THE LAKE 
 
 George Moore
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 J. Lorenz Sporer
 
 THE LAKE
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE MOORE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "EVELYN INNESS," 
 "ESTHER WALTERS," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1906
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Published February, 1906
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 IT was one of those enticing days at the beginning 
 of May when white clouds are drawn about the 
 earth like curtains. The lake lay like a mirror that 
 some one had breathed upon, the brown islands show- 
 ing through the mist faintly, with gray shadows falling 
 into the water, blurred at the edges. The ducks were 
 talking softly in the reeds, the reeds themselves were 
 talking; and the water lapped softly about the smooth 
 limestone shores. But there was an impulse in the gentle 
 day, and, turning from the sandy spit, Father Oliver 
 walked to and fro along the disused cart track about the 
 edge of the wood, asking himself if he were going home, 
 knowing quite well that he could not bring himself to 
 interview his parishioners that morning. On a sudden 
 resolve to escape from anyone that might be seeking 
 him, he went into the wood and lay down on the warm 
 grass, and admired the thickly tasseled branches of the 
 tall larches swinging above him. 
 
 Among them a bird uttered a cry like two stones 
 clinked sharply together, and getting up he followed the 
 bird, trying to catch sight of it, but always failing to 
 
 I 
 
 2P 
 
 fa\J L* j . . J ^4:
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 do so ; it seemed to range in a circle about certain trees, 
 and he hadn't gone very far when he heard it behind 
 him. A stonechat he was sure it must be, and he 
 wandered on till he came to a great silver fir, and 
 thought that he spied a pigeon's nest among the mul- 
 titudinous branches. The nest, if it were one, was about 
 sixty feet from the ground, perhaps more than that; 
 and, remembering that the great fir had grown out of 
 a single seed, it seemed to him not at all wonderful that 
 people had once worshiped trees, so mysterious is their 
 life, and so remote from ours. He stood a long time 
 looking up, hardly able to resist the temptation to climb 
 the tree not to rob the nest like a boy, but to admire 
 the two gray eggs which he would find lying on some bare 
 twigs. 
 
 At the edge of the wood there were some chestnuts 
 and sycamores. He noticed that the large-patterned 
 leaf of the sycamores, hanging out from a longer stem, 
 was darker than the chestnut leaf. There were some 
 elms close by, and their half-opened leaves, dainty and 
 frail, reminded him of clouds of butterflies. He could 
 think of nothing else. "White, cottonlike clouds unfolded 
 above the blossoming trees ; patches of blue appeared and 
 disappeared ; 'and he wandered on again, beguiled this 
 time by many errant scents and willful little breezes. 
 
 Very soon he came upon some fields, and as he 
 walked through the ferns the young rabbits ran from 
 under his feet, and he thought of the delicious meals 
 that the fox would snap up. He had to pick his way, 
 for thorn bushes and hazels were springing up every- 
 
 2
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 where. Derrinrush, the great headland stretching nearly 
 a mile into the lake, said to be one of the original 
 forests, was extending inland. He remembered it as a 
 deep, religious wood, with its own particular smell of 
 reeds and rushes. It went farther back than the island 
 castles, farther back than the Druids, and this wood was 
 among Father Oliver's earliest recollections. He and 
 his brother James used to go there when they were boys 
 to cut the hazel sterns, out of which they made fishing 
 rods ; and one had only to turn over the dead leaves to 
 discover the chips scattered circlewise in the open spaces 
 where the coopers used to sit making hoops for bar- 
 rels. But iron hoops were now used instead of hazel, 
 and the coopers came there no more. In the old days 
 he and his brother James used to follow the wood- 
 ranger, asking him questions about the wild creatures 
 of the wood badgers, marten cats, and otters. One day 
 they took home a nest of young hawks. He did not 
 neglect to feed them, but they had eaten each other, 
 nevertheless. He forgot what became of the last one. 
 
 A thick yellow smell hung on the still air. " A fox," 
 he said, and he trailed the animal through the hazel 
 bushes till he came to the shore. His chase had led 
 him to a rough'shore, covered with juniper bushes and 
 tussocked grass, the extreme point of the headland, 
 whence he could see the mountains the pale southern 
 mountains mingling with the white sky, and the western 
 mountains, much nearer, showing in bold relief. The 
 beautiful motion and variety of the hills delighted him, 
 and there was as much various color as there were many 
 
 3
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 dips and curves, for the hills were not far enough away 
 to dwindle to one blue tint ; they were blue, but the pink 
 heather showed through the blue, and the clouds con- 
 tinued to fold and unfold, so that neither the color nor 
 the lines were ever the same. The retreating and ad- 
 vancing of the great masses and the delicate illumina- 
 tion of the crests could be watched without weariness. 
 It was like listening to music. Slieve Cairn showed 
 straight as a bull's back against the white sky; a cloud 
 filled the gap between Slieve Cairn and Slieve Louan, a 
 quaint little hill like a hunchback going down a road. 
 Slieve Louan was followed by a great boulderlike hill 
 turned sideways, the top indented like a crater, and 
 the priest likened the long, low profile of the next hill 
 to a reptile raising itself on its forepaws. 
 
 He stood at gaze, bewitched by the play of light and 
 shadow among the slopes; and when he turned toward 
 the lake again, he was surprised to see a yacht by 
 Castle Island. The breeze that had just sprung up had 
 borne her so far: now she lay becalmed. She carried, 
 without doubt, a pleasure-party, inspired by some vague 
 interest in ruins, and a very real interest in lunch; or 
 the yacht's destination might be Kilronan Abbey, and 
 the priest wondered if there were water enough in the 
 strait to let her through in this season of the year. The 
 sails flapped in the intermittent breeze, and he began to 
 calculate her tonnage, certain that if he had such a boat 
 he would not be sailing her on a lake, but on the bright 
 sea, out of sight of land, in the middle of a great circle 
 of water. As if stung by a sudden sense of the sea, of 
 
 4
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 its perfume and its freedom, he imagined the filling 
 of the sails and the rattle of the ropes, and how a fair 
 wind would carry him as far as the Cove of Cork before 
 morning. The run from Cork to Liverpool would be 
 slower, but the wind might veer a little, and in four- 
 and-twenty hours the Welsh mountains would begin to 
 show above the horizon. But he would not land any- 
 where on the Welsh coast. There was nothing to see in 
 Wales but castles, and he was weary of castles, and 
 longed to see the cathedrals of York and Salisbury; for 
 he had often seen them in pictures, and had more than 
 once thought of a walking tour through England. Bet- 
 ter still if the yacht were to land him somewhere on the 
 French coast. England was, after all, only an island 
 like Ireland a little larger, but still an island and he 
 thought he would like a continent to roam in. The 
 French cathedrals were more beautiful than the English, 
 and it would be pleasant to wander in the French coun- 
 try in happy-go-lucky fashion, resting when one was 
 tired, walking when it pleased one, taking an interest in 
 whatever might strike one's fancy. 
 
 It seemed to him that his desire was to be freed for 
 a while from everything he had ever seen, and from 
 everything he ha'd ever heard. He just wanted to wan- 
 der, admiring everything there was to admire as he 
 went. He didn't want to learn anything, only to ad- 
 mire. He was weary of argument, religious and political. 
 It wasn't that he was indifferent to his country's welfare, 
 but every mind requires rest, and he wished himself away 
 in a foreign country, distracted every moment by new 
 
 5
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 things, learning the language out of a volume of songs, 
 and hearing music, any music, French or German any 
 music but Irish music. He sighed, and wondered why he 
 sighed. Was it because he feared that if he once went 
 away he might never come back? 
 
 This lake was beautiful, but he was tired of its low 
 gray shores ; he was tired of those mountains, melancholy 
 as Irish melodies, and as beautiful. He felt suddenly 
 that he didn't want to see a lake or a mountain for two 
 months at least, and that his longing for a change was 
 legitimate and most natural. It pleased him to remember 
 that everyone likes to get out of his native country for 
 a while. But he had never been out of sight of this 
 lake except the years he had spent in Maynooth. When 
 he left Maynooth he had pleaded that he might be sent 
 to live among the mountains by Kilronan Abbey, at the 
 north end of the lake . . . when Father Conway 
 died he had been moved round to the western shore. 
 Every day of his life he walked by the lake ; there was 
 nowhere else to walk, unless up and down the lawn under 
 the sycamores, imitating Father Peter, who used to walk 
 there, reading his breviary, stopping from time to time 
 to speak to a parishioner in the road below ; he, too, used 
 to read his breviary under the sycamores; but for one 
 reason or another he walked there no longer, and now 
 every afternoon found him standing at the end of this 
 sandy spit, looking across the lake toward Tinnick, 
 where he was born, and where his sisters lived. 
 
 He couldn't see the walls of the convent to-day, there 
 was too much mist about . . . and he liked to see 
 
 6
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 them; for whenever he saw them he began to think of 
 his sister Eliza, and he liked to think of her she was 
 his favorite sister. They were nearly the same age, and 
 had played together; and his eyes dwelt in imagination 
 on the dark corner under the stairs where they used to 
 play. He could even see their toys through the years, 
 and the tall clock which used to tell them that it was 
 time to put them aside. Eliza was only eighteen months 
 older than he ; they were the red-haired ones, and though 
 they were as different in mind as it was possible to be, 
 he seemed nearer Eliza than anyone else. In what this 
 affinity consisted he couldn't say, but he had always felt 
 himself of the same flesh and blood. Neither his father 
 nor mother had inspired this sense of affinity ; his sister 
 Mary and his brothers seemed to him merely people 
 whom he had known always not more than that ; where- 
 as Eliza was quite different, and perhaps it was this very 
 mutuality, which he could not define, that had decided 
 their vocations. 
 
 No doubt there is a moment in everyone's life when 
 something happens to turn him into the road which he 
 is destined to follow; for all that it would be super- 
 ficial to think that the fate of one's life is dependent 
 upon accident. 'The accident that turns one into the 
 road is only the means which Providence takes to 
 procure the working out of certain ends. Accidents 
 are many: life is as full of accidents as a fire is full of 
 sparks, and any spark will suffice to set fire to the 
 train. The train escapes a thousand, but at last a spark 
 lights it, and this spark always seems to us the only 
 
 7
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 one that could have done it. ... We cannot 
 imagine how the same result could have been otherwise 
 obtained. But other ways would have been found; for 
 Nature is full of resource, and if Eliza had not been 
 by to fire the idea hidden in him, something else would. 
 She was the accident, only the accident, for no man 
 escapes his vocation, and the priesthood was his. A vo- 
 cation always finds a way out. But was he sure if it 
 hadn't been for Eliza that he would have married Annie 
 McGrath? He didn't think he would have married 
 Annie, but he might have married another. Annie was 
 a pleasant, merry girl, a girl that everyone was sure 
 would make a good wife for any man, and at that time 
 many people were thinking that he should marry Annie. 
 And looking back he couldn't honestly say that a stray 
 thought of Annie hadn't found its way into his mind; 
 but not into his heart there is a difference. 
 
 At that time he was what is known as a growing 
 lad; he was seventeen. His father had been dead two 
 years, and his mother looked to him, he being the 
 eldest, to take charge of the shop, for at that time it 
 was almost settled that James was to go to America. 
 They had two or three nice grass farms just beyond the 
 town: Patsy was going to have them; and his sisters' 
 fortunes were in the bank, and very good fortunes they 
 were. They had a hundred pounds apiece and should 
 have married well. Eliza could have married whomever 
 she pleased. Mary could have married, too, and to this 
 day he couldn't tell why she hadn't married 
 
 The chances his sister Mary had missed rose up in 
 8
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 his mind why, he did not know; and a little bored by 
 these memories, he suddenly became absorbed in the 
 little bleat of a blackcap perched on an alder bush; the 
 bush was the only one amid a bed of flags and rushes. 
 " His mate is sitting on her eggs, and there are some 
 woodgatherers about ; that is what is worrying the little 
 fellow." The bird continued to utter its troubled bleat, 
 and the priest walked on, thinking how different was its 
 evensong. He meditated an excursion to hear it, and 
 then, without his being aware of any transition, his 
 thoughts returned to his sister Mary, and to the time 
 when he had once indulged in hopes that the mills along 
 the riverside might be rebuilt and Tinnick restored to its 
 former commercial prosperity. He was not certain if 
 he had ever really believed that he might set these mills 
 going, or if he had, he encouraged an illusion, knowing 
 it to be one. He was only certain of this, that when he 
 was a boy and saw no life ahead of him except that of 
 a Tinnick shopman, he used to feel that if he remained 
 at home he must have the excitement of speculation. The 
 beautiful river, with its lime trees, appealed to his 
 imagination ; the rebuilding of the mills and the reorgan- 
 ization of trade, if he succeeded in reorganizing trade, 
 would mean spending his mornings on the wharfs by 
 the riverside, and in those days his one desire was to 
 escape from the shop. He looked upon the shop as a 
 prison. In those days he liked dreaming, and it was 
 pleasant to dream of giving back to Tinnick its trade 
 of former days; but when his mother asked him what 
 steps he intended to take to get the necessary capital, 
 
 9
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 he used to get angry with her. He must have known 
 that he could never make enough money in the shop to 
 set the mills working! He must have known that he 
 would never take his father's place at the desk by the 
 dusty window! But if he had shrunk from an avowal 
 it was because he had no other proposal to make. His 
 mother had understood him, though the others had 
 not, and seeing his inability to say what kind of work 
 he would put his hand to, she had spoken of Annie 
 McGrath. She hadn't said he should marry Annie 
 she was a clever woman in her way she had merely 
 said that Annie had relations in America who could 
 afford to supply sufficient capital to start one of the 
 mills. But he had never wanted to marry Annie; he 
 used to get cross when the subject was mentioned, and 
 used to tell his mother that if the mills were to pay 
 it would be necessary to start business on a large scale. 
 He was an impossible, impracticable lad and he couldn't 
 help smiling, for the thought crossed his mind suddenly 
 how he used to go down to the riverside to find a new 
 argument wherewith to confute his mother; and when 
 he had found one he would return happy, and sit watch- 
 ing for an opportunity to raise the question again. 
 
 No, it wasn't because Annie's relations weren't rich 
 enough that he hadn't wanted to marry her. And to 
 account for his prejudice against marriage, he must sup- 
 pose that some notion of the priesthood was stirring in 
 him at the time, for one day, as he sat looking at 
 Annie across the tea table, he couldn't help thinking that 
 it would be hard to live alongside of her in the shop, 
 
 10
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 year in and year out. His mother would die, children 
 would be born, and Annie, though a good girl and a 
 pleasant girl, was a bit tiresome to listen to, nor was she 
 one of those who improve with age. As he had sat 
 looking at her, he seemed to understand, as he had never 
 understood before, that if he married her all that had 
 happened before would happen again children scram- 
 bling about the counter, and himself by the dusty window 
 putting his pen behind his ear, just as his father used to 
 do when he came forward to serve some country woman 
 with half a pound of tea or a hank of onions. 
 
 As these thoughts were passing through his mind, 
 he had heard his mother saying that Annie's sister was 
 thinking of starting dressmaking in the High Street, 
 and how nice it would be for Eliza to join her! Eliza 
 had just laid aside a skirt she had been turning, and she 
 raised her eyes and stared at her mother, as if she were 
 surprised her mother could say anything so stupid. 
 " I'm going to be a nun," she had said, and, just as if 
 she didn't wish to answer any questions, she had con- 
 tinued her sewing. Well might they be surprised, for 
 not one of them had suspected Eliza of religious inclina- 
 tions. She wasn't more pious than another, and they 
 asked her if she -were joking. She looked at them as 
 if she thought the suggestion very stupid, and they 
 dared not ask her any more questions. 
 
 She wasn't more than fifteen at the time, yet she 
 had spoken out of an inalterable resolution. No, he 
 wouldn't say that; an inalterable resolution meant that 
 she had considered the matter, and a child of fifteen 
 
 ii
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 doesn't consider. But a child of fifteen may know, and 
 after he had seen the look which greeted his mother's 
 question, and heard Eliza's simple answer, " I've de- 
 cided to be a nun," he had never a doubt that what 
 she said was true. And from that day she became for 
 him a different being; and when she told him, feeling, 
 perhaps, that he sympathized with her more than the 
 others did, that one day she would be Reverend Mother 
 of the Tinnick Convent, he felt convinced that she knew 
 what she was saying how she knew he could not say. 
 
 His childhood had been a slumber, with occasional 
 awakenings or half awakenings, and Eliza's announce- 
 ment that she intended to enter the religious life was 
 the first real awakening; and this awakening first took 
 the form of an acute interest in Eliza's character, and, 
 persuaded that she or her prototype had already ex- 
 isted, he had searched the lives of the saints for an ac- 
 count of her. He had found many partial portraits of 
 her; certain typical traits in the lives of three or four 
 saints reminded him of Eliza, but there was no complete 
 portrait. The strangest part of the business was that 
 he traced his vocation to his search for Eliza in the lives 
 of the saints. Everything that had happened afterward 
 was the emotional sequence of taking down the books 
 from the shelf. He didn't exaggerate ; it was quite pos- 
 sible his life might have taken quite a different turn, for 
 up to that time he had only read books of adventure 
 stories about robbers and pirates. As if by magic, his 
 interest in such stories had been removed from his mind ; 
 he had been seized by an extraordinary enthusiasm for 
 
 12
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 saints, who by renouncement of animal life had con- 
 trived to steal up to the last bounds, whence they could 
 see into the eternal life that lies beyond the grave. Once 
 this power was admitted, what interest could we find in 
 the feeble ambitions of temporal life, whose scope is 
 limited to three score and ten years? And who could 
 doubt that the saints had attained the eternal life, which 
 is God, while still living in the temporal flesh? For did 
 not the miracles of the saints prove that they were no 
 longer subject to natural laws? Ireland, perhaps, more 
 than any other country, had understood the supremacy 
 of spirit over matter, and had striven to escape through 
 mortifications from the prison of the flesh. Without 
 doubt great numbers in Ireland had fled from the torment 
 of actual life into the wilderness. If the shore and the 
 islands on this lake were dotted with fortress castles, it 
 was the Welsh and the Normans who had built them. 
 . . . The priest remembered how his mind had in- 
 flamed when he first heard of the hermit who had lived 
 in Church Island, and how disappointed he had been 
 when he heard that Church Island was ten miles away, 
 at the farther end of the lake. 
 
 He could not row himself so far, and distance and 
 danger had restricted his youthful fancy to the islands 
 facing Tinnick. These were two large islands covered 
 with brushwood, ugly brown patches ugly as their 
 names; they were known as Horse Island and Hog 
 Island, and never had they appealed to his fancy. But 
 Castle Island had always seemed to be a suitable island 
 for a hermitage, far more so than Castle Hag. Castle 
 2 13
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Hag was too small and bleak even to engage the atten- 
 tion of a sixth-century hermit. But there were trees 
 on Castle Island, and out of the ruins of the castle a 
 comfortable sheiling could be built, and the ground thus 
 freed from the ruins of the Welshman's castle might be 
 cultivated. He remembered commandeering the fisher- 
 man's boat, and rowing himself out there, taking a tape 
 to measure, and how, after much application of the tape, 
 he had satisfied himself that there was enough arable 
 land in the island for a garden. He had walked down 
 the island certain that a quarter of an acre should grow 
 enough vegetables to support a hermit, and that a goat 
 would be able to pick a living among the bushes and 
 the tussocked grass; for even a hermit might have a 
 goat, and he didn't think he could live without milk. 
 
