
these posts of ignominy a head which never was uncovered in human
respect; for it is that of an outlaw, of a man who has broken all ties
with society, and respects nothing in the world. But this man,
although impious, believes in God, and although criminal, is a
Christian, and is praying.

When from an energetic and indomitable nature, emancipated from all
restrain, there issue a few drops of adoration, as water oozes from a
rock, what do you call it unbelievers? Is it superstitious fear? To
this man fear is a word without a meaning. Is it hypocrisy? Only the
heads of five dead men witness it. Is it moral weakness? He has
strength of soul unknown in society, where all lean upon something; he
stands alone. Is it a remembrance of infancy, a tribute to the mother
who taught him to pray?

There exists no such memory for the abandoned orphan, who grew up
among the savage bulls he guarded.

What is it then that bends his neck and detains him to pray in the
presence of the dead?

After some moments the man concluded his prayer, replaced his hat, and
turning to Perico said,

"Where are you going, sir?"

Perico neither wished nor was able to answer. A vertigo had seized
him.

"Where are you going, I say?" again asked the unknown.

Perico remained silent.

"Are you dumb?" proceeded the questioner, "or is it because you do not
choose to answer? If it is the last," he added, pointing to his gun,
"here is a mouth which obtains replies when mine fails."

Perico's situation rendered him too desperate for reflection, and the
brand of cowardice which had been stamped upon his forehead, still
burned like a recent mark of the ignominious iron. He therefore
answered instantly, seizing his firelock.

"And here is another that replies in the tone in which it is
questioned."

The intentions of the unknown were not hostile, nor had he any idea of
carrying out his threat, though he did not lack the courage to do it.
Another so daring as he did not tread the soil of Andalucia. But the
arrogance of the poor worn youth pleased instead of offending him.

"Comrade," he said, "I always like to take off my hat before drawing
my sword, but it suits me to know with whom I speak and whom I meet on
the road. You must have courage to be walking here; for they say that
Diego and his band are in this neighborhood, and you know, for all
Spain knows, who Diego is; where he puts his eye he puts his ball. The
leaves tremble upon the trees at sight of him, and the dead in their
graves at the sound of his name."

All this was said without that Andalucian boastfulness, so grotesquely
exaggerated in these days, but with the naturalness of conviction, and
the serenity of one who states a simple truth.

"What do I care for Diego and his band?" exclaimed Perico, not with
bravado, but with the most profound dejection.

{789}

As with failing voice he pronounced these words, he tottered and
leaned his head upon his gun.

"What has taken you? What is the matter?" asked the stranger, noticing
his weakness.

Perico did not reply, for so great was his exhaustion and such the
effect of his recent emotions that he fell down senseless.

The unknown knelt down beside him and lifted his head. The moon shone
full upon that face, beautiful notwithstanding its mortal paleness,
and the traces of passion, anguish, and grief which marred it.

"He is dead," said the stranger to himself, placing his rough hand
upon Perico's heart. The heart which, a few days before, was as pure
as the sky of May. "No," he continued, "he is not dead, but will die
here, like a dog, if he is not taken care of."

And he looked at him again, for he felt awakening in his heart that
noble attraction which draws the strong toward the weak, the powerful
toward the helpless; for let skeptics say what they will, there is a
spark of divinity in the breast of every human creature. He rose to
his feet and whistled.

He is answered by the sound of a brisk gallop, and a beautiful young
horse, with arched neck and rolling mane, comes up and stops before
his master, turning his fine head and brilliant eyes as if to offer
him the stirrup.

The unknown raises the inanimate Perico in his robust arms, throws him
across the horse, springs up beside him, presses his knees gently to
the animal's flanks, and the noble creature darts away, gayly and
lightly, as if unconscious of the double weight.

CHAPTER XIV.

In a solitary hostel, standing like a beggar beside the highway, the
innkeeper and his wife were seated before their fire, in the dull
tranquillity of persons as accustomed to the alternations of noisy
life by day and complete isolation by night as the inhabitants of
marshy places are to their intermittent fevers.

"May evil light on that hard-skulled sailor who took it into his head
that there must be a new world, and never stopped till he ran against
it," said the woman. "Had not the king already cities enough in this?
What good has it done? Taken our sons off there, and sent us the
epidemic. Do say, Andres, and don't sit sleeping there like a mole, if
it has been of any other use."

"Yes, wife, yes," answered the innkeeper, half' opening his eyes, "the
silver comes from there."

"Plague take the silver!" exclaimed the woman.

"And the tobacco," added the husband, slowly and lazily, again closing
his eyes,

"A curse upon the tobacco!" said the wife angrily. "Do you think, you
unfeeling father, that the silver or the tobacco are worth the lives
they cost and the tears? Son of my soul! God knows what will become of
him in that land where they kill men like chinches, and where
everything is venomous, even the air!"

They heard at this moment a peculiar whistle. The innkeeper, springing
to his feet, caught up the light and ran toward the door, exclaiming,
"The captain!"

As he presented himself on the threshold, the rays of the lamp fell
upon a man on horseback, with another man that looked like a corpse
lying across the horse in front of him.

"Help me take this fellow down," said the rider, in the rough tone of
a man of few words.

The innkeeper handed the lamp to his wife, who had approached, and
made haste to obey.

"Mercy to us! A dead man!" said she. "For the love of the Blessed
Mother, sir, do not leave him in our house!"

{790}

"He is not dead," said the horseman, "he is sick; nurse him up--that
is what women ore good for. Here is money to pay for the cure."

Saying this, he threw down a piece of gold, and disappeared, the
resounding and measured gallop of his horse dying away gradually in
the distance.

"If this is not a cool proceeding!" grumbled Martha. "What will you
bet that he, with his own hands, has not put the man in this state?
and he takes himself off and leaves him on ours! 'You cure him!' as if
it were nothing to cure a man who is dead or dying! As if this inn
were an hospital! The bully thinks he has only to command, as if he
were the king!"

"Hush!" exclaimed the innkeeper, alarmed, "_will_ you be still,
long-tongue! Talk that way of Diego! Women are the very devil! What is
the use of grumbling, since you know there is nothing for it but to do
as these people tell us! Besides, this is a work of charity, so let's
be about it."

They prepared, as well as they could, a bed in a garret.

"He has no sign of blow or wound," said Andres, as he was undressing
the patient; "so you see, wife, it is a sickness like any other."

"Look, look, Andres!" exclaimed Martha; "he has the scapular of our
Lady of Carmel around his neck."

And as if the sight or influence of the blessed object had awakened in
her all the gentle sentiments of Christian humility, or as if the
sacred precept, "Thy neighbor as thyself," uttered by the brotherhood
in united devotion, had resounded clearly, she began to exclaim: "You
were right, Andres, it is a work of charity to assist him, poor
fellow! How young he is, and how forsaken! His poor mother! Come,
come, Andres, what are you doing, standing there like a post? Go!
hurry! bring me some wine to rub his temples; and kill a hen, for I am
going to make him some broth."

"So it is," soliloquized Andres, as he went out--"at first, wouldn't
have him in the house; now she will turn the house out of the windows
for him. That's the way with women. It is hard to understand them."

On the following night, a man of evil face and repugnant aspect came
to the inn. This man had been in the penitentiary, and was nicknamed
the convict.

"God be with you, sir," said the innkeeper, with more fear than
cordiality, "what might be your pleasure?"

"A whim of the captain's, curse him! for haven't I come to ask after
the sick, like the porter of a convent?"

"He is not doing very well," answered the innkeeper; "he is in a
raging fever, is out of his mind, and talks of a murder he has
done--of dead men's heads."

"Ho! so then he is a man that can handle arms," said the convict.
"Let's have a look at him."

They mounted to the garret, and the innkeeper continued:

"All day long I have been in a cold sweat with fear. There have been
people in the house, and even soldiers--if they had heard him!"

The convict, who had been examining the delicate and wasted form of
Perico, interrupted with a movement of disdain.

"Well, if he makes too much noise for you, quarter him upon the king."
[Footnote 186]

  [Footnote 186: Put him into the street.]

"No, indeed!" cried Martha, "poor unfortunate! I have a son in America
who may be at this very hour in the same condition, abandoned by every
one, and calling, as this one calls, for his mother. No, no, sir, we
shall not desert him. Neither Our Lady, whose scapular he wears, nor
I."

"Buy him sweetmeats," said the convict, and went down.

"What news?' he asked of the innkeeper.

"They say that a reward is to be offered for Diego's head."

{791}

"What?" asked the convict again, with quick and unusual interest. The
innkeeper repeated what he had said. The convict considered a moment,
and then continued,

"Where do they think we are?"

"Near Despenaperros."

"Are they after us?"

"Yes, there is a cavalry company at Sevilla, one of infantry at
Cordoba, and another of the mountain soldiery at Utrera."

"There will be some shoes worn out before they see our faces, and if
they do get to see them it will cost them dear."

"Yes, yes," Andres replied; "we know that whoever puts himself in
Diego's way may as well look for his grave; but then--there may be so
many of them . . ."

"Perhaps you would like to get a crack of my fist on your bugle?" said
the bandit.

"Not at all," said Andres, retreating a step or two.

"Put more ballast in your tongue then--and hurry up with the bread
--quick now!"

Andres hastened to obey. The bandit was going away when he heard
Martha's voice calling after him.

"It slipped my mind--you take this money," she said, handing him the
piece of gold. "Give it to the captain, and tell him that what I do
for this lad I do for charity, and not for interest."

"I shall be sure to give him such a reason. He accepts 'No' neither
when he says give, nor when he says take; but to settle it between
you, I will keep the money;" and setting spurs to his horse, he
disappeared.

"You have done a wise thing!" said the innkeeper impatiently. "Will
the money, you foolish good-for-nothing, be better in the hands of
that big thief than in ours? Women!--ill hap to them! Only the devil
understands them."

"I understand myself and God understands me," said the good woman,
returning to the garret.

CHAPTER XI.

The care of the innkeeper's wife and the youth and robust constitution
of Perico vanquished the fever. At the end of a fortnight he was able
to rise.

Perico evinced all his gratitude to Martha in a manner more heartfelt
than fluent.

"You must not thank me" said the good woman, "for truly, the face I
put on when I saw you brought was not one of welcome; but I have taken
a liking to you because I see that you are a good son and a good
Christian."

Perico hung his head in deep grief and humiliation. His physical
weakness had deadened in him the blind and furious impulse which had
exalted him, as such impulse does sometimes exalt gentle and timid
natures to a point past the limit which strong-minded and even violent
men respect.

All that effervescence which caused such a surging of his passions, as
gas causes the juice of the grape to ferment, had ceased, as the foam
subsides upon the wine, leaving reflection, which, without diminishing
the greatness of his wrongs, condemned his method of redressing them.