 When he pushed his way through the bushes the 
 appearance of the lake frightened him; it was full of 
 blustering waves, and it wasn't likely he'd ever forget 
 his struggle to get the boat back to Tinnick. He left 
 it where he had found it, at the mouth of the river by 
 the fisherman's hut, and he returned home thinking how 
 he would have to import a little hay occasionally for the 
 goat. Nor would this be all; he would have to go on 
 shore every Sunday to hear Mass, unless he built a 
 chapel. The hermit of Church Island had an oratory in 
 which he said Mass! But if he left his island every 
 Sunday his hermitage would be a mockery. For the 
 moment he couldn't see how he was to build a chapel a 
 sheiling, perhaps; a chapel was out of the question, he 
 feared. 
 
 14
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 He would have to have vestments and a chalice, 
 and, immersed in the difficulty of obtaining these, he 
 walked home, taking the path along the river from 
 habit, not because he wished to consider afresh the 
 problems of the ruined mills. The dream of restoring 
 Tinnick to its commerce of former days was forgotten, 
 and he walked on, thinking of his chalice, until he 
 heard somebody call him. It was Eliza, and as the two 
 of them leaned over the parapet of the bridge, he had 
 not been able to keep himself from telling her that he 
 had rowed himself out to Castle Island, never think- 
 ing that she would reprove him, and sternly, for taking 
 the fisherman's boat without asking leave. It was no 
 use to argue with Eliza that the fisherman didn't want 
 his boat, the day being too rough for fishing. What 
 did she know about fishing? She had asked very 
 sharply what had brought him out to Castle Island on 
 such a day. There was no use saying he didn't know; 
 he had never been able to keep a secret from Eliza, and 
 feeling that he must confide in somebody, he had told 
 her he was tired of living at home, and was thinking 
 of building a sheiling on the island. 
 
 Eliza hadn't understood, and she understood still less 
 when he spoke of a beehive hut, such as the ancient 
 hermits of Ireland used to live in. She was entirely 
 without imagination; but what had surprised him 'still 
 more than her lack of sympathy with his dream project 
 was her inability to understand an idea so inherent in 
 Christianity as the hermitage, for at that time Eliza had 
 decided to enter the religious life. He had waited a 
 
 15
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 long time for her answer, but the only answer she had 
 made was that in the early centuries a man was a bandit 
 or a hermit. This wasn't true: life was peaceful in 
 Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries; even if it 
 weren't, she ought to have understood that change of 
 circumstance cannot alter an idea so inherent in man 
 as the hermitage, and when he asked her if she in- 
 tended to found a new order, or to go out to Patagonia 
 to teach the Indians, she laughed, saying she was much 
 more interested in a laundry than in the Indians. Her 
 plea that the Tinnick Convent was always in straits for 
 money did not appeal to him then any more than it 
 did to-day. 
 
 " The officers in Tinnick have to send their washing 
 to Dublin." 
 
 " A fine reason for entering a convent." 
 
 But quite unmoved by the sarcasm, she had an- 
 swered that it is very difficult for a woman to do any- 
 thing unless she is a member of a congregation that 
 can help her to do things. Nor had his suggestion that 
 the object of the religious life is meditation embar- 
 rassed her in the least^and he remembered well how she 
 had said: 
 
 " Putting aside for the moment the important ques- 
 tion whether there may or may not be hermits in the 
 twentieth century, tell me, Oliver, are you thinking of 
 marrying Annie McGrath? You know she has rich re- 
 lations in America, and you might get them to supply 
 the capital to set the mills going. The mills would be 
 a great advantage. Annie has a good headpiece, and 
 
 16
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 would be able to take the shop off your hands, leaving 
 you free to look after the mills." 
 
 " The mills, Eliza! there are other things in the world 
 besides those mills! " 
 
 " A hermitage on Castle Island? " 
 
 Eliza could be very impertinent when she liked. If 
 she weren't interested in what one was saying, she 
 looked round, displaying an irritating curiosity in every 
 passer-by. She had drawn his attention to the ducks on 
 the river while he was telling her of the great change 
 that had come over him, and he had felt like boxing her 
 ears. But the moment he began to speak of taking 
 Orders she forgot all about the ducks; her eyes were 
 fixed upon him, she listened to his every word, and when 
 he had finished speaking, she reminded him there had 
 always been a priest in the family. All her wits were 
 awake. He was the one of the family who had shown 
 most aptitude for learning, and their cousin, the bishop, 
 would be able to help him. What she would like would 
 be to see him parish priest of Tinnick. The parish was 
 one of the best in the diocese. Not a doubt of it, she 
 was thinking at that moment of the advantage this ar- 
 rangement would be to her when she was directing the 
 affairs of the convent. 
 
 If there was no other, there was at least one woman 
 in Ireland who was interested in things. He had never 
 met anyone less interested in opinions or in ideas than 
 Eliza. They had walked home together in silence, at 
 all events not saying much, and that very evening she 
 left the room immediately after supper. They had heard 
 
 17
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 sounds of trunks being dragged along the passage; fur- 
 niture was being moved, and when she came downstairs 
 she just said she was going to sleep with Mary. 
 
 " Oliver is going to have my room. He must have a 
 room to himself on account of his studies." 
 
 On that she had gathered up her sewing, and had left 
 him to explain. He had felt that it was rather sly of her 
 to go away like that, leaving all the explanation to him. 
 She wanted him to be a priest, and was full of little tricks. 
 There was no time for further consideration. There was 
 only just time to prepare for the examination. He had 
 worked hard, for his work interested him, especially the 
 Latin language; but what interested him far more than 
 his aptitude for learning whatever he had made up his 
 mind to learn was the discovery of a religious vocation 
 in himself. Eliza had feared that his interest in hermits 
 sprang from a boyish taste for adventure rather than 
 from religious feeling, but no sooner had he begun his 
 studies for the priesthood, than he found himself over- 
 taken and overpowered by an extraordinary religious 
 fervor and by a desire for prayer and discipline. Never 
 had a boy left home more zealous, more desirous to excel 
 in piety and to strive for the honor and glory of the 
 Church. 
 
 An expression of anger, almost of hatred, passed over 
 Father Oliver's face, and he turned from the lake and 
 walked a few yards rapidly, hoping to escape from re- 
 membrance of his folly; for he had made a great fool of 
 himself, no doubt. But, after all, he preferred his enthu- 
 siasms, however exaggerated they might seem to him 
 
 18
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 now, to the commonplace he could not call it wisdom 
 of those whom he had taken into his confidence. It was 
 foolish of him, no doubt, to have told how he used to go 
 out in a boat and measure the ground about Castle 
 Island, thinking to build himself a beehive hut out of the 
 ruins. He knew too little of the world at that time; he 
 had no idea how incapable these students were of under- 
 standing anything outside the narrow interests of con- 
 ventional life. Anyhow, he had had the satisfaction of 
 having beaten them in all the examinations; and if he had 
 cared to go on for advancement, he could have easily 
 got ahead of them all, for he had better brains and better 
 interest than any of them. When he last saw that igno- 
 rant brute Peter Fahy, Fahy asked him if he still put 
 pebbles in his shoes. It was to Fahy he had confided the 
 cause of his lameness, and Fahy had told on him ; he was 
 disgracefully innocent in those days, and he could still 
 see them gathered about him, pretending not to believe 
 that he kept a cat-o'-nine-tails in his room, and scourged 
 himself at night. It was Tom Bryan who said that he 
 wouldn't mind betting a couple of shillings that Gogarty's 
 whip wouldn't draw a squeal from a pig on the roadside. 
 The answer to that was : " A touch will make a pig 
 squeal: you should have said an ass!" But at the mo- 
 ment he couldn't think of an answer. 
 
 No doubt everyone looked on him as a ninny, and 
 they had persuaded him to prove to them that his whip 
 was a real whip by letting Tom Bryan do the whipping 
 for him. Tom Bryan was a rough fellow, who ought to 
 have been driving a plow ; a plowman's life was too peace- 
 
 19
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 ful an occupation for him a drover's life would have 
 suited him best, prodding his cattle along the road with a 
 goad; it was said that was how he maintained his author- 
 ity in the parish. The remembrance of the day he had 
 bared his back to that fellow was still a bitter one. With 
 a gentle smile he had handed the whip to Tom Bryan, 
 the very smile which he imagined the hermits of old time 
 used to wear. The first blow had so stunned him that he 
 couldn't cry out, and this blow was followed by a second 
 which sent the blood flaming through his veins, and then 
 by another which brought all the blood into one point in 
 his body. He seemed to lose consciousness of every- 
 thing but three inches of back. Nine blows he had borne 
 without wincing; the tenth overcame his fortitude, and he 
 had reeled away from Tom Bryan. 
 
 Tom had exchanged the whip he had given him for 
 a great leather belt; that was why he had been hurt so 
 grievously hurt till the pain seemed to reach his very 
 heart. Tom had belted him with all his strength; and 
 half a dozen of Tom's pals were waiting outside the door, 
 and they came into the room, their wide mouths agrin, 
 asking him how he liked it. But they were unprepared 
 for the pain his face expressed, and in the midst of his 
 agony he noticed that already they foresaw consequences, 
 and he heard them reprove Tom Bryan, their intention 
 being to disassociate themselves from him. Cowards! 
 cowards! cowards! 
 
 They tried to help him on with his shirt, but he had 
 been too badly beaten, and Tom Bryan came up in the 
 evening to ask him not to tell on him. He promised, 
 
 20
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 and he wouldn't have told if he could have helped it. 
 But some explanation had to be forthcoming he 
 couldn't lie on his back. The doctor was sent for. . . . 
 
 And next day he was told the president wished to 
 see him. The president was Eliza over again; hermits 
 and hermitages were all very well in the early centuries, 
 but religion had advanced, and nowadays a steadfast piety 
 was more suited to modern requirements than pebbles 
 in the shoes. If it had been possible to leave for America 
 that day he thought he would have gone. But he 
 couldn't leave Maynooth because he had been fool 
 enough to bare his back to Tom Bryan. He couldn't 
 return home to tell such a story as that. All Tinnick 
 would be laughing at him, and Eliza, what would she 
 think of him? He wasn't such a fool as the Maynooth 
 students thought him, and he had realized at once that 
 he must stay in Maynooth and live down remembrance of 
 his folly. So, as the saying goes, he had taken the bit 
 between his teeth. 
 
 The necessity of living down his first folly, of creating 
 a new idea of himself in the minds of the students, had 
 forced him to apply all his intelligence to his studies, and 
 he had made extraordinary progress in the first years. 
 The recollection of the ease with which he had out- 
 distanced his fellow students was as pleasant as the 
 breezes about the lake, and his thoughts dwelt on the 
 opinion which he knew had been entertained, that for 
 many years there had not been anyone at Maynooth who 
 had shown such aptitude for scholarship. He had only 
 to look at a book to know more about it than his fellow 
 
 21
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 students would know if they were to spend days over it. 
 He had won honors. He could have won greater honors 
 if his conscience had not reminded him that the gifts he 
 had received from God had not been bestowed upon him 
 for the mere purpose of humiliating his fellow students. 
 He used to feel then that if certain talents had been given 
 to him, they had been given to him to use for the greater 
 glory of God rather than for his own glorification. He 
 used to feel there was nothing more hateful in God's sight 
 than intellectual, unless perhaps spiritual, pride, and his 
 object during his last years at Maynooth had been to ex- 
 hibit himself to the least advantage. 
 
 It is strange how an idea enters the soul and remakes 
 it, and when he left Maynooth he had used his influence 
 with his cousin, the bishop, to get himself appointed to 
 the poorest parish in Connaught. Eliza had to dis- 
 semble, but he knew that in her heart she was furious 
 with him. We are all extraordinarily different one from 
 another, and if we seem most different from those whom 
 we are most like, it is because we know nothing at all 
 about strangers. He had gone to Kilronan in spite of 
 Eliza, in spite of everyone, their cousin, the bishop, in- 
 cluded. He had been very happy in Bridget Clery's cot- 
 tage, so happy that he didn't know himself why he had 
 ever consented to leave Kilronan. 
 
 No, it was not because he was too happy there. He 
 had to a certain extent outgrown his very delicate con- 
 science. 
 
 22
 
 II 
 
 A BREEZE rose, the forest murmured, a bird sang, 
 the sails of the yacht filled, and the priest 
 watched her disappear behind a rocky head- 
 land. He knew now that her destination was Kilronan 
 Abbey. But would she be able to get through the strait ? 
 For at this season of the year there was hardly a suffi- 
 cient depth of water to float a boat of her size. If she 
 stuck, the picnic party would get into the small boat, and, 
 thus lightened, the yacht might be floated into the other 
 arm of the lake. " A pleasant day indeed for a sail," and 
 in imagination he followed the yacht down the lake, past 
 its different castles, Castle Carra and Castle Burke and 
 Church Island, the island on which Marban Marban, the 
 famous hermit poet had lived. 
 
 It seemed to him strange that he had never thought 
 of visiting the ruined church when he lived close by at 
 the northern end of the lake. His time used to be en- 
 tirely taken up with attending to the wants of his poor 
 people, and the first year he spent in Garranard he had 
 thought only of the possibility of inducing the Govern- 
 ment to build a bridge across the strait. That bridge 
 was badly wanted. All the western side of the lake was 
 cut off from railway communication. Tinnick was the 
 terminus, but to get to Tinnick one had to go round the 
 
 23
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 lake, either by the northern or the southern end, and it 
 was always a question which was the longer road round 
 by Kilronan Abbey or by the Bridge of Keel. Many 
 people said the southern road was shorter, but the differ- 
 ence wasn't more than a mile, if that, and Father Oliver 
 preferred the northern road; for it took him by his cu- 
 rate's house, and he could always stop there and give his 
 horse a feed and a rest, and he liked to revisit the abbey 
 in which he had said Mass for so long, and in which Mass 
 had always been said for a thousand years, even since 
 Cromwell had unroofed it, the celebrant sheltered by an 
 arch, the congregation kneeling under the open sky, 
 whether it rained or snowed. 
 
 The roofing of the abbey and the bridging of the strait 
 were the two things that the parish was really interested 
 in. He had tried when he was in Kilronan to obtain the 
 archbishop's consent and collaboration ; Moran was try- 
 ing now: he did not know that he was succeeding any 
 better; and Father Oliver reflected a while on the peculiar 
 temperament of their diocesan, and getting down from 
 the rock on which he had been sitting, he wandered along 
 the sunny shore, thinking of the many letters he had ad- 
 dressed to the Board of Works on the subject of the 
 bridge. The board believed, or pretended to believe, 
 that the parish could not afford the bridge ; as well might 
 it be urged that a cripple could not afford crutches. 
 Without doubt a public meeting should be held; and in 
 some little indignation Father Oliver began to think that 
 public opinion should be roused and organized. It was 
 for him to do this: he was the people's natural leader; but 
 
 24
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 for many months he had done nothing in the matter. 
 Why, he didn't know himself. Perhaps he needed a holi- 
 day; perhaps he no longer believed the Government sus- 
 ceptible to public opinion ; perhaps he had lost faith in the 
 people themselves! The people were the same always; 
 the people never change, only individuals change. 
 
 And at the end of the sandy spit, where some pines 
 had grown and seeded, he stood looking across the sil- 
 very lake wondering if his parishioners had begun to 
 notice the change that had come over him since Rose 
 Leicester left the parish. As her name came into his 
 mind his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of 
 voices, and turning from the lake, he saw two wood 
 gatherers coming down a little path through the juniper 
 bushes. He often hid himself in the woods when he saw 
 somebody coming, but he couldn't do so now without 
 betraying his intention, and he stayed where he was. 
 The women passed on, bent under their loads. Whether 
 they saw him or not he couldn't tell; they passed near 
 enough for him to recognize them, and he remembered 
 that they were in church the day he had alluded to Rose 
 Leicester in his sermon. A hundred yards farther on 
 the women put down their loads and sat down to rest, 
 and Father Oliver began to think what their conversation 
 might be. His habit of wandering away by himself had 
 no doubt been noticed, and once it was noticed it would 
 become a topic of conversation. " And what they are 
 saying now is, ' Ah, sure, he never has been the same 
 man since he preached against the schoolmistress. And 
 what should he be doing by the lake if fear that she has 
 
 25
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 made away with herself weren't on his mind?' And 
 perhaps they are right," he said to himself; and he walked 
 up the shore, hoping that as soon as he was out of sight 
 the women would cease to speak of him and Rose 
 Leicester. 
 
 All the morning he had been trying to avoid thinking 
 of her, but now, as he rambled, he could not put back the 
 memory of the day he had met her for the first time. It 
 was in the summer, as nearly as possible two years ago. 
 To-day was the fifteenth of May; it was certainly later in 
 the year. It must have been in June, for the day was 
 very hot, and he had been riding fast, not wishing to 
 keep Catherine's dinner waiting. As he pushed his 
 bicycle through the gate, he saw the great cheery man, 
 Father Peter, with a face like an apple, walking up and 
 down under the sycamores reading his breviary, and to 
 this moment he could hear his loud, rough voice; and 
 feel the grasp of his great hand. But he was earlier than 
 he expected, and Father Peter said that Catherine would 
 sign to them when her dinner was ready, and they had 
 walked in the pleasant shade of the trees. '~ 
 
 It must have been in June, for the mowers were in the 
 field opposite, in the field known as the priest's field, 
 though Father Peter had never rented it. There had 
 never been such weather in Ireland before ; the sky was 
 like boiled starch, and he remembered how eagerly he 
 listened to Father Peter, who was telling how excellently 
 well the new schoolmistress played the harmonium, and 
 how beautifully she had sung last Sunday at Mass. Her 
 musical talents could not interest Father Peter, for he 
 
 26
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 was without an ear or taste for music. That was right 
 enough, but what Father Oliver didn't understand was 
 why her music should stand in her way, she being in 
 everything else able and competent. Nor was it her 
 music that stood in her way, as he discovered later, but 
 her looks and her spinsterhood, for a good-looking, un- 
 married girl, according to Father Peter, was a danger 
 in a parish. Father Oliver remembered distinctly the 
 trouble that Father Peter's words had caused him. It 
 was just as if a vapor had arisen, and he couldn't see 
 clearly. That was all; it might be just as Father Peter 
 had said: it certainly was, as he knew to his cost, but at 
 the time he hadn't understood, or rather he had been 
 troubled that was it. He hadn't answered Father Peter, 
 and they walked on a few yards, and Father Peter nudged 
 him, and said under his breath, " Here is the young 
 woman herself coming across the field." And he looked 
 that way and saw Rose Leicester coming across the field 
 toward the stile. The stile was an open one, and she 
 twisted herself through it. Father Peter called her, and 
 as she stood in the road below, Father Oliver had admired 
 a thin, freckled face, with a pretty, straight nose and gray, 
 sparkling eyes. All his sympathy had gone out to her, 
 for it seemed to him a disgrace that she should not be 
 allowed to keep her situation because God had given her 
 a larger share of good looks than any other woman in 
 the parish. And what made the injustice seem more 
 flagrant was that, notwithstanding all that Father Peter 
 might say to the contrary, there was no doubt that her 
 harmonium playing and her singing prejudiced her in 
 
 27
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 this unmusical priest's eyes. And why? Because a 
 beautiful voice is an attraction in itself! 
 