All the horror which the future inspired returned to Perico with
returning strength, and it was not lessened when Andres, taking the
occasion one day when his wife was about her work, said to him:

"My friend, now that you are recovered you must seek your living
somewhere else, for--the more friendship, the more frankness,
sir--when you were out of your head you talked of a murder you had
committed. If it is true, and they find you here, we shall suffer for
it, and that will not be right; the just ought not to pay for sinners;
well-regulated charity, let Martha, who pretends to know better, say
what she will, begins at home. Nobody but that pumpkin-headed wife of
mine is capable of sustaining that Christian charity begins with one's
neighbor. As to me, I tell you the truth, I want nothing to do with
justice, for she has a heavy hand."

{792}

Perico did not reply, but went with tearful eyes to take leave of
Martha. The good soul felt his departure, for she had become fond of
him. The memory of her son had attached Martha to the unfortunate
young man, and the memory of his own mother had drawn Perico toward
the woman who acted toward him a mother's part.

He took his gun, and was going out when he met the convict.

"Which way?" said the robber. "Do you clear out in this fashion,
without so much as May God reward you! to the compassionate soul who
picked you up? This isn't the right thing, comrade. Besides, where can
you go hereabouts? Are you in a hurry to be put in the lock-up?"

Perico remained silent; he neither thought nor reasoned--had no will
of his own. "Courage! and come along," proceeded the convict. "Here we
are taking more trouble to help you than you will take to let yourself
be helped." Perico followed him mechanically.

"Look, Martha," said Andres, seeing Perico at a distance in company
with the robber, "look at your pet--and what a jewel he is, to be
sure! There he goes with the convict."

"And what of it?" responded Martha. "I tell you, Andres, that he is a
good son and a good Christian."

"An impostor and a vagabond, that has eaten up my hens--and you see
where he is going, and yet say that he is good! The devil only
understands women!"

Perico and the convict, making their way through thickets and
difficult places, came at last to an elevation, upon which stood the
captain leaning on his gun, and guarding the slumbers of eight men,
who were lying around him on the slope. Near him grazed his beautiful
horse, which lifted its head from time to time to regard its master.

"Here is this young man," said the convict as they drew near.

Without changing his position, the captain slowly turned his eyes and
examined the new arrival from head to foot. His scrutiny finished, he
asked,

"Are you a fugitive from justice?"

Perico inclined his head, but did not answer.

"There is no cause for fear," proceeded his questioner, and presently,
in brief phrases, added,

"Men have fatal hours, and of these some are as red as blood and some
as black as darkness itself. One is enough to destroy a man, and turn
his heart to a stone which has neither pulse nor feeling, only weight.
He remains lost, for the past is past, and there is nothing to do but
bear it with pluck. Life is a fight, in which one must look before
him, like a brave man, and not behind, like a poltroon."

"I cannot do it," exclaimed Perico vehemently. "If you knew--"

The captain, with an imperative gesture, extended his arm to silence
him, and continued.

"Here, each one carries his own secrets within himself, a sealed
packet, without awakening in the others either curiosity or interest.
If you have nowhere to go, stay with us; here we defend all we have
left, our life. Mine I do not guard because I value it, but to keep it
from the headsman."

"But you rob?" said Perico.

"We must do something," responded the bandit, returning, like a
tortoise, into his hard and impenetrable shell.

Perico neither accepted nor refused the proposition, he remained
without volition, an inert body; chance disposed of his wretched
existence, as the winds dispose of the dry and heavy sands of the
desert.

{793}

CHAPTER XVI.

But while Perico, after the occurrences which we have related, was
dragging out a miserable existence among a band of criminals, what
became of the other individuals of this family? To what extremes had
they been carried by resentment, grief, despair, and revenge?

Pedro, from the fatal day on which he lost his son, had shut himself
in his own house with his sorrow. The parish priest and some of his
friends went from time to time to keep him company--not to console
him, that was impossible, but to talk with him about his trouble, like
those who relieve vessels of the bitter water of the sea, not to right
them but to keep them from sinking. They had tried to persuade him to
renew his intercourse with the family of Perico, but without success.

"No, no," he would answer on such occasions. "I have forgiven him
before God and men; but have to do with his people as though it had
not been, I cannot."

"Pedro, Pedro, that is not forgiveness," said the priest. "It is the
letter but not the spirit of the law."

"Father," replied the poor man, "God does not ask what is impossible."

"No, but what he requires is possible."

"Sir, you want me to be a saint, and I am not one; it is enough for me
to be a good Christian, and forgive. Have I molested them? Have I
sought justice? What more can I do?"

"Pedro, returning good for evil, wise men walk in peace."

"Mercy, mercy, father! why shave so close as to lay bare the brains?
God help and favor them; but each in his own house, and God with us
all."

Maria had hidden herself with her daughter in the retirement of her
cottage, covering the despair and shame of the latter with the sacred
mantle of maternal love, her only refuge from the unanimous
disapproval and condemnation which she justly merited. The unfortunate
victims, Anna and Elvira, remained alone, but sustained in their
immense affliction by their religion and their conscience. Many months
passed in this way. At length two Capuchins came to the village to
hold a mission. These missions were instituted for the conversion of
the wicked, the awakening of the luke-warm, the encouragement of the
good, and the consolation of the sorrowful.

The missionaries preached at night, and the church was filled with
people who came to hear the word of God, which teaches men to be pious
and humble.

The good Maria succeeded in persuading her daughter to go to the
missions, and Rita, hard, bitter, and selfish, in her shame and
desperation, found in them repentance, with tears for the past,
penance and humiliation for the present, and for the future the divine
hand, which lifts the fallen one, who, bathed in tears, and prostrate
in ashes, implores its help. One night the subject of the sermon was
the forgiveness of injuries. Magnificent theme! Holy and sublime
beyond all others! The earnest preacher knew how to improve it, and
the believing people how to understand it.

At the conclusion the good missionary knelt before the crucifix, and
with fervent zeal and ardent charity promised the Lord of mercy, in
the name of that multitude kneeling at his feet, that on the
succeeding night there should not be in the temple a single hard and
unreconciled heart. A burst of exclamations and tears confirmed the
promise of the devoted apostle.

The day which followed was one of peace and love, according to the
spirit of the evangel. The most deeply-rooted enmities were ended; the
most irreconcilable foes embraced each other in the streets; the
angels in heaven had cause for rejoicing.

Pedro went to see Anna. Terrible to the unhappy man was the entering
into that house. He approached Anna and embraced her in silence. The
afflicted mother shook, and tried in vain to overcome her emotion. But
when Pedro turned toward Elvira, as she stood wringing her thin hands,
worn to a shadow and bathed in tears--when {794} he pressed to his
paternal heart her whom he had looked upon and loved as a daughter,
all his grief broke forth in the cry: "Daughter! daughter! you and I
loved him!"

Rita, also, went to Anna's to beg for that which Pedro went to carry.
When she found herself in the presence of the mother-in-law she had
outraged, she fell upon her knees. "I," she exclaimed, beating her
breast, "have been the cause of all! I have not come to ask a
forgiveness I do not deserve, but to beg of you to reprimand without
cursing me." When she turned to Elvira, it was not enough to remain on
her knees, she bent her face to the floor, moaning amidst her sobs.
"Since you are an angel, forgive!"

Maria supported her prostrate child, and implored Anna with her looks
and tears. Anna and Elvira, without a word of reproach, raised and
embraced her who had done so much to injure them; striving all they
could from that day to reanimate her, for she was the most wretched of
the three, because the guilty one.

All the people looked with charity upon the woman who had sincerely
and publicly repented, for although the society called cultivated
finds in religious demonstrations another cause for vituperation,
adding to the condemnation of faults which it never forgets the
reproach of hypocrisy upon those who turn to God, the people, more
generous and more just, honor the open evidence of penitence and
humiliation. Therefore, when they saw Rita abase herself and weep,
their indignation was exchanged for compassion, and the _epithet_
"infamous!" for the pitiful words "poor child!"

This was because the common people, though they know not what
philanthropy means, know well, because religion teaches them, what is
Christian charity.

CHAPTER XVII.

To Perico, the life into which he found himself drawn by necessity,
and by the vigorous influence Diego exercised over him, was one of
misery; Diego also had been drawn into a life of crime by a terrible
misfortune; but having entered, he adopted it as a warrior does his
iron armor, without heeding either its hardness or its oppressive
weight. Perico followed his wicked companions while he detested them.
He was like the silver fish of some peaceful inland lake which, caught
by some fatal current, is carried away into the bitter and restless
waters of the sea, where it agonizes without the power to escape. At
times, when a crime was committed under his eyes, he wished in his
desperation to end his torments at once, by giving himself up to
justice; but shame, and want of energy to overcome it, held him back.
The others hated him, and surnamed him "The Sad," but he was sustained
by Diego's powerful protection. Diego felt attracted toward the man
whose life he had saved, and who was, he felt, good and honest. For
the rough and austere Diego was of a strong and noble nature that had
not yet descended to the lowest grade of evil, which is hatred of the
good.

In one of their raids, when the band had approached Tas Yentas, near
Alocaz, a spy arrived in breathless haste from Utrera, telling them
that a company of mountain soldiery had just left the latter place in
the direction of Tas Yentas, informed of their whereabouts by some
travellers they had lately pillaged.

They made haste to take refuge in an olive grove, but had hardly
entered it when they were surprised by a troop of cavalry. A deadly
contest then commenced, sustained by these men, who were fighting for
their lives with terrible bravery.

{795}

"Perico," said Diego, "now or never is the occasion to prove that you
do not eat your bread without earning it. This is a fair fight. At
them, if you are a man!"

On hearing these words, Perico, confused, and like a drunken man,
threw himself in the way of the balls, firing upon the poor
soldiers--men who were sacrificing everything for the good of society,
which, in its egotism, does not even thank them; for it happens to
them as to the confessors and doctors, who are laughed at in health,
and anxiously called upon when there is any danger. One of the bandits
was killed, two of the soldiers wounded, and a ball of Perico's, fired
at a great distance, killed the commander of the troop. The
consternation which followed this catastrophe gave the robbers an
opportunity to escape. They fled beyond Utrera, passed through the
haciendas of La Chaparra and Jesus-Maria, and arrived exhausted at
nightfall in Valobrega. This valley, not far from Alcalá is surrounded
by ridges and olive slopes. In the most retired part of it, on the
margin of a brook, are still standing the ruins of a Moorish castle
called Marchenilla. Men and horses threw themselves upon the turf at
the base of these solitary ruins. They quenched their thirst in the
brook, and when night set, in lighted a fire, and all except Diego and
Perico lay down to sleep.

"An evil day, Corso," said Diego, caressing his horse, which lowered
and then lifted his beautiful head as if to assent to his master's
words, and say to him, "What matter since I have saved you?"

"I treat thee shamefully, my son," continued the chief, who loved his
horse the more fondly because he loved no other creature. The horse,
as if he had understood, neighed gaily, and, rising on his hind feet,
balanced himself, and then dropped down upon all four beside his
master, presenting his head to be caressed.

"What will become of thee if l am taken?" said the robber, leaning his
head against the neck of the animal, which now stood motionless.

"Truly," said Diego, seating himself by the fire in front of Perico,
"it is to you we owe our escape to-day with so little loss."

"To me?" asked Perico surprised.

"Yes," answered the captain; "the troop was commanded by a brave
officer, who knew the country, and did not mean child's play. The son
of the Countess of Villaoran. He would have given us work if you had
not killed him."

"God have mercy on me!" exclaimed Perico, springing to his feet and
raising his clasped hands to heaven. "What are you saying? The son of
the countess was there, and I killed him?"

"What shocks you?" replied Diego.

"Perhaps you thought we were firing sugar-plums? Heavens!" he added
impatiently, "you exasperate me! One would take you for a travelling
player, with all your attitudes and extravagances. By all that's
sacred, the convict is right. You missed your vocation; instead of
choosing a life of freedom you should have turned friar. Come! keep
watch," he added, wrapping himself in his mantle, and lying down with
a stone under his head and his carbine between his knees.

His words were lost upon Perico. The unhappy man tore his hair and
cursed himself in his despair. He had killed the son of the mistress
and benefactress of his uncles, his own companion of childhood.

CHAPTER XVIII.

How vividly, during that gloomy night did the tranquil scenes of his
lost domestic happiness present themselves to Perico! And for what had
he exchanged them? His present frightful existence. All around him was
motionless. He saw in the sad monotony of the night the changeless
monotony of his misery; in the fire {796} burning before him, his
consuming conscience; and in the cold and impenetrable obscurity
beyond, his dark and cheerless future.

"Power of God!" he cried, "can I see and remember, and feel all this,
and yet live?"

The red and wavering flame threw from time to time a glare of light
across the strange wild forms of the ruins, presently leaving them in
deep shadow, appearing to take refuge within, as a dying memory
flashes up and then buries itself in the oblivion of the past. He
heard his own breathing exaggerated by the silence, he saw horrible
shapes in the obscurity. Fingers threatened him--eyes glared at
him--reproachful voices accused him. And no, he was not mistaken, by
the clearer light of the flames, now blown by the wind, he saw, beyond
a remnant of wall, a pair of hard black eyes fixed upon him. Startled,
and doubtful between the imaginary and the real, Perico did not know
whether he ought to put himself under the protection of heaven, by
making the sign of the cross, or to call for earthly help by giving
the signal of alarm.

Before he could act, there came from behind the stone ruin a ruin of
humanity; from behind the degradation of time, a wreck of human
degradation--an old, filthy, and disgusting gipsy woman. The tint of
the brown woollen skirts which covered her fleshless limbs blended
with that of the ruin; she wore about her neck a kerchief, and over
her faded locks a black cloth mantilla.

Perico was struck motionless as a stone, or as if the repulsive face
had been that of the Medusa.

"Don't be uneasy," said the vision, approaching, "there is nothing to
be afraid of. I have not come with bad motive, and you need not be on
the watch. I knew that you were here, and have caused it to be rumored
that you were making your way in the direction of the Sierra de Ronda,
and that people had seen you near Espera and Villa-Martin."

"But why have you come here?" exclaimed Perico, instinctively alarmed
at the aspect of the woman.

"To put you in the way of securing, at a stroke, a fortune that will
last you your lifetime," she replied.

"That which you are likely to offer does not inspire much confidence,"
said Perico.

"Why should I wish to harm you?" said the gipsy; "and as to my looks,
a poor cloak may cover a hail companion. I bring a treasure to your
very hands; you have only to extend them."

"A treasure," said Perico, in whom the word, instead of exciting
covetousness, only suggested the idea that the woman was mad, "a
treasure, and where is it?"

The old wretch, who saw in the question only what she expected to
find, avidity and thirst for gold, approached Perico as if she feared
the breath of night might intercept her words, and the anathemas of
heaven dissolve them in the air, and whispered in his ear, "In the
church."

Perico, utterly shocked, gave a step backward, but recovering himself,
rushed upon the woman like a tiger, and pushing her with all his
might, exclaimed, "Go!"

"I will not go," she said, unintimidated; "I came to speak with the
captain and the convict, and I will speak with them."

In his anguish lest she should do it, and to force her to go, Perico
drew a dagger and flashed its shining blade in the firelight. The
gipsy shrieked and the robbers woke.

"What is this?" shouted Diego; "what has happened? Perico, are you
going to kill a woman?"

"No, no, I do not want to kill her, only to drive her away."

"And because," said the old woman, "I have come so far, through danger
and fatigue, to put you in a way to leave this slavish life you are
leading, like the Blond of Espera, who committed one robbery so great
that he had enough to go beyond the seas and pass the rest of his days
in comfort."

{797}

The robbers grouped themselves around her; the convict presenting her
with a fragment of the wall as a seat.

"Do not listen! do not listen!" cried Perico, beside himself; "she
purposes a sacrilege!"

"Sir," said the convict to Diego, "oblige that agonizing priest to
hold his tongue, he is like the dog in the manger. Let this good woman
speak, and we shall know what she has to say--a regiment of horse
couldn't silence that dismal screech-owl."

Diego hesitated, but finally turned toward the hag, and Perico,
knowing then that hope was lost, for the bandit always followed his
first impulses, rushed away, running hither and thither among the
olives like a madman.

The gipsy had calculated everything, and her measures were well taken.
The great advantages so exaggerated, the difficulties so easily
overcome, the well-arranged precautions, upon which she amplified so
largely, produced their effect. The temptation which offers flowers
with one hand and with the other hides the thorns, convinced some and
seduced others.

All the plans were settled, and the hours and signals agreed upon, and
before the cocks, day's faithful sentinels, announced his coming, the
band was on its way to the solitary hacienda of "El Cuervo," and the
old witch crawling like a cunning and venomous snake to her den in the
wood of Alcalá, where in the depths of the earth she had conceived the
crime to which amidst darkness and ruins she had persuaded
evil-doers--the crime which was to be perpetrated in the temple of
God.

CHAPTER XIX.

Heavily passed the hours of the succeeding day to the idle guests of
El Cuervo. All Perico's representations and prayers had failed to
dissuade Diego from his impious design. Diego would never turn back;
and this stupid tenacity in pursuing a course which he knew to be
wrong, had cost him respect and honor, and was still to cost him
liberty and life. It had, moreover, at the instigation of the convict,
forced Perico, who had at last resolved to leave the band, to
accompany it on this atrocious expedition--that vile man suggesting to
Diego that there was no other means of preventing the _saint_ from
denouncing them.

All mounted and at midnight reached the ruined castle of Alcalá. Diego
whistled three times. Directly after, the gipsy, holding a dark
lantern, emerged from one of the vaults which open at the base of the
castle. They dismounted and followed her.

Perico would have escaped by flight from the evil pass in which he
found himself, but his companions surrounded him and dragged him with
them whither the woman led. She, after saluting the robbers in a
fawning voice, opened with a picklock the door of a rude court filled
with rubbish and timbers. From the court a postern leads into the
vestry, and through this the sacrilegious band entered the church, not
without dread and trembling even at the sound of their own footsteps.

What a sublime and tremendous spectacle--a deserted temple in the dead
of night! Under its influence even the purest and most pious souls
sink in profound awe and devotion; and no amount of incredulity is
sufficient to sustain the heart of him who presumes to violate it.

How immense appeared those shadowy naves! How far above them the
corbels, which, upheld by giants of stone, seemed almost lost in the
mysterious gloom of a sky without stars! There in a deep and lonesome
niche, stretched prostrate and mute, slept a cold effigy upon a
sepulchre. Its outlines were hardly discernible, but the very
obscurity seemed to lend them motion.

{798}

The high altar, still perfumed with the flowers and incense of the
morning, gleamed through the darkness. The altar, centre of faith,
throne of charity, refuge of hope, shelter of the defenceless,
exhaustless source of consolations, attracting all eyes, all steps,
all hearts. Before the tabernacle burned the lamp, solitary guardian
of the _sacrarium_--burned only to light it, for light is the
knowledge of God.

Holy and mysterious lamp--continual holocaust--aflame, tranquil like
hope--silent, like reverence--ardent, like charity--and enduring like
eternal mercy. The gleams and reflections of this light caught and
relieved the prominent points of the carvings and mouldings of the
gilded altarpiece, giving them the look of eyes keeping religious
watch. There was nothing to distract the mind, the perfect fixedness,
the unbroken stillness, effected as it were a suspension of life,
which was not sleep--which was not death, but the peacefulness of the
one and the deep solemnity of the other.

Such was the interior of the church of Alcalá when the spoilers
entered, lighted by the gipsy's lantern and dragging with them, by
main force, the unfortunate Perico.

"Let him go, and lock that door," said Diego.

"He will shout and betray us," said the others.

"Let him go, I say," retorted the captain. "What can he do?"

"He can shriek," answered Leon, who, assisted by the gipsy, was
stripping the high altar of the silver furniture which adorned it.

"Guard him, then," said the captain. Two of the men approached Perico.

"Off with your hats, for you are in God's house,"' he cried.

"Gag him," commanded the captain, Resistance was useless. They
instantly stopped his mouth with a handkerchief.

But notwithstanding the handkerchief, which suffocated him, when
Perico saw that Leon and the gipsy were breaking open the sacrarium he
made one desperate effort, and falling on his knees shouted,
"Sacrilege! Sacrilege!!!" Terrible was the voice that resounded in the
chapels, that echoed like thunder along the vaults, that awakened the
grand and sonorous instrument which on other occasions accompanies the
imposing _De profundis_ and the glorious _Te Deum_, and died away in
its metal tubes like a doleful wail. It caused a moment of cold terror
to those miserable wretches. Even Diego trembled!

"Have mercy, Lord, have mercy!" moaned the unhappy Perico.

"Make haste," said Diego, "the night is becoming clearer, and we may
be seen going out from here."

In fact, the clouds were breaking away, and a ray of the moon falling
at this moment through a lofty skylight kissed the feet of an image of
our Blessed Lady.

"Curse the moon!" exclaimed the gipsy; and frightened at seeing each
other by the clear and sudden illumination, they hastened the work of
spoliation. At last they left the church, and the gipsy, when she had
seen them ride away loaded with riches, turned and again hid herself
in the earth.

Before the sun brightened the _Giralda_ the robbers reached the
outskirts of _Seville_ with their booty, They left their horses in an
olive grove in charge of the convict, and each entered the city by a
different gate, reuniting in an out-of-the-way place which the gipsy
had indicated, where a silver-smith, who was in the secret, received,
weighed, and paid for the valuables. But when they returned to the
place where they had left the convict with the horses, they found it
deserted.

"That dog has sold us," said one.

"For what?" said Diego, "when his part, which is likely to be worth
more than his treason, is here."

"Perhaps he has seen people, and has gone to hide in El Cuervo," said
another.

They set out in the direction of the hacienda, avoiding roads and
beaten paths, and keeping within the shelter of the trees; but neither
there did they find the convict.

{799}

"My poor Corso!" said Diego, and a bitter tear shone for a moment in
his eyes; but instantly recovering himself he said, "We are sold: but,
courage! and let us save ourselves. Down the river; to the frontier;
to Ayamonte; to Portugal. Some day I shall find him, and on that day
he will wish he had never been born!"