 He couldn't tell how it was, but his whole nature had 
 suddenly and instinctively rebelled against the decision 
 that she should not be allowed to remain in the parish. 
 But he hadn't been able to influence Father Peter; he had 
 seen clearly that sooner or later she would have to go. 
 And he had left Father Peter earlier than usual that 
 evening, and all the way home, as he rode down the 
 lonely roads, he thought of the misfortune that pretty 
 red hair and gray eyes had brought upon Rose Leicester. 
 Everything about her was attractive and winning, even 
 her name, and he wasn't sure that her very English name 
 had not prejudiced her chances of keeping her situation. 
 He had to admit that she did not dress very wisely; she 
 dressed too well for her station, and he remembered how 
 she held the handle of her blue-silk parasol between fore- 
 finger and thumb. Her hair wasn't red, though there 
 was red in it; and it was three days after that he dis- 
 covered the real color of her hair; it was blond. He had 
 met her about two miles from Garranard. He was on 
 his bicycle and she was on hers, and they had leaped in- 
 stinctively from their machines. What had impressed 
 him this time, far more than her looks, was her happi- 
 ness. He had never seen a happy face before, and while 
 they talked by the roadside he was thinking of the great 
 cruelty and the shame it would be to bring tears to those 
 happy eyes. And she would be sent away without being 
 told why she was sent away! Which would be perhaps 
 the greatest cruelty of all. 
 
 28
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 They had seemed unable to get away from each other, 
 so much had they to say. He had mentioned his brother 
 James. He was doing well in America, and would per- 
 haps one day send them the price of a harmonium. She 
 had told him she couldn't play on the wheezy old thing 
 at Garranard. At the moment he clean forgot that the 
 new harmonium would avail her little, since Father Peter 
 was going to get rid of her; he only remembered it as he 
 got on his bicycle, and he returned home ready to espouse 
 her cause against everyone. 
 
 She must write to the archbishop, and if he wouldn't 
 do anything she must write to the papers. Influence 
 must be brought to bear, and Father Peter must be pre- 
 vented from perpetrating a gross injustice. He had felt 
 that it would be impossible for him to remain Father 
 Peter's curate if the schoolmistress were sent away for 
 no fault of hers, merely because she was a nice-looking 
 girl with a refined and cultivated taste for music. What 
 Father Peter would have done if he had lived no one 
 would ever know. In however summary and unwar- 
 ranted a way he might have dismissed her, the injustice 
 would have been slight compared with what had hap- 
 pened to her. 
 
 The memory of the wrong he had done her put such 
 a pain into his heart that he stopped; he stood like one 
 dazed or daft; he seemed to lose sight of everything; 
 he heard nothing till a fish leaping in the languid lake 
 awoke him, and he walked on, absorbed in the clear con- 
 ception of his mistake, his thoughts swinging back to 
 the day he had met her on the roadside, and to the events 
 3 29
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 that succeeded their meeting. Father Peter had been 
 taken ill, two days after he was dead, before the end of 
 the week he was in his coffin; and the same fate might 
 be his to-morrow or the next day. Life is but a shadow, 
 and the generations go by like shadows. Very wonder- 
 ful is life's coming and going, but however rapidly life 
 passes, there is always time for wrongdoing; and only 
 time for repentance is short. Atonement may be with- 
 held. We always atone sooner or later; the question is 
 in what world do we atone for the sin. But he had com- 
 mitted no sin, only an error of judgment. However this 
 might be, there had been no peace of mind for him ever 
 since. 
 
 No doubt other men had committed faults as grave 
 as his ; but they had had the strength to leave the matter 
 in the hands of God, to say : " I can do nothing, I must 
 put myself in the hands of God; let Him judge: He is 
 all wise." He hadn't their force of character. He 
 believed as firmly as they did, but, for some reason which 
 he couldn't explain to himself, he couldn't leave the 
 matter in God's hands, and was always thinking how he 
 could get news of her.- 
 
 If it hadn't been for that woman, for that detestable 
 Mrs. O'Mara, she who had been the cause of so much 
 evil in the parish. . . . And his heart was full of a 
 hatred so black that it surprised him, and he asked him- 
 self if he could ever forgive that woman. God might, 
 he couldn't. And he fell to thinking how Mrs. O'Mara 
 had long been a curse upon the parish. Father Peter had 
 
 30
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 often to speak about her from the altar, and, she listen- 
 ing to him, he had explained that the stories she had 
 set going were untrue. Father Peter had warned him, 
 but warnings are no good; he had listened to him con- 
 vinced at the time that it was wrong and foolish to listen 
 to scandal mongers. But what had he done in spite of 
 Father Peter's warning fool that he was, that he had 
 been? There was no use going over the wretched story 
 again; he was weary of going over it, and he tried to 
 put it out of his mind. But it wouldn't be put out of his 
 mind, and in spite of himself he began to recall the 
 events of the day when she had asked to see him. He 
 had been out all the morning, walking about with an 
 engineer who had been sent down by the Board of Works 
 to consider the possibility of building the bridge, and 
 had just come in to rest. Catherine had brought him a 
 cup of tea; he was sitting by the window, nearly too 
 tired to drink it. The door was flung open. If Catherine 
 had only asked him if he were at home to visitors, he 
 would probably have said he wasn't at home to Mrs. 
 O'Mara; but he hadn't been asked, and he remembered 
 how disagreeably her appearance had impressed him as 
 she came into the room. But she had an interesting way 
 of talking that is the danger of such women; they are 
 generally good talkers, and the listener is entrapped 
 before he is aware of it. She knew all about the engineer, 
 who his father and mother were; she had stories to tell 
 about their marriage, and how he had got his appoint- 
 ment, and what his qualifications were. It is easy to say 
 one shouldn't listen to such people, but he remembered 
 
 31
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 well why he didn't cut short the interview she might 
 be bringing some important information that might be 
 of use to him. So he had listened, and when the bridge, 
 and the immense advantage of it, had been discussed 
 sufficiently, she told him she had been staying at the 
 convent. Any news of Eliza interested him, and Father 
 Oliver marveled at the amount of tittle-tattle that Mrs. 
 O'Mara had gathered up. 
 
 She had tales to tell about all the nuns and about 
 all the pupils. She told him that half the Catholic 
 families in Ireland had promised to send their daughters 
 to Tinnick if Eliza had succeeded in finding some one 
 who could teach music and singing. But Eliza didn't 
 think there was anyone in the country qualified for the 
 post but Rose Leicester. If Mrs. O'Mara could be 
 believed, Eliza had said that she could offer Rose 
 Leicester more money than she was earning in Garra- 
 nard. Until then he had only half listened to Mrs. 
 O'Mara's chatter, for he disliked the woman her chatter 
 only amused him as the chatter of a bird might; but 
 when he heard that his sister was trying to get his school- 
 mistress away from him he had flared up. " Oh, but I 
 don't think that your schoolmistress would suit a convent 
 school. I shouldn't like my daughter " " What do 
 you mean ? " Her face changed expression, and in her 
 nasty mincing manner she had begun to throw out hints 
 that Rose Leicester would not suit the nuns. He could 
 see that she was concealing something there was some- 
 thing at the back of her mind. Women of her sort want 
 to be persuaded; their bits of scandal must be dragged 
 
 32
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 from them by force ; they are the unwilling victims who 
 would say nothing if they could help it. She had said 
 enough to make it impossible to let matters stand as they 
 were ; he had had to ask her to speak out, and she began 
 to speak about a certain man whom Rose used to meet 
 on the hillside (she wouldn't give the man's name, she 
 was too clever for that). She could only say that Rose 
 had been seen on the hillside walking in lonely places 
 with a man. Truly a detestable woman! His thoughts 
 strayed from her for a moment, for it gave him pleasure 
 to recollect that he had defended his schoolmistress. 
 Didn't he say : " Now, then, Mrs. O'Mara, if you have 
 anything definite to say, say it, but I won't listen 
 to indefinite charges." " Charges who is making 
 charges ? " she asked, and he had unfortunately called 
 her a liar. In the middle of the tumult she had dropped 
 a phrase: "Anyhow, her appearance is against her." 
 And it was true that Rose Leicester's appearance had 
 changed in the last few months. Seeing that her words 
 had had a certain effect, Mrs. O'Mara quieted down ; and 
 while he stood wondering if it could possibly be true 
 that Rose had deceived them, that she had been living 
 in sin all these months, he had suddenly heard Mrs. 
 O'Mara saying that he was lacking in experience which 
 was quite true, but her way of saying it had roused the 
 devil in him. Who was she that she should come telling 
 him that he lacked experience? To be sure, he wasn't 
 an old midwife, and that's what Mrs. O'Mara looked like, 
 sitting before him. 
 
 He had lost control of himself, saying, " Now, will 
 33
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 you get out of this house, you old scandal monger, or 
 I'll take you by the shoulders and put you out ! " And 
 he had thrown the front door open. What a look she 
 had given him as she passed out! At that moment the 
 clock struck three. He remembered suddenly that the 
 children were coming out of school. It would have been 
 better if he had waited. But he couldn't wait : he'd have 
 gone mad if he had waited ; and he remembered how he 
 had jumped into the road and squeezed through the stile ; 
 he had run across the field. " Why all this hurry ? " he 
 had asked himself. 
 
 She was locking up the desks, and the children went 
 by him courtesying. He had to wait till the last one had 
 gone. . . . Rose must have guessed his errand; he 
 noticed that she had turned pale. " I've seen Mrs. 
 O'Mara," he blurted out, " and she tells me that you've 
 been seen walking with some man on the hillside in lonely 
 places. . . . Don't deny it if it is true." " I'm not going 
 to deny anything that is true." How brave she was ! Her 
 courage had attracted him and softened his heart. But 
 everything was true, alas ! and she had told him that her 
 plans were to steal out of the parish without saying a 
 word to anyone, for she was determined not to disgrace 
 him or the parish. She was thinking of him in all her 
 trouble, and everything might have ended well if he had 
 not asked her who the man was. She would not say, 
 nor give any reasons why she wouldn't do so. Only this, 
 that if the man had deserted her she didn't want anyone 
 to bring him back, if he could be brought back; if the 
 man were dead it were better to say nothing about him. 
 
 34
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " But if it were his fault? " " I don't see that that would 
 make any difference." 
 
 They had gone out of the schoolhouse talking in 
 quite a friendly way. There was a little drizzle in the 
 air, and, opening her umbrella, she had said, " I'm afraid 
 you'll get wet." "Get wet, get wet! what matter?" he 
 had answered impatiently, for the remark annoyed him. 
 By the hawthorn bush he had begun again to tell her that 
 it would relieve his mind to know who the man was. She 
 tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't let her go ; 
 and catching her by the arm he besought her, saying that 
 it would relieve his mind. How many times had he said 
 that ? But he wasn't able to persuade her, notwithstand- 
 ing his insistence that as a priest of the parish he had a 
 right to know. No doubt she had some very deep reason 
 for keeping her secret, or perhaps his authoritative man- 
 ner was the cause of her silence. However this might be, 
 any words would have been better than " it would relieve 
 my mind to know who the man was." " Stupid, stupid, 
 stupid ! " he muttered to himself, and he wandered from 
 the cart track into the wood. 
 
 It was impossible to say now why he had wished to 
 press her secret from her. It would be unpleasant for 
 him, as priest of the parish, to know that the man was 
 living in the parish ; but it would be still more unpleasant 
 if he knew who the man was. Rose's seducer could be 
 none other than one of the young soldiers who had taken 
 the fishing lodge at the head of the lake. Mrs. O'Mara 
 had hinted that Rose had been seen with one of them on 
 the hill, and he thought how on a day like this she might 
 
 35
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 have been led away among the ferns. At that moment 
 there came out of the thicket a floating ball of thistle 
 down. " It bloweth where it listeth," he said. " Soldier 
 or shepherd, what matter now she is gone ? " and getting 
 up from the grass and coming down the sloping lawn, 
 overflowing with the shade of the larches, he climbed 
 through the hawthorns growing out of a crumbled wall. 
 Once more standing at the edge of the lake, he listened. 
 He could only hear the tiresome clanking call of the 
 stonechat, and he compared its reiterated call with the 
 words " atonement," " forgiveness," " death," " calam- 
 ity." These were always clanking in his heart. She might 
 be lying at the bottom of the lake, and some day a white 
 phantom might rise from the water and claim him. 
 
 His thoughts broke away, and he relived in memory 
 the very agony of mind he had endured when he went 
 home after her admission that she was with child. All 
 that night, all next day, and for how many days ? Would 
 the time ever come when he could think of her without 
 a pain in his heart ? It is said that time brings forgetful- 
 ness. Does it? On Saturday morning he had sat at his 
 window, asking himself 4f he should go down to see her 
 or if he should send for her. There were confessions in 
 the afternoon, and expecting that she would come to 
 confess to him, he had not sent for her. One never 
 knows ; perhaps it was her absence from confession that 
 had angered him. His temper had taken a different turn 
 that evening. All night he had lain awake ; he must have 
 been a little mad that night, for he could only think of 
 the loss of a soul to God, and of God's love of chastity. 
 
 36
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 All night long he had repeated with variations that it 
 were better that all which our eyes see this earth and 
 the stars that are in being should perish utterly, be 
 crushed into dust, rather than a mortal sin should be 
 committed. In an extraordinary lucidity of mind he had 
 gone on thinking of God's anger, and his own responsi- 
 bility toward God. Undoubtedly there are times when 
 we lose control of our minds, when we are a little mad. 
 He foresaw his danger, but he could not do otherwise 
 than to get out of bed and begin to prepare his sermon, 
 for he had to preach, and he could only preach on 
 chastity and the displeasure sins against chastity cause 
 God. He could think but of this one thing, the dis- 
 pleasure God must feel against Rose and the seducer who 
 had robbed her of the virtue God prized most in her. He 
 must have said things that he would not have said at any 
 other time. His brain was on fire that morning, and 
 words had risen to his lips he knew not whence nor 
 how they had come, and he had no idea now of what he 
 had said. He only knew that she had left the church 
 during his sermon; at what moment he did not know, 
 nor did he know that she had left the parish till next day, 
 when the children came up to tell him there was no 
 schoolmistress. And from that day to this no news of 
 her, nor any way of getting news of her. 
 
 His thoughts suddenly went to the hawthorn trees. 
 He could not think of her any more for the moment, 
 and it relieved his mind to examine the green pips that 
 were beginning to appear among the leaves. " The haw- 
 thorns will be in flower in another week," he said; and he 
 
 37
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 began to wonder at the beautiful order of the spring. 
 The pear and the cherry were the first; these were fol- 
 lowed by the apple, and after the apple came the lilac, 
 the chestnut, and the laburnum. The forest trees, too, 
 had their order. The ash was still leafless, but it was 
 shedding its catkins, and in another fifteen days its light 
 foliage would be dancing in the breeze. The oak was 
 last of all. At that moment a swallow flitted from stone 
 to stone, too tired to fly far, and he wondered whence it 
 had come. A cuckoo called from a distant hill; it, too, 
 had been away and had come back. 
 
 His eyes dwelt on the lake, refined and wistful, with 
 reflections of islands and reeds, mysteriously still. Rose- 
 colored clouds descended, revealing many new and 
 beautiful mountain forms, every pass and every crest dis- 
 tinguishable. It was the hour when the cormorants come 
 home to roost, and he saw three black specks flying low 
 above the glittering surface ; rising from the water, they 
 alighted with a flutter of wings on the corner wall of 
 what remained of Castle Hag, " and they will sleep there 
 till morning," he said, as he toiled up a little path, twist- 
 ing through ferns and thorn bushes. At the top of the 
 hill was his house, the house Father Peter had built. Its 
 appearance displeased him, and he stood for a long time 
 watching the evening darkening and the yacht being 
 towed home, her sails lowered, the sailors in the rowing 
 boat. 
 
 " They will be well tired before they get her back to 
 Tinnick; " and he turned and entered his house abruptly.
 
 Ill 
 
 CATHERINE'S curiosity was a worry. As if he 
 knew why he hadn't come home to his dinner ! 
 If she'd just finish putting the plates on the 
 table and leave him. Of course there had been callers. 
 One man, the man he especially wished to see, had driven 
 ten miles to see him. It was most unfortunate, but it 
 couldn't be helped; he had felt that morning that he 
 couldn't stay indoors the business of the parish had 
 somehow got upon his nerves, but not because he had 
 been working hard. He had done but little work since 
 she left the parish. Now was that story going to begin 
 again? If it did, he should go out of his mind; and he 
 looked round the room, thinking how a lonely evening 
 breeds thoughts of discontent. 
 
 Most of the furniture in the room was Father 
 Peter's. Father Peter had left his curate his furniture, 
 but the pretty mahogany bookcase and the engravings 
 upon the walls were Father Oliver's own taste; he had 
 bought them at an auction, and there were times when 
 these purchases pleased him. But now he was thinking 
 that Father Peter must have known to whom the parish 
 would go at his death, for he could not have meant all 
 his furniture to be taken out of the house " there would 
 be no room for it in Bridget Clery's cottage ; " and Father 
 Oliver sat thinking of the evenings he used to spend with 
 
 39
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Father Peter. How often during those evenings Father 
 Peter must have said to himself, " One day, Gogarty, 
 you will be sitting in my chair and sleeping in my bed." 
 And Father Oliver pondered on his affection for the 
 dead man. There had been no differences of opinion, 
 only one the neglected garden at the back of the house ; 
 and, smiling sadly, Father Oliver remembered how he 
 used to reprove the parish priest. 
 
 " I'm afraid I'm too big and too fat and too fond of 
 my pipe and my glass of whisky to care much about 
 carnations. But if you get the parish when I'm gone, 
 I'm sure you'll grow some beauties, and you'll put a 
 bunch on my grave sometimes, Gogarty." The very ring 
 of the dead man's voice seemed to vibrate through the 
 lonely room, and, sitting in Father Peter's chair, with 
 the light of Father Peter's lamp shining on his face and 
 hand, Father Oliver's thoughts flowed on. It seemed to 
 him that he had not sufficiently understood and appre- 
 ciated Father Peter's kindliness, and he recalled his per- 
 fect good nature. " Death reveals many things to us," 
 he said; and he lifted his head to listen, for the silence 
 in the house and aboutrthe house reminded him of the 
 silence of the dead, and he began to consider what his 
 own span of life might be. He might live as long as 
 Father Peter (Father Peter was fifty-five when he died) ; 
 if so, twenty-one years of existence by the lake's side 
 awaited him, and these years seemed to him empty like a 
 desert yes, and as sterile. " Twenty-one years wonder- 
 ing what became of her, and every evening like this 
 evening the same loneliness." 
 
 40
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 He sat watching the hands of his clock, and a peaceful 
 meditation about a certain carnation that unfortunately 
 burst its calyx was interrupted by a sudden thought. 
 Whence the thought had come he could not tell, nor what 
 had put it into his head, but it had occurred to him sud- 
 denly that " if Father Peter had lived a few weeks longer 
 he would have found means of exchanging Rose Leicester 
 for another schoolmistress, more suitable to the require- 
 ments of the parish. If Father Peter had lived he would 
 have done her a grievous wrong. He wouldn't have 
 allowed her to suffer, but he would have done her a 
 wrong all the same." And it were better that a man 
 should meet his death than he should do a wrong to 
 another. But he wasn't contemplating his own death nor 
 Rose's when this solution of the difficulty occurred to 
 him. Our inherent hypocrisy is so great that it is difficult 
 to know what one does think. He surely did not think 
 it well that Father Peter had died, his friend, his bene- 
 factor, the man in whose house he was living? Of 
 course not. Then it was strange he could not keep the 
 thought out of his mind that Father Peter's death had 
 saved the parish from a great scandal, for if Rose had 
 been dismissed he might have found himself obliged to 
 leave the parish. 
 