They were leaving, when the gipsy presented herself to claim her share
of the money. All assailed her with questions respecting the
disappearance of the convict; but she knew nothing, and manifested
much uneasiness.

"You are not safe here, and ought to get away as soon as may be," she
said. "The elder son of the Countess of Villaoran has sworn to avenge
his brother. He has got a troop from the captain-general, and is out
after you. I am afraid he has surprised the convict. As for me I am
going, the ground burns under my feet."

"Oh! that it would burn you up!" exclaimed one.

"Oh! that it would swallow you!" exclaimed another.

The old hag silently disappeared among the olives, like a viper which
crawls away, leaving its venom in the bite it has inflicted.

"A robbery in the house of God!" said the first.

"The _sacrarium_ violated!" said the other.

"Come, hold your tongues!" shouted Diego. "Make the best of what can't
be undone. Let's be off."

But now they heard the tramp of horses, and Perico, who had been
stationed to watch, came hastily in and informed them that the convict
was coming. His arrival was greeted with shouts of joy. He said that
he had seen a troop of horsemen, and had hidden himself; that in order
to return he had been obliged to make large circuits. "But, now," he
added, "we have no time to lose, they are on our track. Here, captain,
is Corso, I have taken good care of him for you; I know how fond of
him you are."

Diego joyfully caressed the noble creature vowing within himself never
again to be separated from him.

They hastened their departure, when, suddenly, before them, behind
them, above their heads, resounded a formidable demand, "Surrender to
the king!"

They were surrounded by a party of cavalry. Two pistols were pointed
at Diego's breast, and a man held the bridle of his horse. Diego cast
his eyes around him with no feigned composure! Knowing the ability of
the horse, which he had trained to this end, he drew his dagger with
the quickness of light, and cut the hands which held the reins,
pressed his knees strongly against the animal's sides, and, caressing
his neck, cried, "Hey! Corso, save your master!"

The noble and intelligent creature made one effort, but fell back upon
his haunches powerless. He was hamstrung!

Diego comprehended the blow, and knew the hand that had dealt it.
Frantic with rage, he sprang to the ground, but the traitor had
disappeared among the troop which crowded the pass. They took Diego,
who made no useless resistance. As they left the defile, the bandit
turned his head, and cast a last look upon the horse, that, always
immovable, followed him with his large liquid eyes.

The soldiers disarmed the bandits, and tied their arms behind their
backs. "Which is the one?" asked the Count of Villaoran when he saw
them together--"which is the one that killed my brother?"

The robbers were silent at a look from Diego, who, though a prisoner
and bound, still awed them.

"Which was it?" asked the count again, in a voice choked with rage.

"It was I," said Perico.

The count turned toward the drooping youth, who had not before
attracted his notice; but when he fixed his eyes upon him a cry of
horror escaped his lips.

{800}

"You! Perico Alvareda! Iniquity without name! Perversity without
example! Poor Anna! wretched mother that bore you! Unfortunate little
ones! Unhappy Rita! Know, infamous man," continued the count with
vehemence, "that your wife has worked with incessant zeal and activity
to procure your pardon. She was always at the feet of the judges.
Ventura forgave you before he died. Pedro has forgiven you. My poor
brother was the zealous and tireless agent of your friends. He
obtained your pardon of the king. All were anxiously seeking you, and
he more than all the rest, and I--would to God I had never found you!"

Diego, who saw the immense grief which the coldness and pallor of
death painted upon the changing countenance of Perico, and noticed
that he was tottering, said to the count:

"Sir, do you see that you are killing him?"

"I will not anticipate the executioner," answered the count, mounting
his horse.

"Courage!" murmured Diego in the ear of the sinking Perico. "Look at
us. We are all going to die, and we are all serene."

They entered Seville amidst the maledictions of the populace,
horrified by their recent crimes. But the indignation with which the
crowd saw the vile traitor who had sold his companions, walking among
them free, was beyond measure.

This traitor was the convict, who by betraying the others had bought
his own pardon, and obtained the reward promised to the person who
should secure the arrest of the notorious robber Diego, who had so
long laughed at the efforts of his pursuers.

CHAPTER XX.

The prison of Seville was at that time badly situated, in a narrow
street in the most central part of the city. It was an ill-looking
structure, scaly and mean; wanting in its style the dignity of legal
authority and the outward respect which humanity owes to misfortune,
even when it is criminal. A few steps from this centre of hardened
wickedness and beastly degradation the street ends in the grand
_plaza_ of _San Francisco_--an irregular oblong area, bounded by those
edifices which make it the most imposing plaza of the famed deanery of
_Andalucia_, On the right are the chapter-houses whose exquisite
architecture renders them in the eyes of both Sevillans and strangers
the finest ornaments of the city. On the left, forming a projecting
angle, stands the regular and severe edifice of the _Audiencia_, the
tribunal to which justice gives all power. Surmounting it, like a
signal of mercy, is its clock--ten minutes too slow; venerable
illegality, which gives ten minutes more of life to the criminal
before striking the cruel hour named for his execution. Thus all the
laws and customs of ancient Spain have the seal of charity. Ten
minutes, to him who is passing tranquilly along the road of life, are
nothing; but to him who is about to die, they are priceless. Upon the
threshold of death, ten minutes may decide his sentence for eternity.
Ten minutes may bring an unhoped-for but possible pardon. But even
though these considerations, spiritual and temporal, did not exist;
though this impressive souvenir of our forefathers were nothing more
than the grant of ten minutes of existence to him who is about to die,
it would still prove that, even to their most severe decrees, our
ancestors knew how to affix the seal of charity. As such it is
recognized by the people, who understand and appreciate it, for it is
one of the customs which they hold in highest reverence. O Spain! what
examples hast thou not given to the world of all that is good and
wise! thou that to-day art asking them of strangers!

{801}

On one side of the town-hall, forming a receding angle, is seen the
great convent of San Francisco with its imposing church. The other
fronts form arches that, like stone festoons, adorn the sides of the
plaza. At the end opposite the point first mentioned is an immense
marble fountain, of which the flow of waters is as changeless and
lasting as the material of the basin which receives it.

One day the plaza of San Francisco and the streets leading to it were
covered with an unusual multitude. What drew them together? Why were
they there? To see a man die--but no, not die; to see a man kill his
brother! To die is solemn, not terrible, when the angel gently closes
the sufferer's weary eyes and gives his soul wings to rise to other
regions. But to see a man killed, by a human hand, in travail of
spirit, in agony of soul, in tortures of pain, is appalling. And yet
men go, and hasten, and crowd each other, to witness the consummation
of legal doom. But it is neither pleasure nor curiosity that attracts
the awe-struck multitude. It is that fatal desire of emotion which
takes possession of the contradictory human heart. This might have
been read in those faces, at once pale, anxious, and horrified. An
indistinct murmur ran through the dense multitude, in the midst of
which rose that pillar of shame and anguish; that usurper of the
mission of death; that foothold of the forsaken, which no one but the
priest treads voluntarily--the fearful scaffold, built at night, by
the melancholy light of lanterns, because the men who raise it are
ashamed to be seen by the light of God's sun and the eyes of their
fellowmen. The crowd shuddered at intervals at the mournful strokes of
the bell of San Francisco, pealing for a being who no longer existed
except to God, for the world had blotted him from the list of the
living. Its notes, now rising to God in supplication for a soul, now
descending to mortals in expressive admonition, forming part of the
overwhelming solemnity which was inhaled with the air and oppressed
the breast, seemed to say, Die, guilty ones die in expiatory sacrifice
for this sinful humanity. Only the pure and limpid fountain continued
its sweet and monotonous song, unconscious as childhood and innocence
of the terrors of the earth. O innocence, emanation of Paradise, still
respired in our corrupted atmosphere by children and those privileged
beings who have, like faith, a bandage upon their eyes, that they may
believe without seeing, and another upon their hearts, that they may
see and not comprehend; who have, like charity, their heart in their
hand, and, like hope, their eyes fixed on heaven, thou art always
surrounded by reverence, love, and admiration, which, as the daughter
of heaven, thou meritest.

There are two classes of charity: one relieves material sufferings in
a material way, and with money--this is beautiful and liberal, but
easy, and a social obligation. The other is that which relieves moral
anguish, morally. This is sublime and divine.

Of the latter class, one that has not been sufficiently praised by
society, which finds so many occasions for censure and so few for
eulogy, is the Brotherhood of Charity. And who compose this admirable
congregation? Those, perhaps, who waste so much paper and phraseology
in favor of humanity, philanthropy, and fraternity? No, not one of
them condescends to enter this corporation, which is formed
principally of the aristocracy of those places where it has been
established. The truth is, that between theory and practice, as
between saying and doing, there is a great space.

In Seville, a short time after the events related in the last chapter,
several gentlemen of distinction were seen passing through the
streets, each holding out a small basket, as he repeated in a grave
voice, "For the unfortunates who are to be put to death."

{802}

Diego and his band were assembled in the chapel of the prison,
constantly attended by some of the brotherhood, who, leaving their
homes, their pleasures, and their occupations, came to take part in
this prolonged agony, consoling the last moments of these sinful men;
anticipating their wishes with more attention than those of kings are
anticipated, and pouring balsam into the wound inflicted by the sword
of justice.

Two of the most zealous and devoted of the brotherhood, the Count of
Cantillana and the Marquis of Greffina, had been to the tribunal,
which is established and remains in session in the jail while the
condemned are being prepared and led to the scaffold, and during the
execution, to ask of it the bodies of those who were to suffer. The
following is the formula adopted by this noble and affecting Catholic
institution:

  "We come, in the name of Joseph and of Nicodemus, to ask leave to
  take the body down from the place of punishment." The judge grants
  the prayer, and they withdraw.

Each prisoner was accompanied by his confessor--a blessed staff to
sustain the steps that are turned toward the scaffold.

When Perico had finished his sacramental confession, he said to the
venerable religious who assisted him: "My name is not known; they call
me 'Perico the Sad;' but, since between earth and heaven nothing is
hidden, my family will, sooner or later, know my fate. Have the
charity, father, to fulfil my last desire, and be yourself the one to
carry the news to my mother. Tell her that I died repentant and
contrite, and not so criminal as I appear. An evil life is a ravine
into which one is drawn by the first crime. That crime which has
weighed and is weighing so heavily upon me, I committed because I
preferred a vain thing which men call honor, and which has sometimes
to be bought with blood, to the precepts of the gospel, which make a
virtue of forbearance and command us to forgive. O father! how
different appear the things of life on the threshold of the tomb! Tell
my poor sister, whose bridegroom I killed, that I commend her to
another and immortal One, who will never deceive her. Tell Pedro that
I know he has forgiven me, as did his son, and that I carry this
consolation to the grave, and my gratitude to God. Tell Rita that I
lived and died loving her, and that, if I had lived, I never would
have reminded her of the past, since she has repented of it. Ask my
mother-in-law, who is so good, to recommend me to God . . . . and my
poor children . . . my orphans . . . . Oh! if it were possible that
they might never know . . . . the fate of their father . . . . who . . . .
blesses them . . ."