 Again he turned on himself and asked how such 
 thoughts could come into his mind. True, the coming 
 of a thought into the consciousness is often unexpected, 
 but if the thought were not latent in the mind, it would 
 not arise out of the mind ; and if Father Peter knew the 
 base thoughts he indulged in yes, indulged in, for he
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 could not put them quite out of his mind he very much 
 feared that the gift of all this furniture might No, 
 he was judging Father Peter ill; Father Peter was 
 incapable of a mean regret. 
 
 But who was he, he'd like to be told, that he should 
 set himself up as Father Peter's judge? The evil he had 
 foreseen had happened. If Father Peter felt that Rose 
 Leicester was not the kind of schoolmistress the parish 
 required, should he not send her away ? The need of the 
 parish, of the many, before the one. Moreover, Father 
 Peter was under no obligation whatsoever to Rose 
 Leicester. She had been sent down by the School Board 
 subject to his approval. " But my case is quite dif- 
 ferent. I chose her ; I decided that she was to remain." 
 And he asked himself if his decision had come about 
 gradually. No, he had never hesitated; he had dis- 
 missed Father Peter's prejudices as unworthy. . . . The 
 church needed some good music. But had he thought 
 of the church? Hardly at all. His first consideration 
 had been his personal pleasure, and he had wished that 
 the best choir in the diocese should be in his church. 
 Rose Leicester had enabled him to gratify his vanity. 
 He had made her his friend, he had taken pleasure in her 
 smiles, and in the fact that he had only to express a 
 desire for it to be fulfilled. After school, tired though 
 she might be, she was always willing to meet him in the 
 church for choir practice. She would herself propose to 
 decorate the altar for feast days. How many times had 
 they walked round the garden together gathering flowers 
 for the altar! And it was strange that she could decorate 
 
 42
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 so well without knowing much about flowers or having 
 much natural taste for flowers. 
 
 Feeling he was doing her an injustice, he admitted 
 that she had made much progress, under his guidance, in 
 her knowledge of flowers. 
 
 " But how did he treat her in the end, despite all her 
 kindnesses ? Shamefully, shamefully, shamefully ! " and 
 getting up from his chair he walked across the room, and 
 when he turned he stopped, and drew his hand across his 
 eyes. The clock struck twelve. " I shall be awake at 
 dawn, and with all this story running in my head," and 
 he paused at his bedroom door. But having suffered in 
 thought, he was spared the realization, and that morning 
 he lay awake, hardly annoyed at all by the blackbirds' 
 whistling, contentedly going over the mistakes he had 
 made a little surprised, however, that the remembrance 
 of them did not cause him more pain. At last he fell 
 into profound sleep, and when his housekeeper knocked 
 at his door and he heard her saying that it was past eight, 
 he leaped out of bed cheerily, and sang a stave of song 
 as he shaved himself. He gashed his chin, however, for 
 he could not keep his attention fixed on his work, but 
 must peep over the top of the glass, whence he could see 
 his garden, and think how next year he would contrive 
 a better arrangement of color. It was difficult to stop 
 the bleeding, and he knew that Catherine would grumble 
 at the state he left the towels in (he should not have 
 used his bath towel) ; but these were minor matters. He 
 was happier than he had been for many a day. 
 
 The sight of strawberries on his breakfast table 
 43
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 delighted him, and the man who had driven ten miles to 
 see him yesterday called, and he shared his strawberries 
 with him. They smoked a pipe together before they 
 went out. Never had he felt in better spirits as they 
 walked down the hillside ; the sunlight was exciting, and 
 the lake looked beautiful, and it was pleasant to stride 
 along, talking of the bridge (at last there seemed some 
 prospect of getting one). The intelligence of this new 
 inspector filled him with hope, and he expatiated on the 
 advantages of the bridge and many other things. Nor 
 did his humor seem to depend entirely on the companion- 
 ship of his visitor. It endured long after his visitor had 
 left him, and very soon he began to think that his desire 
 to go away for a long holiday was a passing indisposition 
 of mind rather than a need. It pleased him to postpone 
 his holiday to the end of the year, when he would have 
 more leisure to the month when the Government would 
 give a formal promise to build the bridge. 
 
 His change of mind interested him, and he watched 
 it and pondered it during his afternoon walks, till one 
 day he looked round the empty country, and a sudden 
 sense of his loneliness swept over him. He could not 
 tell at first whether the pang he had just experienced was 
 a recurrence of the old pain ; he tried to persuade himself 
 that it was but a vivid memory of it, but very soon he 
 was driven to admit that the longing to go away had 
 returned. That evening was not spent in writing letters 
 about the affairs of the parish, but staring at the lamp, 
 hearing Catherine finishing her last work in the kitchen ; 
 and he would get up from his chair and walk terror- 
 
 44
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 stricken about his room. That night he hardly slept at 
 all. Lying between sleeping and waking, he thought of 
 the long, bright, dusty day before him, and how it would 
 pass away hour by hour. At the end of the afternoon he 
 stood, a solitary figure, looking across the lake, heart- 
 sick and wondering, feeling that nothing could save him 
 but the spell of foreign travel; and his overwrought 
 brain imagined a fair country, and himself as rambling, 
 interested in the passers-by and the distant spire. 
 
 As he turned homeward a resolution strove to form 
 itself in his heart. The strangest part of his disease was 
 that he seemed unable to go, though he knew that to 
 remain were to die. He seemed held back, and, unable 
 to discover any natural reason for his hesitancy, he began 
 to indulge in superstitious fears lest Rose's spirit haunted 
 the lake, and that his punishment was to be kept a prisoner 
 always. 
 
 One day, as he stood at the end of the sandy spit, 
 seeing nothing, hearing nothing, he was startled by a 
 footstep. He fancied it must be she, but it was only 
 Christy, the boy who worked in his garden. 
 
 " Your reverence, the postman overlooked this letter 
 in the morning. It was stuck at the bottom of the bag. 
 He hopes the delay won't make any difference." 
 
 From Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 "June I, 19 . 
 
 " DEAR FATHER GOGARTY : 
 
 " I am writing to ask you if you know anything 
 about a young woman called Rose Leicester. She tells 
 4 45
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 me that she was schoolmistress in your parish and 
 organist in your church, and that you thought very 
 highly of her until one day a talebearer, Mrs. O'Mara 
 by name, went to your house and told you that your 
 schoolmistress was going to have a baby. It appears 
 that at first you refused to believe her, and that you 
 ran down to the school to ask Miss Leicester herself if 
 the story you had heard about her was a true one. She 
 admitted it, but on her refusal to tell you who was the 
 father of the child you lost your temper; and the fol- 
 lowing Sunday you alluded to her so plainly, in your 
 sermon about chastity, that there was nothing for her but 
 to leave the parish. 
 
 " There is no reason why I should disbelieve Miss 
 Leicester's story; I am an Irish priest like yourself, sir. 
 I have worked in London among the poor for forty 
 years, and Miss Leicester's story is, to my certain 
 knowledge, not an uncommon one; it is, I am sorry 
 to say, most probable; it is what would happen to any 
 schoolmistress in Ireland in similar circumstances. The 
 ordinary course is to find out the man and to force him 
 to marry the girl; if this fails, to drive the woman out 
 of the parish, it being better to sacrifice one affected 
 sheep than that the whole flock should be contaminated. 
 I am an old man ; Miss Leicester tells me that you are a 
 young man. I can therefore speak quite frankly. I 
 believe the practice to which I have alluded is in- 
 human and unchristian, and has brought many an Irish 
 girl to unspeakable misery and degradation. I have been 
 able to rescue some, and, touched by their stories, I 
 
 46
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 have written frequently to the priest of the parish 
 pointing out to him that his responsibility is not merely 
 local, and does not end as soon as the woman has passed 
 the boundary of his parish. I would ask you what you 
 think your feelings would be if I were writing to you 
 now to tell you that, after some months of degraded 
 life, Miss Leicester had thrown herself from one of the 
 bridges into the river? That might very well have been 
 the story I had to write to you; fortunately for you, 
 it is another story. 
 
 " Miss Leicester is a woman of strong character, and 
 does not give way easily ; her strength of will has enabled 
 her to succeed where another woman might have failed. 
 She is now living with one of my parishioners, a Mrs. 
 Dent, of 24 Harold Street, who has taken a great liking 
 to her, and helped her through her most trying time, 
 when she had very little money and was alone and 
 friendless in London. Mrs. Dent recommended her to 
 some people in the country who would look after her 
 child. She allowed her to pay her rent by giving les- 
 sons to her daughter on the piano. One thing led to 
 another; the lady who lived on the drawing-room floor 
 took lessons, and Miss Leicester is earning now, on an 
 average, thirty shillings per week, which little income 
 will be increased if I can appoint her to the post of 
 organist in my church, my organist having been obliged 
 to leave me on account of her health. It was while 
 talking to Mrs. Dent on this very subject that I first 
 heard Miss Leicester's name mentioned. 
 
 " Mrs. Dent was enthusiastic about her, but I could 
 
 47
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 see that she knew little about her lodger's antecedents, 
 except that she came from Ireland. She was anxious 
 that I should engage her at once, declaring that I could 
 find no one like her, and she asked me to see her that 
 evening. I went, and the young woman impressed me 
 very favorably. She came to my church and played for 
 me. I could see that she was an excellent musician, and 
 there seemed to be no reason why I should not engage 
 her at once. I should probably have done so without 
 asking further questions for I do not care to inquire 
 too closely into a woman's past, once I am satisfied that 
 she wishes to lead an honorable life but Miss Leicester 
 volunteered to tell me what her past had been, saying 
 it was better I should hear it from her than from another. 
 When she had told me her sad story, I reminded her 
 of the anxiety that her disappearance from the parish 
 would cause you. She shook her head, saying you did 
 not care what happened to her. I assured her that such 
 a thing was not the case, and begged of her to allow 
 me to write to you; but I did not obtain her consent 
 until she began to see that if she withheld it any longer 
 we might think she was concealing some important 
 fact. Moreover, I impressed upon her that it was right 
 that I should hear your story, not because I disbelieved 
 hers I take it for granted the facts are correctly stated 
 but in the event of your being able to say something 
 which would put a different complexion upon them. 
 "Yours very sincerely, 
 
 " FATHER O'GRADY, P.P." 
 
 48
 
 IV 
 
 AFTER reading Father O'Grady's letter he looked 
 round, fearing lest some one should speak to 
 him. Christy was already some distance away ; 
 there was nobody else in sight; and feeling he was safe 
 from interruption, he went toward the wood, thinking 
 of the good priest who had saved her (in saving her 
 Father O'Grady had saved him), and of the waste of 
 despair into which he would certainly have drifted if 
 the news had been that she had killed herself. The 
 thought was an appalling one, and he stood looking into 
 the green wood mysteriously, aware of the bird life in 
 the branches. Suddenly he lay down and watched the 
 insect life among the grass that beetle pursuing its 
 little destiny. But he was too exalted to remain lying 
 down, and he wandered on, led by a bird's song to 
 the edge of a dell. A phantom life seemed to emerge 
 and beckon him, and he asked if the madness of the 
 woods had overtaken him. ... A ray of light fell 
 through the branches and dissipated the shadow shape. 
 Farther on he came upon a chorus of finches singing in 
 some hawthorn trees, and in Derrinrush he stopped to 
 listen to the silence that had suddenly fallen. A shadow 
 floated by, and he looked up. The cause of the silence 
 was a hawk passing overhead. Young birches and firs 
 
 49
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 were springing up in the clearance, and the priest shaded 
 his eyes. . . . His feet sank in sand, he tripped over 
 tufts of rough grass, and was glad to get out of this 
 part of the wood into the shade of large trees. 
 
 Trees always interested him, and he began to think 
 of their great roots seeking the darkness, and of their 
 light branches lifting themselves in love toward the sky. 
 But he and these trees were one, for there is but one 
 life, one mother, one elemental substance out of which 
 all has come. That was it, and his thoughts paused. 
 Only in union is there happiness, and for many weary 
 months he had been isolated, thrown out; but to-day he 
 had been drafted suddenly into the general life, he had 
 become again part of the general harmony, and that 
 was why he was so happy. No better explanation was 
 forthcoming, and he did not think that a better one was 
 required at least, not to-day. 
 
 He noticed with pleasure that he no longer tried to 
 pass behind a thicket nor into one when he met poor 
 woodgatherers bent under their heavy loads. He even 
 stopped to speak to a woman out with her children ; the 
 three were breaking sticks across their knees, and he 
 encouraged them to talk to him. But without his being 
 aware of it, his thoughts hearkened back, and when it 
 came to his turn to answer he could not answer. He 
 had been thinking of Rose, and, ashamed of his ab- 
 sentmindedness, he left them tying up their bundles and 
 went toward the shore, stopping many times to admire 
 the pale arch of evening sky with never a wind in it, nor 
 any sound but the cries of swallows in full pursuit. " An 
 
 50
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 immemorial evening," he said, and there was such a 
 lightness in his feet that he believed, or very nearly, there 
 were wings on his shoulders, which he only had to open 
 to float away whither he might wish to go. 
 
 His brain overflowed with remembrances of her 
 forgiveness, and at midnight he sat in his study still 
 thinking, still immersed in his happiness, hearing moths 
 flying about the burning lamp; one he rescued from a 
 fiery death for sheer love of her. Later on the illusion 
 of her presence grew so intense that he started up from 
 his chair and looked round for her. Had he not felt 
 her breath upon his cheek? Her very perfume had 
 floated past! There ... it had gone by again! No, 
 it was not she only the syringa breathing in the window. 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Father O'Grady. 
 
 " GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 "June 2, 19 . 
 
 " I stayed in the woods all day," he wrote, " for your 
 letter brought me such happiness that I could not return 
 home; and my thoughts are still full of the songs of 
 birds and the scents of evening. I am the prey of 
 a violent reaction, for Miss Leicester's disappearance 
 caused me, as you" rightly surmise, the gravest anxiety. 
 Fear is a terrible thing. When her name was mentioned, 
 my tongue seemed to thicken and I could not speak. I 
 have seen her throwing herself into the river, I have 
 seen her taken out, I have seen her about to take 
 poison; and I can say this, that if I caused her a great- 
 deal of suffering, I have suffered myself at least as 
 
 Si
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 much. But what I am thinking of now is of Miss 
 Leicester's goodness in allowing you to write to me, in 
 order that I might be spared further anxiety. 
 
 " I wish I could find words to thank you for what 
 you have done; and I dare not think what might have 
 happened if it hadn't been for you; what my despair 
 might have been, and whither it might have led me. I 
 am still under the influence of the emotion that your let- 
 ter caused me, and can hardly collect my thoughts 
 sufficiently to answer your questions as they should be 
 answered. I can only say that Miss Leicester has told 
 her story truthfully. As to your reproofs, I accept them, 
 they are merited; and I thank you for your kind advice. 
 I am glad that it comes from an Irishman, and I would 
 give much to take you by the hand and to thank you 
 again and again." 
 
 Getting up, he walked out of the room, feeling in a 
 way that a calmer and more judicious letter would be 
 preferable. But he must answer Father O'Grady, and 
 at once; the letter would have to go. And in this re- 
 solve he walked out of his house into his garden, and 
 stood there wondering ^at the flower life growing so 
 peacefully, free from pain. 
 
 The tall Madonna lilies flourished like sculpture about 
 the porch, and he admired their tall stems and leaves and 
 carven blossoms, thinking how they would die without 
 strife, without complaint. The sweetbriar filled the air 
 with a sweet, applelike smell; and there was the lake 
 shining in the moonlight, just as it had shone a thousand 
 
 52
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 years ago when the raiders returned to their fortresses 
 pursued by enemies. He could just distinguish Castle 
 Island, and he wondered what this lake reminded him of : 
 it wound in and out of gray shores and headlands, fading 
 into dim pearl-colored distance, and he compared it to a 
 shroud, and then to a ghost, but neither comparison 
 pleased him. It was like something, but the image he 
 sought eluded him. At last he remembered how in a 
 dream he had seen Rose drowned. She wore a white 
 dress, and this lake seemed like her; there were her 
 knees, and the white gown floating, filling the stream. 
 " I am only thinking nonsense, but no matter. Yes, the 
 lake reminds one of one's guilt. ' Every man has a lake 
 in his heart.' ' : He had not sought the phrase, it had 
 come suddenly into his mind. Yes, " every man has a 
 lake in his heart." He sat like one stupefied in his chair, 
 until his thoughts took fire again, and, feeling that he 
 must write to Rose, he picked up the pen. 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 "June 2, 19 . 
 
 " This letter will surprise you, but I must write to 
 thank you for your kindness in asking Father O'Grady 
 to send me a letter. It appears that you were afraid I 
 might be anxious about you, and I have been very 
 anxious. I have suffered a great deal since you left, 
 and it is a great relief to my mind to hear that you are 
 safe and well. I can understand how loath you were 
 to allow Father O'Grady to write to me; he doesn't say 
 
 53
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 in his letter that you have forgiven me, but I hope that 
 your permission to him to relieve my anxiety by a letter 
 implies your forgiveness. Father O'Grady writes very 
 kindly ; it appears that everyone is kind except me. But 
 I am thinking of myself again, of the ruin that it would 
 have been if any of the terrible things that have hap- 
 pened to others had happened to you. But I cannot 
 think of these things now ; I am happy in thinking that 
 you are safe." 
 
 The evening post had been lost, but if he were to 
 walk to Bohola he would catch the morning mail, and 
 his letter would be in her hands the day after to-morrow. 
 It was just three miles to Bohola, and the walk there, 
 he thought, would calm the extraordinary spiritual ela- 
 tion that news of Rose had kindled in his brain. The 
 darkness of the night and the red, shapeless moon low 
 down in the southern horizon suited his mood. Once 
 he was startled by a faint sigh coming from a horse 
 looking over a hedge, and the hedgerows were full of 
 mysterious little cracklings. Something white ran across 
 the road. " The white belly of a stoat," he thought ; and 
 he walked on, wondering what its quest might be. 
 
 The road led him through a heavy wood, and when 
 he came out at the other end he stopped to gaze at 
 the stars, for already a grayness seemed to have come 
 into the night. The road dipped and turned, twisting 
 through gray fields full of furze bushes, leading to a 
 great hill, on the other side of which was Bohola. 
 When he entered the village he wondered at the stillness 
 
 54
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 of its street. " The dawn is like white ashes," he said, 
 as he dropped his letters into the box ; and he was glad 
 to get away from the shadowy houses into the country 
 road. The daisies and the dandelions were still tightly 
 shut, and in the hedgerow a half-awakened chaffinch 
 hopped from twig to twig, too sleepy to chirrup. A streak 
 of green appeared in the east, and the deathlike stillness 
 was broken by cockcrows. He could hear them far 
 away in the country and close by, and when he entered 
 his village a little bantam walked up the road shrilling 
 and clapping his wings, advancing to the fight. The 
 priest admired his courage, and allowed him to peck at 
 his knees. Close by Tom Mulhare's dorking was crow- 
 ing hoarsely, "a hoarse bass," said the priest, and at 
 the end of the village he heard a bird crowing an octave 
 higher, and from the direction he guessed it must be 
 Catherine Murphy's bird. Another cock, and then an- 
 other. He listened, judging their voices to range over 
 nearly three octaves. 
 
 The morning was so pure, the air so delicious, and 
 its touch so exquisite on the cheek, that he could not 
 bear even to think of a close bedroom and the heat of 
 a feather bed. He went to walk in his garden, and as 
 he passed up ancl down he appreciated the beauty of 
 every flower; no flower seemed to him so beautiful as 
 the anemones, and he thought of Rose Leicester living 
 in a grimy London lodging; whereas he was here amid 
 many flowers anemones blue, scarlet, and purple, their 
 heads bent down on their stalks. New ones were push- 
 ing up to replace the ones that had blown and scattered 
 
 55
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 the evening before. The gentians were not yet open, 
 and he thought how they would look in a few hours 
 bluer than the midday sky. He passed through the 
 wicket, and stood on the hilltop watching the mists sink- 
 ing lower. The dawn light strengthened the sky filled 
 with pale tints of emerald, mauve, and rose. A cormorant 
 opened his wings and flew down the lake, his fellows 
 followed soon after; but Father Oliver stood on the 
 hilltop waiting for daybreak. At last a red ball ap- 
 peared behind a reddish cloud; its color changed to the 
 color of flame, paled again, and at four flared up like 
 a rose-colored balloon. 
 
 The day had begun, and he turned toward his house. 
 But he couldn't sleep; the house was repellent, and he 
 waited among the thorn bushes and ferns. Of what use 
 to lie down in one's bed when one cannot sleep? His 
 brain was clear as day, and he felt that he must away 
 to woods and watersides. 
 
 Life is orientated like a temple; there are in every 
 existence days when life streams down the nave, striking 
 the forehead of the God, and during his long life Father 
 Oliver remembered, and looked back with a little happy 
 sadness upon, the morning when he invaded the pantry 
 and cut large slices of bread, taking the butter out of the 
 old red crock. He wrapped the slices in paper and went 
 away to the woods to watch the birds and doze under 
 the larches. And he was fortunate enough to catch 
 sight of an otter asleep on a rock. Toward evening he 
 came upon a wild duck's nest in the sedge ; many of the 
 ducklings had broken their shells ; these struggled after 
 
 56
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 the duck; but there were two prisoners, two that could 
 not escape from their shells, and, seeing their little lives 
 would be lost if he did not come to their aid, he picked 
 the shells away and took them to the water's edge, for he 
 had heard Catherine say that one could almost see little 
 ducks growing when they had had a drop of water. The 
 old duck swam about uttering a whistling sound, her 
 cry that her ducklings were to join her. And thinking 
 of the lives he had saved, he felt a sudden regret that he 
 had not come upon the nest earlier, when Christy brought 
 him Father O'Grady's letter. 
 
 The yacht appeared between the islands, her sails 
 filled with wind, and he began to dream how she might 
 cast anchor outside the reeds. A sailor might draw a 
 pinnace alongside, and he imagined a woman being 
 helped into it and rowed to the landing place. But the 
 yacht did not cast anchor; her helm was put up, her 
 boom went over, and she went away on another tack. He 
 was glad of his dream, though it endured only a mo- 
 ment, and when he looked up a great gull was watching 
 him. The bird had floated so near that he could see 
 the small round head and the black eyes ; as soon as he 
 stirred it wheeled and floated away. Many other little 
 adventures happened before the day ended. A rabbit 
 crawled by him screaming, for he could run no longer, 
 and lay waiting for the weasel that appeared out of the 
 furze. What was to be done? Save it and let the 
 weasel go supperless ? At eight the moon rose over Tin- 
 nick, and it was a great sight to see the yellow mass 
 rising above the faint shores ; and while he stood watch- 
 
 52
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 ing the moon an idea occurred to him that held him 
 breathless. His sister had written to him some days ago 
 asking if he could recommend a music mistress to her. 
 It was through his sister that he might get Rose back 
 to her country, and it was through his sister that he 
 might make atonement for the wrong he had done. The 
 letter must be carefully worded, for nuns understood so 
 little, they were so estranged from the world. As for 
 his sister Mary, she would not understand at all she 
 would oppose him ; but Eliza was a practical woman, and 
 he had confidence in her good sense. 
 
 He entered the house, and, waving Catherine aside, 
 who reminded him that he had had nothing to eat since 
 his dinner the day before, he went to his writing table 
 and began his letter. 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to the Mother Abbess, 
 Tinnick Convent. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 "June 3, 19. 
 
 " My DEAR ELIZA : 
 
 " I hope you will forgive me for having delayed so 
 long to answer your letter, but I could not think at the 
 moment of anyone whom I could recommend as music 
 mistress, and I laid the letter aside, hoping that an idea 
 would come to me. Well, an idea has come to me. I 
 do not think you will find " 
 
 The priest stopped, and after thinking awhile he 
 laid down his pen and got up. The sentence he had been 
 
 58
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 about to write was, " I do not think you will find anyone 
 better than Miss Leicester." But he would have to send 
 Father O'Grady's letter to his sister, and even with 
 Father O'Grady's letter, and all that he might add of 
 an explanation, she would hardly be able to understand ; 
 and Eliza might show the letter to Mary, who was 
 prejudiced. Father Oliver walked up and down the 
 room thinking. ... A personal interview would be 
 better than the letter, for in a personal interview he would 
 be able to answer his sister's objections ; and instead of the 
 long letter he had intended to write he wrote a short 
 note, adding that he had not seen them for a long time, 
 and would drive over to-morrow afternoon. 
 
 59
 
 THE southern road was the shorter, but he 
 wanted to see Moran and to hear when he 
 proposed to begin to roof the abbey. Father 
 Oliver thought, moreover, that he would like to see the 
 abbey for a last time in its green mantle of centuries. The 
 distance was much the same a couple of miles shorter 
 by the southern road, no doubt, but what are a couple of 
 miles to an old roadster? Moreover, the horse would rest 
 in Jimmy Maguire's stable while he and Moran rambled 
 about the ruin. An hour's rest would compensate the 
 horse for the two extra miles. 
 
 He tapped the glass; there was no danger of rain. 
 For thirty days there had been no change only a few 
 showers, just enough to keep the country going; and he 
 fell asleep thinking of the drive round the lake from 
 Garranard to Tinnick in the sunlight and from Tinnick 
 to Garranard in the moonlight. 
 
 He was out of bed an hour before his usual time, 
 calling to Catherine for hot water. His shaving, always 
 disagreeable, sometimes painful, was a joyous little labor 
 on this day. Stropping his razor, he sang from sheer joy 
 of living. Catherine had never seen him spring on the 
 car with so light a step. And away went the old gray, 
 pulling at the bridle, little thinking of the twenty-five 
 Irish miles that lay before him. 
 
 60
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 The day was the same as yesterday, the meadows dry- 
 ing up for want of rain ; and there was a thirsty chirrup- 
 ing of small birds in the hedgerows. Everywhere he 
 saw rooks perched on the low walls that divided the fields, 
 and they looked tired and hot. The farmers were com- 
 plaining; but they were always complaining everyone 
 was complaining. He had complained of the dilatoriness 
 of the Board of Works: for the first time in his life he 
 sympathized a little with the board. If it had built the 
 bridge he would not be enjoying this long drive; it would 
 be built by and by ; he couldn't feel as if he wished to be 
 robbed of one half-hour of the long day in front of him ; 
 and he liked to think it would not end for him till nine 
 o'clock. 
 
 " These summer days are endless," he said. 
 
 After passing the strait the lake widened out. On 
 the side the priest was driving the shore was empty and 
 barren. On the other side there were pleasant woods 
 and interspaces and great ruins. Castle Carra, the prin- 
 cipal ruin, appeared at the end of a headland, a great ivy- 
 grown ruin showing among thorn bushes and ash trees. 
 In bygone times the castle must have extended to the 
 water's edge, for on every side fragments of arches and 
 old walls were discovered hidden away in the thickets. 
 Father Oliver knew the headland well and every part of 
 the old fortress. He had climbed up the bare wall of the 
 banqueting hall to where a breach revealed a secret stair- 
 case built between the walls, and had followed the 
 staircase to a long straight passage, and down another 
 staircase, in the hope of finding matchlock pistols. He 
 6 61
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 had wandered in the dungeons, and had listened to old 
 stories of oubliettes. . . . 
 
 The moat which had cut the neck of land was now 
 filled up; only the gateway remained, and it was sinking 
 the earth was claiming it. On the other side the land 
 had been terraced, and there were the ruins of a great 
 house, to which no doubt the descendants of the chief- 
 tain had retired on the decline of brigandage. And the 
 kind of life that had been lived there was evidenced by 
 the gigantic stone fox on a pillar in the middle of the 
 courtyard, and the great hounds on either side of the 
 gateway. 
 
 Castle Carra must have been the most considerable 
 castle in the district of Tyrawley, and it was probably 
 built by the Welsh who invaded Ireland in the thirteenth 
 century, perhaps by William Barrett himself, who had 
 certainly built the castle on the island opposite to Father 
 Oliver's house. 
 
 William Fion (i. e., the Fair) Barrett had probably 
 landed somewhere on the west coast, and come up 
 through the great gaps between Slieve Cairn and Slieve 
 Louan it was not likely that he had landed on the east 
 coast; he could hardly -have marched his horde across 
 Ireland and Father Oliver imagined the Welshmen 
 standing on the very hill on which his house now stood, 
 and Fion telling his followers to build a castle on each 
 island. Patsy Murphy, who knew more about the his- 
 tory of the country than anyone, thought that Castle 
 Carra was of later date, but the ruins were the same. 
 Over yonder was the famous causeway, and the gross 
 
 62
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 tragedy that had been enacted there he had heard from 
 the woodcutter yesterday. 
 
 William's party of Welshmen were followed by other 
 Welshmen the Cusacks, the Petits, and the Brownes; 
 and these in time fell out with the Barretts, and a great 
 battle had been fought, the Battle of Moyne, in 1281, in 
 which William Barrett had been killed. Notwithstand- 
 ing their defeat, the Barretts had held the upper hand of 
 the country for many a long year, and the priest began 
 to smile, thinking of the odd story the old woodman had 
 told him about the Barretts' steward, Sgnorach bhuid 
 bhearrtha, " saving your reverence's presence," the old 
 man had said; and, unable to translate the words into 
 English fit for the priest's ears, he had said that they 
 meant a glutton and a lewd fellow. 
 
 The Barretts had sent Sgnorach bhuid bhearrtha to 
 collect rents from the Lynotts, another group of Welsh- 
 men, but the Lynotts killed him and threw his body into 
 a well, called ever afterward Tobar na Sgornaighe (the 
 Well of the Glutton), near the townland of Moygawnagh, 
 Barony of Tyrawley. To avenge the murder of their 
 steward, the Barretts assembled an armed force, and, hav- 
 ing defeated the Lynotts and captured many of them, 
 they offered their prisoners two forms of mutilation : they 
 were either to be blinded or castrated. After taking 
 counsel with their wise men, the Lynotts had chosen 
 blindness; for blind men could have sons, and these would 
 doubtless one day revenge the humiliation that was being 
 passed upon them. A horrible story it was, for when 
 their eyes had been thrust out with needles they were 
 
 63
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 led to a causeway, and those who crossed the stepping 
 stones without stumbling were taken back to have the 
 needles thrust into their eyes again; and the priest 
 thought of the assembled horde laughing as the poor 
 blind men fell into the water. 
 
 The story rambled on, the Lynotts plotting how they 
 could be revenged on the Barretts, but the blinding of 
 the Lynotts was the most interesting incident in it. 
 How the Lynotts, in the course of generations, came into 
 their vengeance he had half forgotten, and, instead of try- 
 ing to remember the story, his eyes strayed over the 
 landscape, and he admired the sunlight playing along the 
 valley or lighting up a sudden scarp. 
 
 The road followed the shore of the lake, sometimes 
 turning inland to avoid a hill or a bit of bog, but return- 
 ing back again to the shore, finding its way through the 
 fields, if they could be called fields a little grass and 
 some hazel bushes grew here and there between the 
 rocks. Under a rocky headland, lying within embaying 
 shores, he saw Church Island, the largest island in the 
 lake, some seven or eight acres. Trees flourished there, 
 and in the middle of the island were the ruins of the 
 church from which the island took its name. Only an 
 arch remained overgrown with bushes, but the paved 
 path leading from the church to the hermit's cell could 
 be followed. The hermit who had used this paved path 
 fourteen hundred years ago was a poet ; and Father Oli- 
 ver had read how Marban had loved " the sheiling that 
 no one knew save his God, the ash tree on the hither 
 side, the hazel bush beyond it, its lintel of honeysuckle, 
 
 64
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 the wood shedding its mast upon fat swine." And he 
 found it pleasanter to think of Ireland's hermits than of 
 Ireland's savage chieftains, always at war, striving against 
 each other along the shores of this lake, and from island 
 to island. 
 
 His thoughts lingered in the seventh and eighth cen- 
 turies, when Ireland had given herself to the wise guid- 
 ance of the priests, and the arts were fostered in mon- 
 asteries the arts of gold work and illuminated missals. 
 These were Ireland's halcyon days ; a deep peace brooded, 
 and under the guidance of the monks Ireland was the 
 center of learning when all the rest of Europe was strug- 
 gling in barbarism. There had been a renaissance in Ire- 
 land centuries before a gleam of light had appeared in 
 Italy or in France. But in the middle of the eighth cen- 
 tury the Danes arrived to pillage the country, and no 
 sooner were they driven out than the English came to 
 continue the work of devastation, and never since had 
 it ceased. Father Oliver wondered if God were reserv- 
 ing the bright destiny for Ireland which He had with- 
 held a thousand years ago, and he looked out for the 
 abbey that Roderick, King of Connaught, had built in the 
 twelfth century. 
 
 It stood on -a knoll, and in the distance, almost hid- 
 den in bulrushes, was the last arm of the lake. " How 
 admirable! how admirable! " he said, for Kilronan Abbey 
 seemed to him strangely evocative of ancient Ireland that 
 morning, and, touched by the beauty of the ruins, his 
 doubts returned to him regarding the right of the pres- 
 ent to lay hands on these great wrecks of Ireland's past. 
 
 65
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 He was no longer sure that he did not side with the 
 archbishop, who was against the restoration for en- 
 tirely insufficient reasons, it was true. " Put a roof," 
 Father Oliver said, " on the abbey, and it will look like 
 any other church, and another link will be broken. 
 ' Which is the better a great memory or some trifling 
 comfort?' 3 He continued to ponder this question till 
 the car turned the corner and he caught sight of Father 
 Moran, "out for his morning's walk," he said; and he 
 compared Father Moran's walk up and down the high- 
 road with his own rambles along the lake shores and 
 through the pleasant woods of Carnecun. 
 
 For seven years Father Oliver had walked up and 
 down that road ; there was nowhere else for him to walk ; 
 and he remembered he had hated that road, but he did 
 not think that he had suffered from the loneliness of the 
 parish as much as Moran. He had been happier than 
 Moran in Bridget Qery's cottage a great idea had en- 
 abled him to forget every discomfort ; we are never lonely 
 as long as our idea is with us. But Moran was a plain 
 man, without ideas, enthusiasms, or exaltations. Nor 
 did he care for reading, or for a flower garden, only 
 for drink. " Drink gives him dreams, and man must 
 dream," he said. 
 
 Moran's drunkenness was Father Oliver's anxiety. 
 He knew his curate was striving to cure himself, and he 
 believed he was succeeding; but, all the same, it was ter- 
 rible to think the temptation might overpower him at any 
 moment, and that he might stagger helpless through the 
 village a very shocking example to everyone. 
 
 66
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 The people were prone enough in that direction, and 
 for a priest to give scandal instead of setting a good ex- 
 ample was about as bad as anything that could happen 
 in the parish. But what was he to do? There was no 
 hard-and-fast rule about anything, and Father Oliver felt 
 that Moran must have his chance. 
 
 " I was beginning to think we were never going to 
 see you again," and Father Moran held out a long, hard 
 hand to Father Oliver. "You'll put up your horse? 
 Christy, will you take his reverence's horse? You'll 
 stay and have some dinner with me ? " 
 
 " I can't stay more than half an hour. I'm on my 
 way to Tinnick; I've business with my sister, and it will 
 take me some time." 
 
 " You have plenty of time." 
 
 " No, I haven't. I ought to have taken the other 
 road; I'm late as it is." 
 
 " But you will come into the house, if only for a few 
 minutes." 
 
 Father Oliver had taught Bridget Clery cleanliness; 
 at least, he had persuaded her to keep the fowls out of 
 the kitchen, and he had put a paling in front of the house 
 and made a little garden an unassuming one, it is true, 
 but a pleasant spot of color in the summer time and he 
 wondered how it was that Father Moran was not ashamed 
 of its neglected state, nor of the widow's kitchen. These 
 things were, after all, immaterial. What was important 
 was that he should find no faintest trace of whisky in 
 Moran's room; it was a great relief to him not to notice 
 any; and no doubt that was why Moran had insisted on 
 
 6?
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 bringing him into the house. The specifications were a 
 pretext. He had to glance at them, however. 
 
 " No doubt if the abbey is to be roofed at all the best 
 roof is the one you propose." 
 
 " Then you side with the archbishop ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I do in a way, but for different reasons. I 
 know very well, however, that the people won't kneel in 
 the rain. Is it really true that he opposes the roofing of 
 the abbey on account of the legend? I have heard the 
 legend, but there are many variants. Let's go to the 
 abbey and you'll tell the story on the way." 
 
 " You see, he'll only allow a portion of the abbey to 
 be roofed." 
 
 " You don't mean that he is so senile and super- 
 stitious as that? Then the reason of his opposition really 
 is that he believes his death to be implicit in the roofing 
 of Kilronan." 
 
 " Unquestionably; " and the priests turned out of the 
 main road. 
 
 " How beautiful it looks ! " and Father Oliver stopped 
 to admire. 
 
 The abbey stood on one of the lower slopes, on a knoll, 
 overlooking rich water meadows, formerly abbatial lands. 
 
 " The legend says that the abbey shall be roofed 
 when a De Stanton is abbot, and the McEvillys were 
 originally De Stantons ; they changed their name in the 
 fifteenth century on account of a violation of sanctuary 
 committed by them. A roof shall be put on those walls, 
 the legend says, when a De Stanton is again abbot of 
 Kilronan, and the abbot shall be slain on the highroad." 
 
 68
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " And to save himself from a violent death, he will 
 only allow you to roof a portion of the abbey. Now, what 
 reason does he give for such an extraordinary decision? " 
 
 "Are bishops ever expected to have reasons?" 
 
 The priests laughed, and Father Oliver said: "We 
 might appeal to Rome." 
 
 " A lot of good that would do us. Haven't we all 
 heard the archbishop say that any of his priests who ap- 
 peals to Rome against him will get the worst of it? " 
 
 " I wonder that he dares to defy popular opinion in 
 this way." 
 
 " What popular opinion is there to defy? Wasn't 
 Patsy Donovan saying to me only yesterday that the 
 archbishop was a brave man to be letting any roof at all 
 on the abbey? And Patsy is the best-educated man in 
 this part of the country." 
 