Here his bursting heart found vent in sobs.

The priest who heard him, convinced of the innocence of his heart,
seeing how he had been surprised into crime by all that exasperates
and blinds the reason of a husband, a brother, and a brave man, and
forced into an evil life by circumstances, necessity, and his natural
want of firmness, felt as one who without means or power to save it
sees a fair vessel dashing to pieces at his feet.

Rita's constant and energetic movements to discover the whereabouts of
Perico, whose pardon, with the assistance of charitable souls, she had
obtained from the king, brought her, with her mother, that day to
Seville. Attempting to pass the plaza of San Francisco they
encountered the great crowd which had gathered there, and, asking the
cause of the tumult, were shown the scaffold. They would have retired,
but could not for the press behind them.

One of the condemned is approaching; all burst into exclamations of
pity--"Poor boy! This is the one they call 'Perico the Sad;' they say
that his wife, a good-for-nothing, was the ruin of him."

Rita's heart beats violently--the criminal passes--she sees--she
recognizes him. A shriek, another such was never uttered, rends the
air--heard in all the market-place.

{803}

Perico stops: "Father," he says, "it is she! it is Rita!"

"My son," replies the priest, "think only of God, in whose presence
you are going to appear, contrite, reconciled, and happy, carrying
with you your expiation."

"Father, if I could only see her before I die?"

"My son, think of the bitter punishment and of the glorious
illumination you are going to receive from man, who is the instrument
of God in your destiny." Perico wishes to turn "Forward!" orders the
sergeant.

He mounts the scaffold and kneels to the spiritual father, who with a
calm face, but a heart sorely oppressed, blesses him. He kisses the
crucifix, that other scaffold, upon which the Man-God expiated the
sins of others, still turning his eyes toward the place from which the
voice sounded that pierced his heart; seats himself upon the bench;
the executioner, who stands behind him, places the garrote around his
neck; the priest intones the creed; the executioner turns the screw,
and a simultaneous cry, "Ave Maria purissima!" sounds in the plaza.
With this invocation to the Mother of God, humanity takes leave of the
condemned at the moment that he is separated from it by the hand of
the law.

The executioner covers the face of the victim with a black cloth, and
the black shadow of the wings of death falls upon the hushed
multitude.

Some compassionate persons carried Rita away senseless. Her situation
was terrible beyond expression. The convulsions which shook her left
her but few moments of consciousness, and in these moments she gave
way to her despair in a way so frightful that they were obliged to
hold her as if she had been mad. For some days it was impossible to
move her. At length her relatives brought a cart to take her away.
They laid her in it, upon a mattress, but not one of them would
accompany her for shame. Maria went alone with her child, sustaining
her head upon her lap. Rita's long black hair fell around her like a
veil, covering her from the glances of the indiscreet and curious.
"There goes," they said, as they saw her pass, "the wife of the
criminal, who by her indiscretion sent him to the scaffold." But the
oxen did not hasten their deliberate steps. It seemed as if they also
had a mission to fulfil, in prolonging the punishment of reprobation
to her who hid provoked it with so much audacity. Maria went like a
resigned martyr. Her gentle heart had been made as it were elastic, in
order to contain without bursting an immensity of suffering. From time
to time Rita shuddered and broke into lamentations, pressing
convulsively her mother's knees. The latter said nothing, for even she
found no words of consolation for such grief.

They reached the village as night was coming on. The cart stopped
before their house, and Rita was lifted out.

She sees a window wide open in her mother-in-law's house; through this
window an unusual light is shining. She breaks away from the arms that
sustain her and rushes to the grating. In the middle of the room which
she inhabited in happy times, stands a bier. Four wax candles throw
their solemn light upon the calm form of Elvira. She is as white as
her shroud; her hands are crossed, and through her right arm passes a
palm branch--emblem consecrated to virginity. Thus in simple grace,
and in the attitude of prayer, lies the pious village maiden.

In the front part of that melancholy room were still seen the withered
plants which on a happier day had formed the mimic Bethlehem. At the
extremity of the room sits Anna, as pale and motionless as the corpse
itself. On one side of her is Pedro, and on the other the priest who
accompanied Perico to the scaffold.

{804}

Years after the events we have related, the Marquis of ---- went to
spend some days at one of the haciendas of Dos-Hermanas. One evening,
when he was returning from the estate of a relative, he noticed as he
passed near an olive-tree that the overseer and the guard who
accompanied him uncovered their heads. He glanced upward, and saw
nailed to the tree a red cross. "Has there been a murder in this quiet
place?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," answered the guard, "here was killed the handsomest and
bravest youth that ever trod Dos-Hermanas."

"And the murderer," added the overseer, "was the best and most
honorable young man of the place."

"But how was that?" questioned the marquis.

"Through wine and women, sir, the cause of all misfortunes," replied
the guard.

And as they went along they told the story we have repeated, with all
its circumstances and details.

"Do any of the family still live in the place?" asked the marquis,
extremely interested in the recital.

"Uncle Pedro died that year; Perico's wife would have let herself die
of grief, but the priest that assisted her husband persuaded her to
try to live to fulfil the will of God and her husband, by taking care
of her children; but to stay here where every one knew and loved her
husband, she must have had a brazen face indeed; she went with her
mother to the _sierra_, where they had relatives. One who came from
there awhile since, and had seen her, says that she does not look like
the same person. The tears have worn furrows in her cheeks; she is as
thin as the scythe of death, and her health is destroyed. Poor aunt
Anna died only the day before yesterday. She looked like a shadow, and
walked bent as if she were seeking her grave as a bed of rest."

They had now reached the village, and as they were passing a large
gloomy building, the overseer said, "This is her house."

The marquis paused a moment, and then entered. An old woman, a
relation of the deceased, lived alone in the sad and empty house, over
which, at that instant, the moon cast a white shroud.

"How these vines are dying!" said the marquis.

"They were not so," answered the woman, "when that poor dear child
took care of them. They used to be covered with flowers that
flourished like daughters under the hand of a mother. But she closed
her eyes, never again to open them in this world, the day she heard of
her brother's fate."

"Oh!" exclaimed the gentleman, "what a pity! this magnificent
orange-tree is dead."

"Yes; it is older than the world, sir, and was used to a great deal of
petting and care. After poor Anna lost her children, neither she nor
any one else minded it, and it withered."

"And this dog?" asked the marquis, seeing a dog, old and blind, lying
in one comer.

"The poor Melampo, from the time he lost his master he grew melancholy
and blind. Anna, before she died, begged me to take care of him; it
was almost the only thing the dear soul spoke of; but there will be no
need; when they took away her corpse he began to howl, and since then
he will not eat." The marquis drew nearer. Melampo was dead.

{805}

From The Month.

BURIED ALIVE.

"It may be asserted without hesitation, that no event is so terribly
well calculated to inspire the supremeness of bodily and mental
distress as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the
lungs; the stifling fumes of the damp earth; the clinging to the
death-garments; the rigid embrace of the narrow house; the blackness
of the absolute night; the silence like a sea that overwhelms; the
unseen but palpable presence of the conqueror worm--these things, with
thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who
would fly to save us, if but informed of our fate, and with
consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed; that our
hopeless portion is that of the really dead--these considerations, I
say, carry into the heart which still palpitates a degree of appalling
and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must
recoil."  [Footnote 187]

  [Footnote 187: E.A. Poe's "Premature Burial."]

I have chosen this sentence from a writer whose forte is the terrible
and mysterious for my introduction, because it sums up, in a few
expressive words, the thoughts which arise in our minds on hearing or
reading the words "Buried Alive." To avert so fearful a doom from a
fellow-creature would surely be worth any trouble; and yet it is to be
feared that the very horror which the thought inspires causes most of
us to turn aside from it, and to accept the comfortable doctrine that
such things are not done now, whatever may have formerly been the
case. Were this true, I should not feel justified in bringing before
the readers of the "Month" a ghastly subject, which could be
acceptable only to a morbid curiosity; but it is unfortunately but too
certain that persons are now and then buried alive, and that,
therefore, this fate may be possibly our own. The subject is one which
naturally excites more attention abroad; for in England the custom of
keeping deceased relatives above ground for many days after their
death, has long prevailed, and incurs the opposite danger of injuring
the health of the survivors who thus indulge their grief. We believe
no important work has ever been published in this country on the
subject; for Dr. Hawe's pamphlet is not up to the present standard of
medical information, and contains instances of very doubtful
authenticity. The tales of premature interment which can be collected
in conversation, or occasionally noticed in the public journals, are
not very numerous; few of them are circumstantial enough to have any
scientific interest; and some prove the supposed fact by the hair or
nails having grown, and the body having moved when in its coffin--
things which are well known to happen now and then after death has
undoubtedly taken place, and being therefore no proofs at all. After
examination, I have, then, come to the conclusion that no estimate of
the frequency of premature interment can be obtained. Indeed, the only
statistics which we possess are from Germany, and they are not very
reassuring. In some of the largest towns of that country, mortuary
chambers (in which the dead are placed for some days before burial)
have long been established; and we learn from a report of one in
Berlin, that in the space of only thirty-months ten people, who had
been supposed dead, were there found to be alive, and thus saved from
true death {806} in its most horrible form. But in France and Italy,
especially during the summer months, the dead are buried so very early
that fears are frequently entertained. In France, indeed, the law
prescribes a delay of twenty-four hours after death before interment,
and also requires a certificate of death from an inspector, who in
large towns is usually a physician with no other employment (_le
médecin des morts_;) but so many instances of carelessness and of
incapacity on the part of the country inspectors have been noticed,
that the Chamber of Peers, during Louis Philippe's reign, and lately
the Senate of the Empire, have received many petitions praying for an
inquiry, and for further precautions. To these the answer has
generally been, that the existing law provides sufficient safeguards;
and in this the Senate only followed the prevailing opinion of men of
science in France.

For, some years ago, Dr. Manni, a professor in the University of Rome,
offered a prize of 15,000 francs, to be given by the French Academy of
Sciences to the author of the best essay on the signs of death and the
means to be taken to prevent premature interment. The prize was
obtained in 1849 by M. Bouchut, an eminent physician in Paris, who,
after a very detailed examination of the question, came to these two
conclusions: first, that when the action of the heart could be no
longer heard by means of the stethoscope, death was certain; and
secondly, that not a single case of interment before death has ever
been clearly and satisfactorily made out: and the learned body, who
awarded the prize to him, entirely assented to these opinions. Since
that time, however, cases have been quoted, by some French doctors of
note, in which the action of the heart could not be detected, and yet
life was in the end restored. Their observations have been summed up
in a pamphlet by M. Jozat. This gave a fresh impulse to the subject;
and on the 27th of February last, M. de Courvol presented a petition
to the Senate of the same tenor as those mentioned above. This would
have received the same answer as they did, and the matter would have
been again shelved, if several of the senators present had not quoted
instances which had fallen under their own observation, and in which
death was escaped only by some happy accident. The most remarkable of
these was narrated by Cardinal Donnet, as having happened to
_himself_; and his story was copied into most English newspapers at
the time. It is, however, so much to the purpose of this paper, that I
make no apology for quoting it in his own words:

  "In 1826, a young priest was suddenly struck down, unconscious, in
  the pulpit of a crowded cathedral where he was preaching. The
  funeral knell was soon after tolled, and a physician declared him to
  be certainly dead, and obtained leave for his burial next day. The
  bishop of the cathedral where this event had occurred, had recited
  the 'De Profundis' by the side of the bier; the coffin was being
  already prepared. Night was approaching; and the young priest, who
  heard all these preparations, suffered agonies. He was only
  twenty-eight years old, and in perfect health. At last he
  distinguished the voice of a friend of his childhood; this caused
  him to make a superhuman effort, and produced the wonderful result
  of enabling him to speak. The next day he was able to preach again."