 " People will believe anything." 
 
 " Yes, indeed." 
 
 And the priests stopped at the grave of Seaghan na 
 Soggarth, or " John of the Priests," and Father Oliver 
 told Father Moran how a young priest, who had lost his 
 way in the mountains, had fallen in with Seaghan na 
 Soggarth. Seaghan offered to put him into the right 
 road, but instead- of doing so he led him to his house, 
 and closed the door on him, and left him there tied hand 
 and foot. Seaghan's sister, who still clung to religion, 
 loosed the priest, and he fled, passing Seaghan, who was 
 on his way to fetch the soldiers. Seaghan followed after, 
 and on they went like hare and hound till they got to the 
 abbey. There the priest, who could run no farther, 
 
 69
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 turned on his foe, and they fought until the priest got 
 hold of Seaghan's knife and killed him with it. 
 
 " But you know the story. Why am I telling it to 
 
 you 
 
 " I only know that the priest killed Seaghan. Is there 
 any more of it ? " 
 
 " Yes, there is more." 
 
 And Father Oliver went on to tell it, though he did 
 not feel that Father Moran would be interested in the 
 legend; he would not believe that it had been prophesied 
 that an ash tree should grow out of the buried head, and 
 that one of the branches should take root and pierce 
 Seaghan's heart. And he was right in suspecting his 
 curate's lack of sympathy. Father Moran at once ob- 
 jected that the ash tree had not yet sent down a branch 
 to pierce the priest-killer's heart. 
 
 " Not yet; but this branch nearly touches the ground, 
 and there's no saying that it won't take root in a few 
 years." 
 
 " But his heart is there no longer." 
 
 "Well, no," said Father Oliver, "it isn't; but if one 
 is to argue that way, no one would listen to a story 
 at all." 
 
 Father Moran held his peace for a little while, and 
 then he began talking about the penal times, telling how 
 religion in Ireland was another form of love of country, 
 and that, if Catholics were intolerant to every form of 
 heresy, it was because they instinctively felt that the 
 questioning of any dogma would mean some slight sub- 
 sidence from the idea of nationality that held the people 
 
 70
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 together. Like the ancient Jews, the Irish believed that 
 the faith of their forefathers could bring them into their 
 ultimate inheritance; this was why a proselytizer was 
 hated so intensely. 
 
 " More opinions," Father Oliver said to himself. " I 
 wonder he can't admire that ash tree, and be interested in 
 the story, which is quaint and interesting, without trying 
 to draw a historical parallel between the Irish and the 
 Jews. Anyhow, thinking is better than drinking," and 
 he jumped on his car. The last thing he heard was 
 Moran's voice saying, " He who betrays his religion be- 
 trays his country." 
 
 " Confound the fellow, bothering me with his preach- 
 ing on this fine summer's day! Much better if he did 
 what he was told, and made up his mind to put the small 
 green slates on the abbey, and not those coarse blue 
 things which will make the abbey look like a common 
 barn." 
 
 Then, shading his eyes with his hand, he peered 
 through the sun haze, following the shapes of the fields. 
 The corn was six inches high, and the potatoes were 
 coming into blossom. True, there had been a scarcity 
 of water, but they had had a good summer, thanks be to 
 God, and he thought he had never seen the country look- 
 ing so beautiful. And he loved this country, this poor 
 Western plain with shapely mountains inclosing the hori- 
 zon. Ponies were feeding between the whins, and they 
 raised their shaggy heads to watch the car passing. In 
 the distance cattle were grazing, whisking the flies away. 
 How beautiful was everything the white clouds hanging 
 
 71
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 in the blue sky, and the trees! there were some trees, 
 but not many only a few pines. He caught glimpses of 
 the lake through the stems; and tears rose to his eyes, 
 so intense was his happiness, and he attributed his happi- 
 ness to his native land and to the thought that he was 
 living in it. Only a few days ago he had wished to leave 
 it no, not forever, but for a time; and as his old car 
 jogged through the ruts he wondered how it was that he 
 had ever wished to leave Ireland, even for a single minute. 
 
 " Now, Christy, which do you reckon to be the shorter 
 road?" 
 
 " The shorter road, your reverence, is the Joycetown 
 road, but I doubt if we can get the car through it." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 And the boy answered that since the Big House had 
 been burnt the road hadn't been kept in repair. 
 
 " But," said Father Oliver, " the Big House was burnt 
 seventy years ago." 
 
 " Well, your reverence, you see, it was a good road 
 then, but the last time I heard of a car going that way 
 was last February." 
 
 " And if a car got through in February, why can't we 
 get through on the first of June? " 
 
 " Well, your reverence, there was the storm, and I do 
 be hearing that the trees that fell across the road then 
 haven't been removed yet." 
 
 " I think we might try the road, for all that, for though 
 if we have to walk the greater part of it, there will be a 
 saving in the end." 
 
 " That's true, your reverence, if we can get the car 
 72
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 through ; but if we can't we may have to come all the way 
 back again." 
 
 " Well, Christy, we'll have to risk that. Now, will 
 you be turning the horse up the road? And I'll stop at 
 the Big House I've never been inside it. I'd like to 
 see what it is like." 
 
 Joycetown House was the last link between the pres- 
 ent time and the past. In the beginning of the century 
 a duellist had lived there; the terror of the countryside 
 he had become, for he had never been known to miss his 
 man. For the slightest offense, real or imaginary, he 
 sent seconds demanding redress. No more than his 
 ancestors, who had doubtless lived on the islands, in 
 Castle Island and Castle Hag, could he live without fight- 
 ing. But when he had completed his round dozen, a 
 priest had said, " If we don't put a stop to his fighting, 
 there won't be a gentleman left in the country," and had 
 written to him to that effect. 
 
 The story runs how Joyce, knowing the feeling of the 
 country was against him, had tried to keep the peace. 
 But the blood fever came on him again, and he had called 
 out his nearest neighbor, Browne of the Neale, the only 
 friend he had in the world. Browne lived at Neale 
 House, just over, the border, in County Galway, so the 
 gentlemen arranged to fight in a certain field near the 
 mearing. It was Browne of Neale who was the first to 
 arrive. Joyce, having to come a dozen miles, was a few 
 minutes late. As soon as his gig was seen, the people, 
 who had been in hiding, came out, and didn't they put 
 themselves between him and Browne! They were all 
 
 73
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 armed with pitchforks, and didn't they tell him up to his 
 face there was to be no fighting that day! And the priest, 
 who was at the head of them, said the same; but Joyce, 
 who knew his countrymen, paid no heed, but stood up in 
 the gig, and, looking round him, said, " Now, boys, which 
 is it to be? The Mayo cock or the Galway cock? " In 
 spite of all the priest could say, didn't they all begin to 
 cheer him, and they carried him into the field in which 
 he shot Browne of the Neale. . . . 
 
 " A queer people, the queerest in the world," Father 
 Oliver thought, as he pulled a thorn bush out of 
 the doorway and stood looking round. There were 
 some rough chimney pieces high up in the grass- 
 grown walls, but beyond these really nothing to be seen, 
 and he wandered out seeking traces of terraces along 
 the hillside. 
 
 On meeting a countryman out with his dogs he tried 
 to inquire about the state of the road. 
 
 " I wouldn't be saying, your reverence, that you 
 mightn't get the car through by keeping close to the wall; 
 but Christy mustn't let the horse out of a walk." 
 
 The countryman said he would go a piece of the road 
 with them, and tell Christy the spots he'd have to look 
 out for. 
 
 " But your work? " 
 
 " There's no work doing now to speak of, your rev- 
 erence." 
 
 The three of them together just managed to remove a 
 fallen tree. This seemed the most serious obstacle, and 
 the countryman said once they were over the top of the 
 
 74
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 hill they would be all right; the road wasn't so bad after 
 that. 
 
 Half a mile farther on Father Oliver found himself in 
 sight of the main road, and of the cottage that his sister 
 Mary had lived in before she joined Eliza in the convent. 
 
 To have persuaded Mary to take this step proved 
 Eliza's superiority more completely than anything else 
 she had done, so Father Oliver had said. He had always 
 felt that it was impossible to say what mightn't have hap- 
 pened to poor Mary if she had remained in the world. 
 Her life up to the time she entered the convent had been 
 nothing but a series of failures. She had been a shop 
 assistant, but standing behind the counter gave her vari- 
 cose veins, and she had gone to a situation in Dublin as 
 nursery governess. Father Oliver had heard of musical 
 studies: she used to play the guitar. But the scope of 
 the instrument was limited; she had given it up, and re- 
 turned to Tinnick with the intention of starting a rabbit 
 and poultry farm. Who had put this idea into her head 
 it was impossible to say. When he received Eliza's let- 
 ter telling him of this last experiment, he had thrown up 
 his hands. Of course, it could only end in failure, in a 
 great loss of money ; and when he read that she was going 
 to take the pretty .cottage on the road to Tinnick, he had 
 become suddenly sad. 
 
 " Why should she have selected that cottage, the only 
 pretty one in the county? Wouldn't any other do just 
 as well for her foolish experiment ? " 
 
 75
 
 THE flowered cottage on the road to Tinnick 
 stood in the midst of trees, on a knoll some 
 few feet above the roadway, and Father 
 Oliver, when he was a boy, used to walk out by himself 
 from Tinnick to see the hollyhocks and the sunflowers; 
 they overtopped the palings, the sunflowers looking like 
 saucy country girls and the hollyhocks like grand ladies, 
 delicate and refined, in pink muslin dresses. He used to 
 stand by the gate looking into the garden, delighted by 
 its luxuriance. There were clumps of sweet pea and 
 beds of red carnations and roses everywhere, and he 
 always remembered the violets and pansies he had seen 
 the last time he looked into the garden. It was just 
 before he went away to Maynooth. He never remem- 
 bered seeing the garden in bloom again. He was seven 
 years at Maynooth, and when he came home for his 
 vacations it was too late or too early in the season, or 
 he had never happened to pass that way. He was in- 
 terested in other things, and had forgotten the garden. 
 During his curacy at Kilronan he rarely went to Tinnick, 
 and when he did he took the other road, so that he might 
 see Father Peter. 
 
 It was practically certain that the last time he saw 
 the garden in bloom was just before he went to Maynooth. 
 
 76
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 However this might be, it was certain he would never 
 see it in bloom again. Mary had left the cottage and the 
 garden a ruin and a waste. It was sad to think of the 
 clean thick thatch and the whitewashed walls covered 
 with creeper and China roses, for now the thatch was 
 black and moldy, and the roof was sagging. The doors 
 were broken, and barely held together; and the garden 
 was a still more disgraceful sight. Only a few stocks 
 survived; the rose trees were all gone the rabbits had 
 eaten them, and they had barked the fruit trees. There 
 was nothing but weeds; they overtopped the currant 
 and gooseberry bushes; here and there was a trace 
 of box edging. " In a few more years," he said, " the 
 roof will fall in, and the garden will become part of the 
 waste." 
 
 Then his eyes roved over the waste country into which 
 he was going a meager black soil, with here and there a 
 thorn bush and a peasant's cabin. And this waste coun- 
 try reached very nearly to the town of Tinnick. Father 
 Oliver knew every potato field and the shape of every 
 distant wood ; this road reminded him perhaps more in- 
 timately than anything of his early life of the dream 
 behind him. He watched the shape of the fields, knowing 
 quite well the exact moment when meadows would 
 appear. . . . And there they were ! He could see them 
 through the elms, the sun shining on them just as of 
 yore, and the cattle grazing there. The town pavement 
 ended at these elms, and he remembered how he used to 
 look on this pavement as a sign where the life of the 
 town began. Beyond this pavement was the loneliness of 
 6 77
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 the country. He had not been this way for a long 
 while, and in his present mood of mind he looked for- 
 ward to every well-remembered aspect to the high wall 
 on the left hand. That wall used to be one of his childish 
 admirations. Only when a tree fell and gapped it had 
 he been able to get a glimpse of what lay beyond; and 
 he remembered how he used to climb up these gaps, and 
 stand on tiptoe watching the sunlight and the shadows 
 streaming over the deep meadow grass. Peace and 
 beauty brooded there; and when the moon rose up 
 through the branches, and hung round and yellow on a 
 gray dusky sky, the park seemed more than ever won- 
 derful. 
 
 A great nobleman lived there occasionally; he came 
 there every two years for the summer months, bringing 
 friends with him. The whole town was supposed to 
 hate this man, for he cared nothing for Ireland, and 
 was said to be a man of loose living ; he was credited with 
 loving his friend's wife, and she used to come there 
 sometimes with her husband, sometimes without him, 
 and he remembered seeing her driving past. " The sight 
 of old places quickens memory," he said. This woman 
 was dead, so was the lord who loved her. No one spoke 
 of them now; Father Oliver had not given them a 
 thought these many years; he might never think of her 
 again. Therefore he wondered what could have put 
 thoughts of this dead woman into his mind. Was it the 
 sight of the ugly cottages about the market place, with- 
 out cleanliness and without light ? She had done nothing 
 to alleviate the lives of these poor folk, and it might 
 
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 have been those cottages that had put thoughts of her 
 into his mind. Or the cause might have been that he 
 was going to offer Rose Leicester to his sister as music 
 mistress. But what connection between Rose Leicester 
 and this dead woman? Well, he was going to propose 
 Rose Leicester to Eliza, and the best line of argument 
 would be that Rose would cost less than anyone as highly 
 qualified as she. Nuns were always anxious to get things 
 cheap, but he must not let them get Rose too cheap. But 
 the question of price wouldn't arise between him and 
 Eliza. Eliza would see the wrong he had done to Rose 
 was preying on his conscience, and that he'd never be 
 happy until he had made atonement that was the light 
 in which she would view the matter, so it would be better 
 to let things take their natural course and to avoid making 
 plans. The more he thought of what he should say to 
 Eliza, the less likely was he to speak effectively; and 
 feeling that he had better rely on the inspiration of the 
 moment, he sought distraction from his errand by noting 
 the beauty of the hillside. He had always liked the way 
 the road dipped and then ascended steeply to the principal 
 street in the town. There were some pretty houses in the 
 dip houses with narrow doorways and long windows, 
 built, no doubt, in the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury and his ambition had once been to live in one of 
 these houses. 
 
 The bridge was an eighteenth-century bridge, with 
 a foaming weir on the left, and on the right there was 
 a sentimental walk under linden trees, and the ruined 
 mills showing against the sunset. There were generally 
 
 79
 
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 some boys seated on the parapet, and their fishing rods 
 were picturesque in the lingering light. 
 
 Never had the gray mills seemed more melancholy, 
 more bygone, and he would have stopped the car, so re- 
 mote did they seem so like things of long ago that time 
 had mercifully weaned from the stress and struggle of 
 life. 
 
 At the corner of the main street was the house in 
 which he had been born. The business had passed into 
 other hands, but the old name " Gogarty's Drapery 
 Stores " remained. Across the way were the butcher 
 and the grocer, and a little higher up the inn at which 
 the commercial travelers lodged; he remembered how 
 their numerous leather trunks used to interest him, and 
 for a moment he stood a child again, seeing them drive 
 away on post cars. There were a few more shops very 
 few and then the town dwindled very quickly; slated 
 roofs gave way to thatched cottages, and of the same 
 miserable kind that used to provoke his antipathy when 
 he was a boy. 
 
 This sinful dislike of poverty he had overcome in early 
 manhood. A high religious enthusiasm had enabled him 
 to overcome it, but his instinctive dislike of the lowly 
 life intellectual lowliness as well as physical gathered 
 within these cottages, seemed to have returned again. 
 And perforce he asked himself if he were wanting in 
 natural compassion, if all that he had of goodness in him 
 were a debt he owed to the Church. Maybe it was in 
 patience rather than in compassion that he was lacking ; 
 and pursuing this idea, he remembered the hopes he en- 
 
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 tertained when he railed off a strip of ground in front 
 of Bridget Clery's house. They were that his example 
 might inspire others. Eliza was perhaps more patient, 
 and he began to wonder if she had any definite aim 
 in view, and if the spectacle of the convent, with its 
 show of nuns walking under the trees in the afternoon, 
 would eventually awaken some desire of refinement in 
 the people, if the money their farms now yielded would 
 produce some sort of improvement in their cottages, the 
 removal of those dreadfully heavy smells, and a longing 
 for color that would find expression in the planting of 
 flowers. 
 
 They gave their money willingly enough for the 
 adornment of their chapel, for stained glass, incense, 
 candles, and for music, and were it not for the services 
 of the Church he didn't know into what barbarism the 
 people mightn't have fallen : the tones of the organ sus- 
 taining clear voices of nuns singing a Mass by Mozart 
 must sooner or later inspire belief in the friendliness of 
 pure air and the beauty of flowers. Flowers, after all, are 
 the only beautiful things within the reach of these poor 
 people. Roses are happily within the reach of all. There 
 is nothing more entirely natural or charming in the life 
 of man than his love of flowers : it preceded his love of 
 music; no doubt an appreciation of something better in 
 the way of art than a jig played on the pipes would follow 
 close on the purification of the home. 
 
 Rose Leicester was herself beautiful, her personality 
 was winning and charming; her playing above all, her 
 singing might have inspired the people, but she was 
 
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 going to the convent. The convent had got her. It was 
 a pity and he remembered how angry Mrs. O'Mara's 
 news, fabrications, had made him that Eliza had said 
 she could give Rose more than she was earning in Gar- 
 ranard to come to the convent to teach music. He didn't 
 believe Eliza had ever said such a thing. It mattered 
 very little. Anyhow, he begrudged the convent Rose. 
 Eliza was going to get her, and cheaply. All he could do 
 would be to make the best terms he could. 
 
 But he could not constrain his thoughts to the, pres- 
 ent moment. They would go back to the fateful afternoon 
 when he ran across the fields to ask Rose if what Mrs. 
 O'Mara had said of her were true. If he had only 
 waited! If she had come to him to confession on Sat- 
 urday, as he expected she would ! If something had pre- 
 vented him from preaching on Sunday! A bad cold 
 might have prevented him from speaking, and she might 
 have gone away for a while, and, when her baby was 
 born, she might have come back. It could have been 
 easily arranged. But Fate had ordered her life other- 
 wise, and here he was in the convent, hoping to make 
 her some poor amends for the wrong he had done her. 
 Would Eliza help him? that was the question, and he 
 crossed the beeswaxed floor and stood looking at the 
 late afternoon sunlight glancing through the trees, fall- 
 ing across the greensward. 
 
 " How do you do, Oliver? " 
 
 His face lighted up, but it changed expression and 
 became gray again. He had expected to see Eliza, tall 
 and thin, with yellow eyebrows and pale eyes. Hers was 
 
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 a good, clearly cut face, like his own, where as Mary's 
 was quite different. Yet a family likeness stared through 
 a face heavy and white. Her eyes were smaller than 
 his, and she already began to raise them and lower them, 
 and to look at him askance, in just the way he hated. 
 Somehow or other she always contrived to make him 
 feel uncomfortable, and the present occasion was no ex- 
 ception. She was already reproving him, hoping he was 
 not disappointed at seeing her, and he had to explain 
 that he had expected to see Eliza, and that was why 
 he had looked surprised. She must not confuse sur- 
 prise with disappointment. He was very glad to see her. 
 