This remarkable account, coming almost from the grave, produced a very
great impression; and, as is not unusual in deliberative assemblies,
the Senate yielded to striking individual cases what it had before
refused to argument, forwarding the petition to the Minister of the
Interior, and so implying that it considered the existing law
insufficient. The plan which finds most favor in France is the
establishment of "mortuary houses," like those in Germany. Although
some of the highest authorities in {807} France are opposed to them,
there can be no doubt, if the statistics quoted above are to be
believed, that they would be the means of saving many lives,
especially in cases where (as in hotels and lodging-houses) the
funeral is now hurried as much as possible. The only precautions which
need be taken in England are of a simple kind, and will be more
evident after the description I shall now proceed to give of the two
diseased states which most nearly simulate death.

In the first of these, called _catalepsy_, the patient lies immovable
and apparently unconscious; the limbs are rigid and cold; the eyes are
fixed, sometimes remaining open; and the jaw sometimes drops. But the
resemblance to death goes no farther; the face has not a corpse-like
expression; although the limbs are cold, the head continues to be
warm, or is even warmer than when in the usual state; the pupils are
never completely dilated, and are, sometimes at least, contracted by
exposure to light. The pulse and breathing, although slow and
irregular, can always be noticed; and the muscles are so far stiffened
as to keep the limbs, during the whole course of the attack, in the
position (however constrained and inconvenient) in which they chance
to be at the time of seizure, or may be placed in by bystanders during
the fit. This state of the muscular system is a decisive proof that
the case is one of catalepsy.

Were this rare and curious disease the only cause of error, the
physician called upon to discern in a given case between life and
death would have a comparatively easy task; but there is a still rarer
condition, which gives rise to most of the lamentable mistakes that
are made; the state of _trance_ or _prolonged syncope_, is a far more
perfect counterfeit of death. The patient is motionless, and
apparently unconscious, although he is usually aware of all that is
passing around him; the pulsation of the heart and arteries, and the
breathing gradually diminish in force and frequency, until they become
at last quite imperceptible; the whole surface of the body grows cold;
and all this may last even for many days. How is one in such a
condition known not to be dead? In the first place, it is noticed that
this disease is rare in a previously healthy person; it has been
generally preceded by some cause producing great weakness, (especially
long-continued fevers, great loss of blood, severe mental affliction,
or bodily pain.) It almost invariably, too, occurs suddenly, without
any preparation, and of course without the signs which immediately
precede death.

Sometimes mere inspection will convince the physician that the person
is still alive. Thus, the face, although fixed, may not have the look
of death; the mouth may be firmly closed, the eye not glazed, and the
pupil not entirely dilated. Supposing, however, that every one of
these signs of life is absent, and that the pulse and breathing are
imperceptible by the ordinary means of observation, careful
examination of the chest with a stethoscope will detect the
heart-sounds, if life be not quite extinct, in almost every case. I
dare not, in view of the cases cited by M. Jozat, say that absence of
the heart-sounds in this state _never_ occurs; but all medical men
will agree with me that it must be exceedingly rare. It also seems to
me probable that, in the cases on which M. Jozat relies, the movements
of the heart were so few and far between that the chest happened to be
ausculted only during the intervals; at any rate, it would of course
be advisable to make frequent and prolonged examinations before
deciding that no sound could be heard. The late Dr. Hope suggested
that the second sound of the heart might be detected, although the
first was quite inaudible; but this is merely theoretical. Again,
although the surface of the body be quite cold, it is probable that a
thermometer introduced far into the mouth would show that some
internal warmth {808} remained in every case of trance. At a variable
time after death the muscles lose their "irritability," (that is,
their power of contracting under galvanic stimulation;) and this
change is speedily followed by another--the stiffness which is noticed
all over the body. It is to be remembered that loss of muscular
irritability, and rigidity of the whole body, may both be noticed and
yet the person be alive; still, if these two symptoms are not present
at first, and only appear soon after supposed death, they will afford
strong presumption that the person is dead; which will be strengthened
if the skin be slightly burned, and yet no bleb forms in consequence.

Every one, however, of the signs enumerated is open to exceptions;
although, of course, the concurrence of many, or of all, tending in
the same direction, will make death or life almost certain; but the
_only_ absolutely conclusive evidence of death is putrefaction, which
is sometimes much delayed by the previous emaciation of the deceased,
or by cold dry weather, but which sooner or later removes all doubt.
The first indications of decay are in the eyeball, which becomes
flaccid, and in the discoloration of the skin of the trunk; its later
ones are well known to every one. One M. Mangin (who contributed a
notice of this subject to the "Correspondant" for March 25th last, to
which I am indebted for several facts I have mentioned) supposes that
the buzzing, humming noise which is heard over all the body of a
living person would furnish a certain means of distinguishing real
from apparent death. He does not seem to be aware that M. Collongues,
the principal authority for what is called "dynamoscopy," has found
that this noise is absent in some cases of catalepsy and trance, for
which it is proposed as a test. Certain authorities, both in England
and France, have thought that microscopal examination of the blood
would be decisive; but unfortunately irregularity in shape and
indentation of the red disks (on which they would rely) occur
sometimes during life, and are only among the earliest signs of
putrefaction after death.

These, as far as I know« are the only means which science has hitherto
suggested for distinguishing a living body from a corpse; and we have
seen that none of them, save putrefaction, are invariably certain. In
a doubtful case, therefore, time should always be allowed for this
change to take place, so that the body may be interred in perfect
security. If this is done under the direction of a medical attendant
of ordinary information, relatives and friends may be convinced that
no mistake is possible; and their plain duty is to urge this salutary
delay in the very few cases where it can possibly be required.

It is particularly important to urge this delay, when necessary, in
the case of persons who have apparently died of some contagious
disease, and who might otherwise have been buried alive. It is indeed,
much to be feared that persons in the collapse stage of cholera have
been sometimes buried as dead; especially (Cardinal Donnet remarks)
when they are attacked in hotels or lodgings, where a death from such
a cause would be particularly prejudicial.

M. Mangin mentions one such case of a medical student in Paris, who
apparently died of cholera in 1832, and for whose funeral all
preparations were made, when a friend applied moxas to the spine. He
recovered consciousness at once, and survived many years; and there is
something grimly amusing in reading that he told the narrator: "Je me
suis chauffé avec le bois de mon cercueil!" Those, again, who have
read Mr. Maguire's "Life of Father Mathew," will not soon forget his
graphic description of a similar case, in which Father Mathew rescued
a young man from the hospital dead-house during the same epidemic at
Cork, just as he was being wrapped in a tarred sheet and placed in his
coffin.

{809}

Poe, in the tale from which I have quoted above, gives an instance of
burial during typhus fever, probably in one of the long periods of
unconsciousness and immobility occasionally occurring in that disease.
The unfortunate man remained in the grave for two days, when his body
was disinterred by the "body-snatchers," for the purpose of enabling
his medical attendants to make a _post-mortem_ examination. A casual
application of the galvanic current revived him, and he was soon after
restored to his friends, alive and in good health. This is said by Poe
to have happened to a Mr. Edward Stapleton, a London solicitor, in
1831. I have been unable to obtain any verification of this marvel,
but give it for what it may be worth.

It is very remarkable that the state of prolonged syncope, or trance,
can sometimes be produced by a mere effort of the will. One of the
best-described cases is given by St. Augustine.  [Footnote 188] It is
that of a priest named Restitutus, who used frequently, in order to
satisfy the curiosity of friends, to make himself totally immovable,
and apparently unconscious, so that he did not feel any pricking,
pinching, or even burning; nor did he appear to breathe at all. He
used afterward to say that "he could hear during the attack what was
said very loud by bystanders, as if from afar." He brought on the
attack "ad imitatas quasi lamentantis cujuslibet voces;" a sentence
which is unfortunately of rather uncertain meaning. Another case is
recorded by Dr. Cheyne, a fashionable Bath physician of the last
century. A patient of his, one Colonel Townsend, in order to convince
Dr. Cheyne's incredulity, one day voluntarily induced this state of
death-like trance "by composing himself as if to sleep." He then
appeared perfectly dead; and neither Dr. Cheyne nor another physician.
Dr. Bayard, nor the apothecary in attendance, could detect any
pulsation at the heart or wrist, or any breathing whatever. They were
just about to give him up for dead, when, at the end of half an hour,
he gradually recovered.

  [Footnote 188: "De Civ. Dei," xiv. cap. 24. ]

But these performances are quite thrown into the shade by those of
certain fakeers in India. Mr. Braid, in his very interesting
"Observations on Trance, or Human Hybernation," collected several of
these almost incredible tales from British officers, who spoke as
having been themselves eye-witnesses of them in India. In the most
wonderful of them Sir Claude Wade (formerly Resident at the court of
Runjeet Singh) says that he saw a fakeer buried in an underground
vault for six weeks: the body had been twice dug up by Runjeet Singh
during this period, and found in the same position as when first
buried. In another case, Lieutenant Boileau (in his "Narrative of a
Journey in Rajwarra in 1835") relates that he saw a man buried for ten
days in a grave lined with masonry and covered with large slabs of
stone; and the fakeer declared his readiness to be left in the tomb
for a twelvemonth. In all these cases it is said that the body, when
first disinterred, was like a corpse, and no pulse could be detected
at the heart or the wrist; but warmth to the head and friction of the
body soon revived the bold experimenter. Supposing that the watch
(which was carefully kept up during each of these curious interments)
was not eluded by some of the jugglery in which Indians excel, we have
here proofs that the state of trance cannot only be voluntarily
induced, but prolonged over a very long time.

The rationale of such phenomena is not very difficult to comprehend.
St. Augustine was undoubtedly right when he explained the case that
fell under his own observation by the supposition that some persons
have a remarkable and unusual power of the will over the action of the
heart. Dr. Carpenter suggests that the state of syncope could be kept
up much longer {810} in a vault in a tropical climate, where the body
would not lose too much of its natural heat, than in more temperate
countries; and Mr. Braid compares this condition to the slowness of
respiration and circulation during winter in hybernating animals. But
whatever may be the explanation, I cannot at least be accused of
digression in ending this gloomy paper with an account of men who are
voluntarily buried alive.

Translated from Le Correspondant.

A CELTIC LEGEND.--HERVÉ.

TO THE MEMORY OF M. AUGUSTIN THIERRY.