 " I know I am not as interesting as Eliza," she 
 began, "but I thought you might like to see me, and 
 if I hadn't come at once I shouldn't have had an op- 
 portunity of seeing you alone." 
 
 " She has something to confide," Father Oliver said 
 to himself, and he hoped that her confidences might be 
 cut short by the timely arrival of Eliza. 
 
 " Eliza is engaged at present. She told Sister Agatha 
 to tell you that she would be with you presently. I met 
 Sister Agatha in the passage, and I said I would take 
 the message myself. I suppose I oughtn't to have done 
 so, but if I hadnjt I shouldn't have had an opportunity 
 of speaking with you." 
 
 "Why is that?" 
 
 " I don't think she likes me to see you alone." 
 
 "My dear Mary!" 
 
 " You don't know, Oliver, what it is to live in a 
 convent, and your own sister the head of it." 
 
 83
 
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 " I should have thought, Mary, that it was especially 
 pleasant, and that you were especially fortunate. And 
 as for thinking that Eliza is not wishing you to see me 
 alone, I am sure " 
 
 " You are sure I'm mistaken." 
 
 " What reason could she have ? " 
 
 " Eliza doesn't wish the affairs of the convent dis- 
 cussed. You know, I suppose, that the building of the 
 new wing has put a burden of debt on the convent." 
 
 " I know that ; so why should Eliza " 
 
 " Eliza tries to prevent my seeing any of the visitors. 
 Now, do you think that quite right and fair toward one's 
 sister?" 
 
 Father Oliver tried to prevent himself from smiling, 
 but he sympathized so entirely with Eliza's efforts to 
 prevent Mary from discussing the affairs of the convent 
 that he could hardly keep down the smile that rose to 
 his lips. He could see Eliza's annoyance on coming into 
 the parlor and finding Mary detailing all the gossip and 
 confiding her own special woes, for the most part imagi- 
 nary, to a visitor. Nor would Mary refrain from touch- 
 ing on the reverend mother's shortcomings. He was 
 so much amused that he might have smiled if he had 
 not suddenly remembered that Mary might leave the 
 convent and insist on coming to live with him; and the 
 idea so frightened him that he began to think of what 
 he could say to pacify her. In the midst of his con- 
 fusion and embarrassment he remembered suddenly that 
 Mary had been professed last year, and therefore could 
 not leave the convent, and this knowledge filled him with 
 
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 such joy that he could not keep back the words, but 
 must remind Mary that she had had ample opportunity 
 of considering if she were suited to the religious life. 
 
 " You see, Mary, you should have thought of all this 
 before you were professed." 
 
 " I shan't take my final vows till next year." 
 
 "But, my dear Mary, once a woman has taken the 
 black veil ... it is the same thing, you know." 
 
 " Not quite, otherwise there would be no meaning in 
 the delay." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that you're thinking of 
 leaving the convent, Mary ? " 
 
 " Not exactly, but it is very hard on me, Oliver. I 
 was thinking of writing to you, but I hoped that you 
 would come to see us. You have been a long time now 
 without coming." 
 
 "Well, Mary " 
 
 " Eliza loves ruling everybody, and just because I am 
 her sister she is harder on me than anyone else. Only 
 the other day she was furious with me because I stopped 
 at confession a few minutes longer than usual. ' I think,' 
 she said, ' you might spare Father Higgins your silly 
 scruples.' Now, how is one to stop in a convent if one's 
 own sister interferes in one's confessions ? " 
 
 "Well, Mary, what are you thinking of doing?" 
 
 " There are some French nuns who have just come 
 over and want to open a school, and are looking for 
 Irish subjects. I was thinking they'd like to have me. 
 You see, I wouldn't have to go through the novitiate 
 again, for they want an experienced person to teach them 
 
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 English and to mind the school for them. It is really 
 a mistake to be under one's own sister." 
 
 At that moment the door opened and Eliza came in, 
 apologizing for having kept her brother so long waiting. 
 
 " You see, my dear Oliver, I've had two mothers here 
 this morning, and you know what parents are. I sup- 
 pose Mary has told you about our difficulties. Now, do 
 you mean to say that you have found a person who will 
 suit us ? ... It is really very kind of you." 
 
 " I can't say for certain, Eliza. Of course, it is diffi- 
 cult for me to know exactly what you want ; but, so far 
 as I know, I think the person I have in my mind will 
 suit you." 
 
 " But has she a diploma from the academy ? We 
 must have a certificate." 
 
 " I think she'll suit you, but we'll talk about her 
 presently. Don't you think we might go into the 
 garden ? " 
 
 " Yes, it will be pleasanter in the garden. And you, 
 Mary you've had your little chat with Oliver." 
 
 " I was just going, Eliza. If I'd known that Oliver 
 wanted to speak privately to you, I'd have gone sooner." 
 
 " No, no, I assure you, Mary." 
 
 Mary held out her hand to her brother, saying: 
 
 " I suppose I shall not see you again, unless, perhaps, 
 you're stopping the night with Father Higgins. It would 
 be nice if you could do that. You could say Mass for 
 us in the morning." 
 
 Father Oliver shook his head. 
 
 " I'm afraid I must get back to-night." 
 86
 
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 " Well, then, good-by." And Mary went out of the 
 room regretfully, like one who knows that the moment 
 her back is turned all her faults will become the subject 
 for conversation. 
 
 " I hear from Mary that some French nuns are 
 coming over, and want to open a school. I hope that 
 won't interfere with yours, Eliza ; you spent a great deal 
 of money upon the new wing." 
 
 " It will interfere very much indeed ; but I'm trying 
 to get some of the nuns to come here, and I hope the 
 bishop will not permit a new foundation. It's very hard 
 upon us Irish women if we are to be eaten out of house 
 and home by pious foreigners. I'm in correspondence 
 with the bishop about it. As for Mary " 
 
 " You surely don't think she's going to leave ? " 
 
 " No, I don't suppose she'll leave ; it would be easier 
 for me if she did, but it would give rise to any amount 
 of talk. And where would she go if she did leave, un- 
 less she lived with you ? " 
 
 " My house is too small ; besides, she didn't speak of 
 leaving, only that she hadn't yet taken her final vows. 
 I explained that no one will distinguish between the 
 black veil and final vows. Am I not right ? " 
 
 " I think those, vows will take a great weight off your 
 mind, Oliver. I wish I could say as much for myself." 
 
 The reverend mother opened a glass door, and 
 brother and sister stood for some time admiring the 
 flower vases that lined the terrace. 
 
 " I can't get her to water the geraniums." 
 
 "If you'll tell me where I can get a can " 
 
 87
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " You'll excuse me, reverend mother." 
 
 It was the sister in charge of the laundry, and, 
 seeing her crippled arm, Father Oliver remembered how 
 her dress had become entangled in the machinery. He 
 didn't know, however, that the fault lay with Mary, who 
 had been told off to watch the machinery and to stop 
 it instantly in case of necessity. 
 
 " She can't keep her attention fixed on anything, 
 not even on her prayers, and what she calls piety I 
 should call idleness. It's terrible to have to do with 
 stupid women, and the convent is so full of them that 
 I often wonder what is the good of having a convent 
 at all." 
 
 " But, Eliza, you don't regret " 
 
 " No, of course I don't regret. I should do just the 
 same again. But don't let us waste our time talking 
 about vocations. I hear enough of that here. I want 
 you to tell me about the music mistress; that's what in- 
 terests me." 
 
 And when Father Oliver had told her the whole story 
 and showed her Father O'Grady's letter, she said : 
 
 " You know I always thought you were a little hard 
 on Miss Leicester. Father O'Grady's letter convinces me 
 that you were." 
 
 " My dear Eliza, I don't want advice ; I've suffered 
 enough." 
 
 " Oliver dear, forgive me." And the nun put out her 
 hand to detain him. 
 
 " Well, don't say again, Eliza, that you always 
 thought. It's irritating, and it does no good." 
 
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 " Her story is known, but she could live in the con- 
 vent; that would shelter her from any sort of criticism. 
 . . . I don't see why she shouldn't take the habit of 
 one of the postulants, but " 
 
 The priest waited for his sister to speak, and after 
 waiting a little while he asked her what she was going 
 to say. 
 
 " I was going to ask you," said the nun, waking from 
 her reverie, " if you had written to Miss Leicester." 
 
 " Yes, I wrote to her." 
 
 " And she's willing to come back ? " 
 
 " I haven't spoken to her about that. It didn't occur 
 to me until afterward; but I can write at once if you 
 consent." 
 
 " I may be wrong, Oliver, but I don't think she'll 
 care to leave London and come back here, where she is 
 known." 
 
 " But, Eliza, a girl likes to live in her own country. 
 Mind you, I am responsible. I drove her out of her 
 country among strangers. She's living among Prot- 
 estants." 
 
 " I don't think that will trouble her very much." 
 
 " I don't know why you say that, Eliza. Do you 
 think that a woman cannot repent? that because she 
 happens to have sinned once " 
 
 " No ; I suppose there are repentant sinners, but I 
 think we generally go on as we begin. Now, you see, 
 Father O'Grady says that she's getting on very well in 
 London. She seems to be appreciated there, and we like 
 to live among those who appreciate us." 
 
 89
 
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 " Well, Eliza, of course, if you start with the theory 
 that no one can repent " 
 
 " I didn't say that, Oliver. But she wouldn't tell you 
 who the man was. She seems a person of character I 
 mean, she doesn't seem to be lacking in strength of char- 
 acter." 
 
 " She's certainly a most excellent musician. You'll 
 find no one like her, and you may be able to get her 
 very cheap. And if your school doesn't pay " 
 
 A shade passed across the reverend mother's face. 
 
 " There's no doubt that the new wing has cost us a 
 great deal of money." 
 
 " Then there are the French nuns " 
 
 " My dear Oliver, if you wish me to engage Miss 
 Leicester as music mistress I'll do so. There's no use 
 speaking to me about the French nuns. I'll engage her 
 because you ask me, but I cannot pay as much as women 
 generally ask who have diplomas. How much do you 
 think she'd come for ? " 
 
 " I don't know what she's earning in London, but 
 I suppose you can pay her an average wage. You could 
 pay her according to results." 
 
 " What you say is quite true, Oliver." And the priest 
 and the nun continued their walk up and down in front 
 of the unfinished building. " But you don't know, 
 Oliver, if she's willing to leave London. You'll have to 
 write and find out." 
 
 " Very well, Eliza, I'll write. You'll be able to offer 
 her as much as she was earning in my parish as school- 
 mistress. That's fifty pounds a year." 
 
 90
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " It's more than we can afford, Oliver, but if you 
 wish it " 
 
 " I do wish it, Eliza. Thank you. You've taken a 
 great weight off my mind." 
 
 They passed into the house, and, stopping in front 
 of the writing table, the nun looked to see if there were 
 paper and envelopes in the blotter. 
 
 " You'll find everything you want, even sealing 
 wax," she said. " Now I'll leave you." 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "TiNNicK CONVENT, 
 "June 4, 19 . 
 
 "DEAR Miss LEICESTER: 
 
 " I take it for granted that you received the letter I 
 sent you two days ago, telling you how much I appre- 
 ciated your kindness in asking Father O'Grady to write 
 to tell me that you were quite safe and getting on well. 
 Since writing that letter I feel more keenly than ever 
 that I owe you reparation, for it was through an error of 
 judgment on my part that you are now an exile from 
 your own country. Everyone is agreed that I have com- 
 mitted an error of judgment. My sister, the superioress 
 of this convent from where I am writing, is of that 
 opinion. The moment I mentioned your name she began, 
 ' I always thought that ' and I begged of her to 
 spare me advice on the subject, saying that I knew as 
 well as she could tell me that I had made a mistake. . . . 
 I asked her if she would help me to make atonement. 
 
 " The new wing is nearly completed, and they expect 
 91
 
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 the best Catholic families in Ireland to send their 
 daughters to be educated here. I had heard that my 
 sister's difficulty was to obtain sufficient musical instruc- 
 tion, and I at once thought of you. I thought that you 
 might like to live in your own country. Now that your 
 thoughts have again turned toward God, it must be 
 painful for you to live amid strangers in a Protestant 
 country. My sister is of the same opinion, and she tells 
 me that if you wish to come over here, and if Father 
 O'Grady advises it, she will take you as music mistress. 
 You will live in the convent. You can enter it, if you 
 wish, as a postulant, or if you should remain an extern 
 teacher the salary they will give you will be fifty pounds 
 a year. I know you can make more than that in London, 
 but you can live more cheaply here, and you will be 
 among friends and will be living in a Catholic country. 
 " I shall be glad to hear from you on this subject. 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 "OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P." 
 
 When he looked up, the darkness under the trees sur- 
 prised him, and the geraniums so faintly red on the 
 terrace, and his sister passing up and down like a 
 phantom. 
 
 " Eliza." 
 
 He heard her beads drop, and out of a loose sleeve 
 a slim hand took the letter. There was not enough light 
 in the room to read by, and she remained outside, leaning 
 against the glass door. 
 
 " You haven't written exactly the letter I should have 
 92
 
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 written, but, then, we're quite different. I should have 
 written a cold and more businesslike letter." His face 
 changed expression, and she added : "I'm sorry if I'm 
 unsympathetic, Oliver." 
 
 The touch of her hand and the look in her eyes sur- 
 prised him; for Eliza was not demonstrative, and he 
 wondered what had called forth this sudden betrayal of 
 feeling. He expected her to ask him not to send the 
 letter, but instead of doing so she said : 
 
 " If the letter were written otherwise it wouldn't be 
 like yourself, Oliver. Send it, and if she leaves London 
 and comes back here I will think better of her. It will be 
 proof that she has repented. I see you'll not have an easy 
 mind until you make atonement. . . . You exaggerate, 
 I think, but everyone for himself in a matter like this." 
 
 " Thank you, Eliza. You always understand." 
 
 " Not always. I failed to understand when you 
 wanted to set up a hermitage on Castle Island." 
 
 " Yes, you did ; you have better sense than I. Yet 
 I feel we are more alike than the others. You have 
 counted for a great deal in my life, Eliza. Do- you 
 remember saying that you intended to be reverend 
 mother? And now you are reverend mother." 
 
 " I don't think I said ' I intended.' But I felt that 
 if I became a nun, one day or another I should be 
 reverend mother; one generally knows what is going 
 to happen one's own fate, I mean." 
 
 " I wonder if Mary knows ? " 
 
 " If she does, I wish she'd tell us." 
 
 "We'll have time to walk round the garclen once 
 7 93
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 more. You have no idea what a pleasure it is for me to 
 see you to talk with you like this." 
 
 And, talking of Mary, they walked slowly, forgetful 
 of everything but each other. 
 
 A bell rang. 
 
 " I must be going ; it will be late before I get home." 
 
 " Which way are you going ? Round by Kilronan or 
 across the Bridge of Keel?" 
 
 " I came by Kilronan. I think I'll take the other way. 
 There will be a moon to-night." 
 
 Brother and sister entered the convent. 
 
 "You'll enjoy the drive?" 
 
 " Yes." And he fell to thinking of the drive home 
 by the southern road, the mountains unfolding their many 
 aspects in the gray moonlight, and melting away in misty 
 perspectives. 
 
 94
 
 VII 
 
 From Miss Leicester to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 "4 WILSON STREET, DORSET SQUARE, LONDON. 
 " DEAR FATHER GOGARTY : 
 
 I WENT to see Father O'Grady yesterday, and he 
 showed me your letter. As I sat reading it I 
 heard him say : * Evidently a highly nervous, 
 sensitive man, quite unlike the ordinary Irish priest.' I 
 told him that he would have to know you to appreciate 
 how different you were from the stout, well-fed priest 
 one sees walking up and down the railway stations in 
 Ireland, looking round to see if anyone is admiring him. 
 We talked about you, and about the wrong you had done 
 me, a long time. I confess I am rather tired of hearing 
 my wrongs discussed, and it is tedious to have a view 
 which is not entirely mine impressed upon me ; but dear 
 Father O'Grady sees things so entirely from his own 
 point of view, arid he would not understand if I were to 
 tell him I wonder if you will that the wrong that was 
 done me (the horrid word comes up again) was more 
 sentimental than material. My plans for leaving Garra- 
 nard were already made, and your allusion to me in your 
 sermon only precipitated matters, causing me at most 
 some temporary inconvenience. 
 
 95
 
 " Your imagination of the difficulties I met with in 
 London does not seem to get further than the fact that 
 I had very little money, and that I left Garranard dis- 
 graced. I had enough money not a great deal, but 
 enough to carry me through ; and as for the disgrace, I 
 am afraid the good or evil opinion of Garranard doesn't 
 trouble me much. I shall never see Garranard again ; 
 not one of those who heard you speak against me shall 
 I ever see; they will have no opportunity of slighting 
 me, and if they had, their slights would matter very little. 
 The fish under the wave doesn't think much of the eagle 
 in the sky, and in Garranard I was the eagle or the fish 
 whichever you like. I loved its kind, sweet, docile animal 
 life, and would not have been willingly without it, but 
 you were the only human being with whom I could com- 
 municate, and we only communicated through the music. 
 So far as ideas are concerned, you and I stood at the 
 opposite ends of the earth ; but ideas are here to-day and 
 gone to-morrow, whereas our feelings are always with 
 us, and we recognize those who feel like us, and at once, 
 by a sort of instinct. Don't you remember the day I met 
 you on the road, and how we jumped off our bicycles 
 and stood talking to each other, each wondering what 
 the other was going to say? Didn't you say something 
 about Mozart's Mass, and didn't I know at once I had 
 met a companion spirit? And will you believe me when 
 I tell you that I had decided to leave Garranard that 
 morning, and it was our talk about music on the roadside 
 that decided me to remain at all events, it delayed my 
 departure. Father Peter 'died a few days afterward, you 
 
 96
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 were appointed to the parish, and I couldn't imagine you 
 living in Garranard without music, without companion- 
 ship except what distraction you could find in a chat with 
 a parishioner, and without a friend except Father Moran, 
 and he could never be a friend of yours in any real sense 
 of the word. All the time I was in Garranard I never 
 forgot I could go when I liked, whereas yours was a 
 life's job. I stayed on for your sake, and might have 
 stayed a little longer, though London was drawing me 
 all the while, if you hadn't denounced me. You got rid 
 of me ; but will you ever get a schoolmistress again who 
 can play the harmonium as well as I, who can teach 
 the choir as well as I, who can decorate the altar 
 as well as I? Already my place has been taken, 
 but how is it being filled? Write and tell me. I shall 
 be curious to hear z for I know well that if she plays false 
 notes or doesn't come in at the right moment you will 
 hate her. I have had my punishment, but yours isn't 
 over yet a long punishment of false notes. I am sorry 
 for you, Father Gogarty. . . . My sorrow will seem to 
 you somewhat factitious : I don't pretend that it is quite 
 genuine. I'm sorry for you in a way, but at the bottom 
 of my heart I am afraid I shall always think that you 
 only got your deserts. I stayed in Garranard to please 
 you; now, is it my fault if your pleasure has become 
 your punishment? 
 