BY H. DE LA VILLEMARQUÉ.

I was one day walking in the country with a book in my hand. It was in
a district of that land where La Fontaine has said, "fate sends men
when it wishes to make them mad." Fate had not, however, sent me there
in order to make me mad. I found, on the contrary, in the charming
scenes which on all sides presented themselves to my view, and in the
original population which surrounded me, a thousand reasons for not
sharing the sentiment of the morose narrator of fables. A peasant
accosted me in the familiar but at the same time respectful style
habitual to those of that country, and, pointing to my book with his
finger:

"Is it the Lives of the Saints," he said to me, "'that you are reading
there?"

A little surprised at this address, which, however, by no means
explained my reading, I remained silent, thinking of this opinion of
the Breton peasants, according to whom the "Lives of the Saints" is
the usual reading of all those who know how to read; and, as my
interlocutor repeated his question,

"Well, yes," I replied, to humor his thought, "there is sometimes
mention made of the saints in this book."

"And what one's life are you reading now?" he continued obstinately.

I mentioned at random the name of some saint, and thought I had
quieted his curiosity, but I had not satisfied his faith.

"What was he good for?" he asked.

For an instant I stopped short; what reply to offer to a man who
judged the saints by their practical utility? I turned upon him: "And
your own patron," I replied, "what maladies does he care?"

"Oh! a great number," he said; "those of men as well as those of
animals. Although during his life he was only a poor blind singer, he
has a beautiful place in paradise, I assure you. The day he entered
heaven the sky was all illuminated." And, accompanying it with
commentaries, he chanted for me the legend of the patron of his
parish.

I knew it already by Latin and French publications; but I was well
pleased to collect it fresh from the living spring of popular
tradition. By the aid of this later source and of the written record,
I have reconstructed the account about to be read. It presents, if I
do not deceive myself, a somewhat interesting page in the history of
Christian civilization in Armorica, in the sixth century; so judged
the great historian, my teacher and my friend, to whom I dedicate it.
Moral truth shines through all the legend as a light shines through a
veil.  [Footnote 189]

  [Footnote 189: The most ancient compilation of this legend, written
  six hundred years after the death of Saint Hervé, which is placed on
  the 22d June in the year 568, exists in the Imperial Library, in the
  portfolio of the "Blanc-Manteaux." No 38, p. 851: the two more
  modern are, one of P. Albert le Grand, who has taken for his model
  Jacques de Voragine; the other by Dom Lobineau, who has fallen into
  the contrary extreme.]

{811}

I.

It was the custom of the Frank kings to have a large number of poets
and musicians at their court; they often had them come from foreign
countries, taking pleasure, mingled with a barbarous pride, in
listening to verses sung in their honor, of which they understood not
a word. Among them were seen Italians, Greeks, and even Britons, who,
uniting their discordant voices with the singers of the German race,
emulated each other in flattering the not critical ears of the
Merovingian princes. Welcomed to their palace, after having been
driven from his own country by the Lombards, the Italian Fortunatus
has preserved for us recollections of these singular concerts at
which, lyre in hand, he performed his part while "the Barbarian," he
says, "added the harp, the Greek the instrument of Homer, and the
Briton the Celtic rote." The rote had the same fate as the lyre; it
sought in Gaul an asylum from the invaders of the British Isle, of
whom it might be said with equal truth as by the Italian poet of the
conquerors of his country, that they did not know the difference
between the gabble of the goose and the song of the swan. The
Merovingian kings piqued themselves on having more taste.

Among the Britons who took refuge with them, and who continued to play
in Gaul nearly the same part that they played in the dwellings of
their native chiefs, there was a young man, named Hyvarnion. This
name, which signifies just judgment, had been given him in his own
country on the following occasion: He was in a school where he was
only known as the _petit savant_, and had for his teacher one of the
sages of the British nation, both monk and poet, named Kadok, now
known in Armorica as Saint Cado. At the end of the fifth century this
successor of the last Latin rhetors of Albion, instructed the young
islanders in grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, poetry, and music,
mingling, as it appears, with the methods of instruction transmitted
by classic antiquity, the traditions of the ancient Druids. The master
disputed one day with his little scholar after the manner of the
Druids, the subject of debate being: What are the eighteen most
beautiful moral virtues? Kadok indicated eighteen, but he purposely
omitted the principal, wishing to leave to his pupil the pleasure of
finding them out for himself.

"For my part," said the scholar, "I believe that he possesses the
eighteen virtues _par excellence_, who is strong in trials and in
tribulations; gentle in the midst of suffering; energetic in
execution; modest in glory and in prosperity; humble in conduct;
persistent in good resolutions; firm in toil and in difficulties;
eager for instruction; generous in words, in deeds, and in thoughts;
reconciler of quarrels; gracious in his manners and affable in his
house; on good terms with his neighbors; pure in body and in thought;
just in words and deeds; regular in his manners; but above all,
charitable to the poor and afflicted."

"Thine the prize!" cried Kadok, "thou hast spoken better than I."

"Not so," replied the _petit savant_, "not so; I wished to carry it
over thee, and thou hast given a proof of humility; thou art the
wiser, and thine the palm."  [Footnote 190]

  [Footnote 190: "Myvyrian archaeology of Wales," iii. p. 45.]

This just judgment brought good fortune to the young scholar. It
procured for him the fine name by which he was afterward designated,
and under which he is presented to us in the Armorican legends.

{812}

Once passed over to the continent, Hyvarnion became henceforth only a
vague remembrance in the minds of the islanders. His countrymen knew
very little of his history, and it may be believed that he would have
been wholly forgotten had not a Cambrian poet consecrated to him three
verses recalling the memorable sayings of the great men of his nation.

"Hast thou heard," said he, "what sang the _petit savant_ seated at
table with the bards?"

"The man with a pure heart has a joyous countenance."

The table which is here mentioned is that of the Frank king
Childebert. Hyvarnion sat there for four years, probably from the year
513 to the year 517. In the midst of the debaucheries and the scandals
of that court he appeared calm and serene in conscience and in
countenance, and like the children in the furnace, he sang. His songs
and his verses rendered him agreeable to the king, says a hagiographer
who charitably claims that the bard "merited the esteem of the king
even more by his virtues than by his talents." Whatever might be the
esteem of the murderer of the sons of Chlodimer for the virtues of the
poet of his court, Childebert showed himself as generous to him as
were the island chiefs to their household minstrels. But not precious
stuffs, nor gold, nor mead, the three gifts most dear to a poet, could
retain in the court of Paris a young man in whose eyes purity of soul
and of body, regularity of manners, and justice were among the most
beautiful of virtues.

Under pretext of returning to his own country, where a brilliant and
decisive victory of Arthur over the Saxons had restored security, he
asked permission of the king to leave him. He departed loaded with
presents, even carrying, we are assured, a letter to Kon-Mor, or great
chief, who governed Armorica in the name of Childebert, in which the
king ordered that a ship should be placed at the service of the
British bard.

Hyvarnion had been three days at the court of the Frank officer, and
the ship, which was to conduct him to the British isle was ready to
sail, when three dreams, followed by a meeting which he had probably
made after his arrival in Armorica, prevented his embarkation. A young
girl of the country, as remarkable for her beauty as for her talent
for poetry and music, appeared to him in his sleep. Seated on the
border of a fountain she sang in a voice so sweet that it pierced his
heart. Somewhat troubled on awaking, he drove away the dangerous and
too charming recollection; but the following night, the same young
girl, more beautiful still, if possible, and singing even more sweetly
than before, appeared to him a second time. "Then," says an author,
"he seriously feared that it was some wile or snare of the spirit of
fornication," and the night coming, he prayed the Lord to deliver him
from this dream, if it came not from him. "If on the contrary, it is
thou who dost send it to me," said he, "let me know clearly what it is
thou wouldst that I should do."

And he sought his bed. But behold! scarcely had he slept than he had a
third dream. He saw a young man surrounded with light, who entered his
room and thus spoke to him: "Fear not to take for your wife her whom
you have seen seated on the border of the fountain, and whom you will
see again. Like you, she is pure and chaste, and God will bless your
love."

The Frank officer to whom the bard related his dream, wished, without
doubt, to be agreeable to one recommended by the king, and took upon
himself to realize the prophecy. He proposed a hunting party to the
young man, where, he said, he would meet a certain marvellous hare,
called the _silver hare_, but with the secret purpose of contriving a
meeting with the {813} young girl of his dream. His hope was not
deceived. As they entered the forest where lodged the pretended silver
hare, they heard a voice singing in the distance. The young man
trembled and reined up his horse. "I hear," said he, "I hear the voice
singing which I heard last night."

Without replying to him the royal officer turned himself toward the
part of the forest whence the voice proceeded, and following a
footpath which wound along the side of a stream, they reached a
spring, near to which a young girl was occupied in gathering simples.

"The young girl sat by the fountain," says a poet. "White was her
dress, and rosy her face.

"So white her dress, so rosy her face, that she seemed an eglantine
flower blooming in the snow.

"And she did naught but sing: 'Although I am, alas! but a poor iris on
the banks of the water, they call me its Little Queen.

"The Lord Count said to the young girl as he approached her, 'I salute
you, _Little Queen of the Fountain_. How gaily thou dost sing, and how
fair thou art!

"'How fair thou art, and how gaily thou dost sing. What flowers are
those you gather there?'

"'I am not fair, I sing not gaily, and these are not flowers that I
gather;

"'These are not flowers that I gather, but different kinds of salutary
plants;

"'One is good for those who are sad; for the blind, the other is good;
and the third, if I can find it, is that which will cure death.'

"'Little Queen, I pray thee, give me the first of these plants.'

"'Save your grace, my Lord, I shall give it only to him whom I shall
marry.'

"'Thou hast given it! Give it then,' cried the royal officer, 'Thou
hast given it to this young man, who has just come to ask thee in
marriage.'"

And the _Little Queen of the Fountain_ gave to the bard, in pledge of
her faith, the plant which produces gaiety.  [Footnote 191]

  [Footnote 191: The Breton text of the legend of Saint Hervé, in
  verse appears in the fifth edition of the _Barsas[??] Breis, Chante
  populaires de la Bretagne_.]

If we may credit the legend, it was even in the same mind that
Rivanone, as she was called, went to the fountain; for she also had a
dream the preceding night, a dream altogether like the bard's. She
herself confessed it, and if she had not avowed it, we could divine
it, "Those who love, have they not dreams?" _An qui amant, ipsi sibi
somnia fingunt?_ Seeing in this a certain proof of the will of heaven,
the Frank count brought the brother of Rivanone, an Armorican chief,
in whose manor the young girl had lived since the death of her father
and mother, and having related to him all that had passed, he demanded
of him his sister in marriage for the favorite of the king.

Thus was settled this well-assorted union, and the wedding was
celebrated at the court of the Frank count.

Tradition has described it in a manner almost epic. The small as well
as the great, the poor as well as the rich, were guests at the feast;
churchmen and warriors, magistrates and common people, arrived there
from all sides. Neither wine, nor hydromel, drawn from casks, was
wanting to the guests. Two hundred hogs were immolated, and two
hundred fat bulls, two hundred heifers, and one hundred roebucks, two
hundred buffalos, one hundred black, one hundred white, and their
skins divided among the guests. A hundred robes of white wool were
given to the priests, one hundred collars of gold to the valiant
warriors, and blue mantles without number to the ladies. The poor had
also their part; there was for them a hundred new suits; they could
not receive less at the marriage of a poet who placed duty to them at
the head of the most beautiful virtues. But in order worthily to do
him honor for himself--in order properly to celebrate the union of the
Armorican muse {814} with the genius of the island bards--a hundred
musicians did not seem too many--a hundred musicians who from their
high seats played for fifteen days in the court of the count. In order
to complete this by an act destined to crown the glory of the young
couple, we are assured the king of the bards of the sixth century, the
last of the Druids, the famous Meri, finally celebrated the marriage.

Be this as it may, in regard to an honor which another popular
tradition appears to claim with more reason for the heroes of another
legend of the same century, the wedding at last at an end, the bride,
accompanied by a numerous suite, was conducted with her husband to the
manor of her brother, and if the Armorican customs of our days already
existed at that epoch, the minstrels at the wedding played on their
way a tender and melancholy air, named the Air of the Evening before
the Festival, which always brought tears to the eyelids of the bride.

"God console the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on her
wedding night."

It is said that Rivanone shed several tears in the midst of her joy.
Had she not for ever bid adieu to the sweet and simple girlish beliefs
which had surrounded her? to her dear fountain, on the banks of which
her companions the fairies danced at night in white robes, with
flowers in their hair, in honor of the new moon? to those graceful
dances which she herself, perhaps, had led, and to her songs in the
wood? to her salutary plants less brilliant but more useful and more
durable than flowers? to the herb which causes the union of hearts and
produces joy, which, wet in the waters of the fountain by a virgin
hand, she had shaken upon the brow of the man whom she was to take for
her husband? to the golden herb which spreads light, and in opening
the eyes of the body and the mind, opens to the knowledge of things of
the future? finally, had she not renounced the search for the plant
called the _herb of death_, which would be better named the _herb of
life_, because those die not who once have found it?

But no! "God console the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on
her wedding night!" The spring of the fountain will cease not to flow;
the charming apparitions will desert not its borders; there shall be
ever seen there gliding through the night a luminous shadow of which
the moon will be but an imperfect image--the shadow of that immaculate
Virgin whom the Druids seem to have prophesied when they raised an
altar to her under the name of the _Virgin Mother_, and the white
fairies of Armorica less white, less pure than she, bending before
their patroness, will sing _Ave Maria!_

No plant shall wither there, not the lemon-plant which produces joy,
for it is at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, that it will
spring henceforth; it is to Him it owes its virtue, and shall be
called the _herb of the cross;_ nor _sélago_ which gives light, for it
is from the aureole of the saints that it borrows its rays, and to
discover it, it is necessary to be a saint; nor, more than all, the
herb of life, for he has shown it, he has given it as a legacy to his
disciples, to whom he has said; "I am the life; whosoever believeth in
me shall not die."

And no more than the living spring which nourishes the herbs by its
side shall be exhausted that which sustains the fruits of the Spirit;
the soul shall not be stifled, it shall be purified; and for a moment
bent under regrets, as a rose under the rain, the Druid muse shall be
transformed and awake a Christian.

Rivanone so awoke; God had consoled the inconsolable heart, the heart
of the girl on her wedding-night.

{815}

II.

God consoles in his own way; he blesses in the same. Three years after
their marriage, Rivanone and Hyvarnion rocked the cradle of a crying
infant whom they endeavored to put asleep with their songs. Now this
infant was blind; and in remembrance of their sorrow they had named
him _Huervé_ or _Hervé_, that is to say, _bitter_ or _bitterness_.

But, if his mother did not try upon his eyes the better appreciated
virtue of the herb which should cure the blind; if she asked of her
Christian faith surer remedies to give light to her son, she found, at
least, at the foot of the cross, the herb which sweetens bitterness;
and her husband himself without doubt recollected that he had said in
his childhood that one of the most beautiful of virtues is strength in
trials and tribulations.

Two years afterward this strength was even more necessary by the side
of the cradle of the blind; a single hand rocked that cradle, a single
voice sang there--the other voice sang in heaven. The father had
already found the true plant which gives life.

With death, misery entered the house of the bard, misery all the more
cruel that it had known only prosperity. It is always in this way that
it comes to those who live by poesy. Happily Providence is a more
charitable neighbor than the ant in the fable. He did not fail the
widow of the poet who had been the friend of the poor and afflicted.
It was not from the palace of the Frank count, henceforth indifferent
to the fortunes of a family his master had forgotten, nor from the
manor of Rivanone's brother, which she charmed no more with her songs,
that assistance came. It came from that cradle, watered with tears,
where slept a poor orphan. It is always from a cradle that God sends
forth salvation.

"One day the orphan said to his sick mother, clasping her in his
little arms: 'My own dear mother, if you love me, you will let me go
to church;

"'For here am I full seven years old, and to church I have not yet
been.'

"'Alas! my dear child, I cannot take you there, when I am ill on my
bed.'

"'When I am ill of an illness which lasts so long that I shall be
forced to go and beg for alms.'

"'You shall not go, my mother, to beg for alms; I will go for you, if
you will permit me.

"'I will go with some one who will lead me, and in going I will sing.

"'I will sing your beautiful canticles, and all hearts will listen!'

"And he departed finally to seek bread for his mother who could not
walk.

"Now, whatever it was, it must have been a hard heart that was not
moved on the way to church;

"Seeing the little blind child of seven years without other guide than
his little white dog.

"Hearing him sing, shivering, beaten by the wind and the rain, without
covering on his little feet, and his teeth chattering with cold."

It was the festival of All Saints, as the legend tells us; the
festival of the Dead follows it, and is prolonged during the second
night of this month which the Bretons call the _Month of the Dead_.
Having feasted the blessed, every one goes to the cemetery to pray at
the tomb of his parents, to fill with holy water the hollow of their
gravestone, or, according to the locality, to make libations of milk.
It is said that on this night the souls from Purgatory fly through the
air as crowded as the grass on the meadow; that they whirl with the
leaves which the wind rolls over the fields, and that their voices
mingle with the sighs of nature in mourning. Then, toward midnight,
these confused voices become more and more distinct, and at each
cottage door is heard this melancholy canticle.

"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
greeting to you, people of this house, we come to you to ask your
prayers.

{816}

"Good people, be not surprised that we have come to your door; it is
Jesus who has sent us to wake you if you sleep.

"If there is yet pity in the world, in the name of God, aid us.

"Brothers, relatives, friends, in the name of God, hear us; in the
name of God pray, pray; for the children pray not. Those whom we have
nourished have long since forgotten us; those whom we have loved have
left us destitute of pity."

Bands of mendicant singers, poor souls in trouble, they also,
wanderers like those of the dead, go by woods and graves, to the sound
of funereal bells, lending their voices to the unhappy of the other
world.

The blind orphan, who, from the bed of his sick mother, went to kneel
on the couch of his dead father, commenced in their company his
apprenticeship as a singer, and if it is believed, as is claimed, that
the _chant des ames_, such as it has come to us, was composed by a
blind singer, under the inspiration of his father, whom he would have
delivered from pain, the blind singer should be Hervé, and the
inspirer Hyvarnion.

The impression which the sainted child produced on the men of his time
is better founded; it has left traces in the popular imagination which
have been translated into touching narratives:

"The evening of All Souls, long before the night, the child returned
to his mother, after his circuit.

"And he was very tired, so tired that he could not hold himself on his
feet--all the route was slippery with ice.

"So tired that he fell on his mouth, and his mouth vomited blood,
blood with broken teeth."

Now these broken teeth did not give birth to furious warriors, like
those of the dragon in the fable; they were changed into diamonds
which shone from far in the darkness.

Such is the language of the tradition. Can we better paint the songs
drawn forth by the sorrow of the son of Hyvarnion, these songs of a
Christian muse which cleared away the shadows no less crowded than
those of the night of All Souls?

But these shadows were not dissipated instantly; the resistance made
to Christianity by the remains of Armorican paganism is not less
clearly indicated in traditional recollections than by the action and
influence of the little Christian singer.

As he passed the cross-roads of a village where the inhabitants have
to this day preserved the sobriquet of _paganiz_, that is to say,
heathens, he fell in the midst of a circle of young peasants, who,
interrupting their dance, ran after him, hooting at him, throwing dirt
upon him, and crying: "Where are you going, blind one, blind one!
Where are you going, blind brawler?"

"I'm going out of this canton, because I must," replied Hervé, "but
cursed be the race that comes from you." And, indeed, the little
mockers, struck by the anathema, returned to the dance, and they must
dance, it is said, to the end of the world, without ever resting or
ever growing, becoming like those dwarfed imps whom the Armoricans
adored, and whose power the Breton peasants still fear.

Nature herself, that great Celtic divinity, took the side of the imps
against Hervé, while the mother of the saint, in beholding him
preaching the gospel, could say with the church: "How beautiful are
the feet of those who come from the mountains!" "The granite earth on
which he walked, refused to carry him, tearing his naked feet, and no
one," says the complaint, "no one wiped the blood from his wounds,
only his white dog with his tongue, who washed the feet of the saint,
and warmed them with his breath."

Then, as he had cursed the mocking spirits, the saint cursed also the
stony ground which would arrest his steps, and it was rendered harder
than iron; when, going, according to his promise, into a district
where the rocks were such, the legend assures us, that "iron {817} nor
steel could ever pierce them," that is to say, the inhabitants were
obstinate and incorrigible barbarians, he returned to the saint who
inspired and enlightened him.

"My mother, for seven or eight years I have gone over this country,
and have gained nothing from these hard and cruel hearts.

"I would be in some solitary place where I should hear only songs;
where every day, my mother, I should hear only the praises of  God."

"Thou wouldst be a cleric, my son, to be later a priest! God be
praised! How sweet it would be to me to hear you say mass!"

"It is not, my mother, to be a priest; the priest's state is a great
responsibility, and it frightens my weak spirit; besides the charge of
my own soul I should have the charge of other souls; but I would like
far better to live my life in the depths of the forest with the monks,
and to be instructed how to serve God by those who serve him."

Rivanone agreed to the wishes of her son; the forest which he chose
for his retirement was inhabited by one of her uncles. Hervé sought
him, while his mother asked an asylum for herself of some pious women
who lived in community in another solitary place, having no
intercourse with the world except with the sick and infirm to whom
they were a providence.

III.

An ancient Breton ballad represents a magician going over the fields
of Armorica at the dawn of day, accompanied by a black dog. I do not
know what Christian voice addresses him: "Where are you going this
morning with your black dog?" "I go to find the red egg, the red egg
of the sea-serpent, on the edge of the river in the crevice of the
rock."

Vain search! This egg, a sacred symbol to the ancient priests of Gaul
and other heathen worship, had been crushed with the serpent of the