 " Perhaps you are thinking I did wrong to linger in 
 Garranard. No doubt changes of purpose are unwise, 
 but that change of intention on the roadside was unpre- 
 meditated. I didn't know at the time I was changing my 
 
 97
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 mind; I just acted on the impulse. If I had gone then, 
 I should have been saved a great deal of trouble, no 
 doubt, but I should have missed my share of life. And 
 what I have been through was a great mental awakening ; 
 I have learnt a great deal physically and mentally. There 
 was plenty of time for thinking in the two months before 
 baby was born. . . . You, too, have had time for think- 
 ing, and your thoughts have brought you to the point 
 of asking my forgiveness. You have been roused out 
 of the lethargy of conventional conscience, and have come 
 to look upon human nature with more kindly eyes. 
 
 " Father O'Grady has told you of the difficulties I 
 met with, and I suppose I did meet with considerable 
 difficulty in getting work, in finding rooms landladies 
 look askance at young women who don't wear wedding 
 rings and are going to have babies. Father O'Grady has 
 told you all about Mrs. Dent I needn't go over the story 
 again. She was very kind; but there are always Mrs. 
 Dents, and I should have pulled through somehow. So 
 long as one does not despair, so long as one doesn't look 
 upon life bitterly, things work out fairly well in the end. 
 Where there's a will there's a way. The real injury you 
 did was not, as I have said, a material, but a sentimental 
 one; your callous silence disheartened me. Not one 
 letter to inquire whether I was alive or dead! I didn't 
 know then why you didn't write, though more than once 
 I suspected you were a victim of habit and prejudice; 
 your personal intelligence and sympathies were over- 
 ruled, and during those months you were the typical 
 priest who looks upon women as the deadly peril and the 
 
 98
 
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 difficulty of temporal life. After awhile your intelligence 
 began to assert itself, and the natural man to suspect the 
 humanity of the code which orders that the infected sheep 
 shall be driven out of the fold lest the rest of the flock 
 become contaminated. This is the usual jargon, and I 
 have heard so much of it from Father O'Grady that it 
 conies to my tongue quite easily. He is so very indignant 
 against the method whereby a high moral standard is 
 obtained in Ireland that it often seems strange to me he 
 should be at once so liberal-minded and so narrow ; for I 
 am sure he thinks my dear little baby has caused the 
 Almighty a great deal of pain. He cannot look upon my 
 baby as a natural accident; he looks upon her as a sin 
 because I am not married, and so do you a sin the 
 Almighty would punish with damnation if the Church 
 didn't intervene between His wrath and the sinner. I 
 allow myself this one allusion to the theological side of 
 the question. It might have been better to have omitted 
 it; but since I have written it I will let it stand, for it 
 will serve to show you that we can never regard my mis- 
 fortune in Garranard in quite the same way. I don't 
 think that in our last talk I tried to hide from you that I 
 couldn't accept your view of my offense. We didn't 
 agree then, and t don't suppose we shall ever agree about 
 some things; but I think you will admit now that I did 
 well to withhold the man's name from you. Since I last 
 saw you, you have had time to consider the matter, and 
 I dare say you often say to yourself, ' Well, she was right.' 
 I was right. The man has since died, and who he was 
 is now a matter of very small moment, 
 
 99
 
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 " Already this past seems to me more like a dream 
 than anything else so faint, oh, so faint! When I try 
 to remember, it seems to elude me just as a dream might. 
 I am the same Rose Leicester as you knew, only more 
 so more convinced than ever that the moment only is 
 real and important. Whither I am going I know not; 
 I only know this, that I am moving toward my destiny. 
 The sensation is delightful. It comes now and then 
 caressing my cheek like a breeze; and I often feel it 
 about me as I sit at my window in Wilson Street when 
 I come home in the evening after a hard day's work. 
 
 " I am still earning only two pounds a week ; but 
 that makes no difference, for I feel that every day I am 
 approaching my natural destiny. London is my natural 
 home. Will you believe me if I tell you that I always 
 knew I should come to London, even when I was a little 
 girl on the farm, sitting under a tree with no one to keep 
 me company but an old sheep dog? I knew then that I 
 should come to London and meet learned and dis- 
 tinguished men, and here I am; the learned and dis- 
 tinguished men will come later. Meanwhile, everyone 
 is helping me, consciously and unconsciously. It seems 
 as if a vast conspiracy were at work, the purpose of 
 which is to lift me out of my present circumstances ; and 
 so sure am I of this that when I come home in the even- 
 ing I always ask my landlady if anyone has called. I 
 expect to be told that a duke has called, and has left some 
 flowers for me the landlady should know he was a duke 
 by the armorial bearings on his carriage and when she 
 answers, ' No, miss ; no one has called/ so convinced am 
 
 JOO
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 I that the delay is accidental that I go up to my lonely 
 room quite satisfied. I am not quite sure whether he is 
 a duke or a prince, but I incline toward the dukedom. 
 
 " It will seem to you that I am a little mad, that I do 
 not know what I am talking about, but I know very well. 
 I have been long wanting to write these things to some 
 one, and your letters afforded me an opportunity of put- 
 ting the thoughts that fill my mind upon paper. More- 
 over, I would have you understand that it is not my fault, 
 but the fault of my destiny, dear Father Gogarty, if I 
 cannot accept your sister's offer. Your project does not 
 fall in with the general scheme of my life that's how it 
 is. But you must not think me ungrateful. I know the 
 offer would not have been made except for you. It was 
 kind of you to think of asking your sister to propose to 
 engage me as teacher in the convent, and I think I can 
 see you putting the old gray horse into the car ; I think 
 I can see the poor old fellow trotting round the lake, 
 saying to himself, * I wish there were no such things as 
 sinful schoolmistresses in the world.' But though my 
 destiny is certainly not in Garranard, I should be sorry 
 to think that we shall never meet again. We shall meet 
 somewhere, for sure in London, perhaps. You will 
 come to London some day, and you will go to see Father 
 O'Grady, and then I will sing a beautiful Ave Maria for 
 you that you have not heard. 
 
 " Meanwhile I hope this letter will not disappoint you 
 too much above all, I hope it will not turn you against 
 me. You see, dear Father Gogarty, I must write as I 
 feel. If I didn't do that, there would be no good in my 
 
 101
 
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 writing, my letter wouldn't be myself, and it was myself 
 that you liked, and this letter is like me. You will not be 
 angry I will not have it and you will write very soon, 
 and tell me you are not angry, and that you prefer I 
 should write to you exactly as I feel. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " ROSE LEICESTER." 
 
 The post had brought another letter. He had already 
 noticed the handwriting; it was Father O'Grady's, and 
 he felt that if it had come from anybody else he would 
 not have read it. 
 
 From Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 "JuneS, 19. 
 
 " MY DEAR FATHER GOGARTY : 
 
 " I was very glad to hear from you that Miss Leicester 
 had told her story truthfully. If she had exaggerated 
 or indulged in the faintest equivocation, it would have 
 been a great disappointment to me and to her friends, 
 and it would have put me in a very difficult position, for 
 I should have had to tell certain friends of mine, to whom 
 I had recommended her, that she was not at all what we 
 had imagined her to be. She is, I believe, writing to you 
 by this post, and will tell you that I have appointed her 
 organist in my church. It remains, therefore, only for 
 me to thank you for your manly letter acknowledging 
 the mistake you have made. 
 
 " I can imagine the anxiety it must have caused you, 
 and the great relief it must have been to you to get my 
 
 102
 
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 letter. Although Miss Leicester spoke with bitterness, 
 she did not try to persuade me that you were naturally 
 hard-hearted or cruel. The impression that her story 
 left on ray mind was that your allusions to her in your 
 sermon were unpremeditated. Your letter is proof that 
 I was not mistaken, and I am sure the lesson you have 
 received will bear fruit. I trust that you will use your 
 influence to restrain other priests from similar violence. 
 It is only by gentleness and kindness that we can do good. 
 Miss Leicester tells me that she said in her letter to you 
 that I shall be glad to see you if you ever come to 
 London. I repeat this invitation here. 
 " I am, sir, 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " FATHER O'GRADY, P.P." 
 
 " Not much in that," he said; and Father O'Grady's 
 letter dropped from his hand, and taking up Rose's, he 
 wondered if he should answer it, and how he should 
 answer it. There was an inclination humming within 
 him that he would do well to burn her letter. But to 
 burn it he would have to get a match, and it would take 
 some time in burning. 
 
 As he sauntered around the garden, stopping every 
 now and then to pick the dead blooms away, he grew 
 angry against Rose, and he began to think of what he 
 could write to annoy her, to humiliate her, and all kinds 
 of rancor passed through his mind, taking the shape of 
 an entire letter, phrase for phrase, comma for comma. 
 So clear was the letter in his mind that he had to go into 
 
 103
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 the house to write it. But for some reason, dark to him- 
 self, he drifted away from his writing table, and, taking 
 up a book, he sank into his armchair. But he couldn't 
 read. His eyes soon strayed from the page, and he sat 
 looking into a corner of the room, thinking the whole 
 thing was at an end. . . . There was no reason why he 
 shouldn't dismiss it from his mind. On her own admis- 
 sion he had done her no material wrong, only a moral 
 wrong. She had allowed Father O'Grady to think she 
 had been hardly used. She had flattered him, appealed 
 to his prejudices, played the hypocrite. 
 
 A little while afterwards he was surprised to find 
 himself arguing against this view. Father O'Grady was 
 clearly a man of one idea, and that a very common idea, 
 too that the Irish priest who remains at home is a poor, 
 uncultured creature. Of what use would it be for her 
 to oppose his idea? She wouldn't be likely to change 
 Father O'Grady 's opinions, and she was dependent upon 
 his recommendation and assistance. And he began to 
 regret the letter he had written to Father O'Grady. No 
 good had come of it, nor of his scruples of conscience. 
 
 Overcome by a sudden pain, he threw the book he was 
 reading on the table, and walked out of the house quickly. 
 Half an hour after he stood at the end of the sandy spit 
 like a prisoner beside his prison bars, staring across 
 the lake, thinking that in a few days the unfortunate 
 affair would have passed from his mind. She had said 
 that her past seemed to her as faint as a dream, and the 
 part she had played in his life would grow fainter and 
 fainter, for he would never see her again. 
 
 104
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Without being aware of any transition of feeling, his 
 mood changed, gently, imperceptibly, as the light changed 
 on the lake, and he found himself at last musing over the 
 past, remembering that she had said in her letter that 
 she had remained in the parish only on account of her 
 liking for him, because she knew that he couldn't leave 
 it. ... But was this true? She gave what she had for 
 giving, as we all do. She couldn't give all her life, and 
 he had been angry with her because she didn't choose 
 to leave London to come back to teach in a convent. 
 Would he have come back in her place? With a sigh 
 he answered his question, and, turning from the lake, he 
 wended his way homeward, a dark spot moving slowly 
 along the gray shore. His mood had changed again, 
 and he listened to the voice of prudence whispering in 
 his ear, telling him that it would be wiser not to answer 
 her letter, " but to let the matter drop." But then all 
 kinds of specious arguments began in his mind if he 
 did not answer her letter she would write again, and per- 
 haps a third time. In front of such persistency it would 
 be impossible for him to maintain silence. Moreover, she 
 was friendless in London. Father O'Grady was no more 
 than an acquaintance. He had done her a wrong a 
 material wrong or- a moral wrong, perhaps both. Was 
 he justified, etc.? A fortnight after she received this 
 letter. 
 
 105
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 
 "June 27, 19 . 
 
 " DEAR Miss LEICESTER : 
 
 " I had so entirely set my heart on bringing you back 
 here, and making atonement for the wrong I did you, 
 that it would be unnatural if your letter were not a great 
 disappointment to me, and I do not know that my disap- 
 pointment is relieved to any very large extent by the 
 news you send me of your happiness and your hopes. 
 The truth is your letter alarmed me a good deal, and that 
 is why I did not answer it at once. I felt I must have 
 time to think over it and to consider how I should answer 
 it, for an ill-considered word is often the cause, as I know 
 to my cost, of a disaster. It is now more than a fortnight 
 since I got your letter, and I have read what you wrote 
 to me several times, and in order to guard against a false 
 impression I put your letter aside for some days, and 
 then took it up again. Every time I turn to it I feel more 
 and more that for you to live alone in London, making 
 your bread casually, ^as it were from door to door, is 
 fraught with danger. God will watch over you, it is true, 
 and Father O'Grady is always at hand to advise you ; but 
 I feel more strongly day by day that you will do well to 
 consider my sister's offer again and again. I speak to 
 you as a priest, and I am sure you will secure a more 
 permanent happiness by returning to your own country, 
 and living among those who share the same religious 
 views as yourself, than you can possibly attain in London. 
 
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 " After finishing the last sentence, I laid down the 
 pen and took up your letter and glanced through it again, 
 and this time the passage that alarmed me is the one in 
 which you describe yourself waiting for brilliant fortune, 
 which, in the shape of a prince or a duke, will some day 
 come knocking at your door, and carry you away in a 
 painted carriage like a lady in a fairy tale. Of course, I 
 do not take your words literally. I understand you to 
 mean that your character is such a one as leads inevitably 
 to fame and fortune by a series of steps which appear 
 accidental, but which are derived from the personal char- 
 acter you brought into the world. If my deeply regret- 
 ted mistake does not debar me from uttering a word of 
 warning and the tone of your letter would lead me to 
 think that I still retain some small portion of your confi- 
 dence I would beg of you not to lend too ready an ear 
 to the specious promises that a youthful and strenuous 
 imagination is whispering in your ear. We cannot be too 
 much on our guard against the temptations that Life 
 spreads for our feet, as a fowler spreads his net. You 
 believe Fortune's door to be thrown open, and you not 
 very far away, at the end of the street, waiting for her to 
 sign to you to come forward. Sweet perfumes and fine 
 linen tempt you from within, and you must have said, 
 ' Dear me, those poor people in Garranard, simple- 
 minded folk, think I should give up all this and go back 
 to teach music in a convent ! ' A shudder passed through 
 you, and I can easily imagine how your heart must have 
 filled with joy when your eyes went to your window. I 
 suppose Wilson Street is not a very grand street on two 
 
 107
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 pounds a week one does not live in a very fashionable 
 quarter but however meager the prospect Wilson Street 
 affords, its appearance reminds you immediately that you 
 are in London, that you are free, that the West of Ireland 
 is forever behind you. I have little hope that any words 
 of mine will dissuade you from the illusion of success and 
 the pleasure of seeing and hearing all the sights and 
 sounds that go to make life beautiful and enticing. 
 What can I say ? What could those more eloquent than 
 I say? What could the psalmist say? He could but ask 
 you of what value are life's pleasures with death at the 
 end of them all? But death seems to you very far away 
 now, and you would give very little heed even to the 
 psalmist were he to appear in person. Life is as mys- 
 terious as death, and the more we think of it the more 
 wonderful does it seem to us. You have just come out 
 of a great danger which your temperament led you into, 
 yet you tell me that it is precisely on your temperament 
 that you rely to lead you aright. 
 
 " I let my pen run on though I place no hope on it 
 to persuade you. Were I by you I might influence you 
 somewhat. But no; when I was by you I failed. I was 
 the victim of an illusion like yourself. What my illusion 
 was I know not, but I was certainly deluded, and led 
 by my temperament into error. Far better that Father 
 O'Grady should be your guardian. If anyone can in- 
 fluence you it will be he, and I beg of you to put your 
 trust in him now. I am tempted to ask if you have 
 spoken to him as openly as you have to me in your last 
 letter? Have you told him that the wrong I did you was 
 
 108
 
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 rather a moral than a material wrong ? Not that I would 
 have you exonerate me or say a word that would extenu- 
 ate my conduct in his eyes. He would probably under- 
 stand very little and care very little about moral wrongs. 
 He is, I can see, a man with a fixed idea, one of those 
 Irish priests living in England who think themselves 
 superior to the Irish priest who knows no culture except 
 such as Maynooth can give him. You tell me that he 
 regards me as an exception, and this seems strange, for, 
 judged by my conduct, who has shown himself to be more 
 ignorant, more narrow-minded than I, more Irish, if you 
 will? This much, however, may be said for me, that very 
 soon I saw I had been guilty of an error of judgment. 
 Except that temporary blindness, occasioned by a burst 
 of passion, I fail to see that I have lacked perception. On 
 the contrary, I am afraid I am only too susceptible to 
 every shade of feeling, and err from overscrupulousness. 
 Will you understand me when I tell you I cannot rid 
 myself of the idea that I do not altogether welcome the 
 opinion you expressed that I did you no material wrong? 
 Here abstract wrongs do not appeal to us ; and it seems 
 to me that I miss the tragedy of my remorse just as the 
 convalescent may in a sense regret the excitement and 
 the danger that" he has passed through. I can imagine 
 a convalescent looking forward with fear to the struggle 
 of life soon to begin again; for sure the poor man in the 
 hospital thinks like this, and I am a very poor man from 
 henceforth. I can see only gray years, without adven- 
 ture, without ambition, without hope in front of me. I 
 dare say that some new illusion will arise, but for the 
 8 109
 
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 moment life seems exactly like a desert, and I cannot but 
 think the crossing of this desert will prove infinitely 
 wearisome. Our lives are strangely opposed. You are 
 full of strength, and hope, and joy; I am depressed and 
 weak. Yet I ask you to come back here. There is 
 something incongruous in my request, but the incongruity 
 is more apparent than real, for I know I am advising you 
 for the best. We all suffer from depression occasion- 
 ally, and we are all too liable to forget that every mood 
 is a passing mood. My mood will pass, I know, but for 
 the moment it is myself. There are reasons, and excel- 
 lent ones, why I should be depressed. The choir was a 
 great interest, and the choir has been taken from me. 
 The same girls raise their voices; they generally sing the 
 right notes ; but the singing is, nevertheless, quite dif- 
 ferent. A piece of music that under your leadership took 
 four minutes, under Eva Maguire's takes six. Every- 
 thing drags the choir and the school. The lessons are 
 long and tedious, the schoolmistress tires me; I have 
 great difficulty in keeping my temper, and, fearing I may 
 lose it, I do not go to the school every morning. Nor 
 can I say that I think more of her harmonium playing 
 than I do of her method of teaching children. Nor does 
 her arrangement of flowers on the altar please me. 
 
 " A holiday would do me good, but I do not think the 
 present time is the one for me to choose to go away. 
 But your suggestion that when I go to London I shall 
 call on Father O'Grady is an excellent one. I am deeply 
 grateful to him for his kindness to you, and for this and 
 many other reasons forgive him the superior tone he 
 
 no
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 adopts toward Irish priests who live in their own coun- 
 try, and doubtless fall into errors of judgment. When I 
 go to London I shall talk to him about you; if you are 
 still his organist, if your temperament has not whirled 
 you away down a path of dazzling success, we shall meet, 
 and I shall have the pleasure of hearing you sing. But 
 I am doubtful about many things, and no doubt this let- 
 ter is full of contradictions. It will, I fear, produce very 
 little effect ; but I have no reason to suppose that if I were 
 to delay writing I should write a more effectual letter. 
 We shall meet some day, perhaps when we are both quite 
 different, when the past has become as faint as a dream. 
 It has already become as faint for you ; I am afraid I must 
 wait a little longer. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P." 
 
 From Miss Rose Leicester to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 "5 CUMBERLAND PLACE, LONDON, 
 "June 27, 19 . 
 
 " You have delayed a long while to answer my letter; 
 I am sure it is nearly three weeks since I wrote to you. 
 Perhaps the reason you have not written is because I 
 would not leave London and return to Ireland to teach 
 music in Tinnick Convent. Or did my letter displease 
 you so much that you have made up your mind not to 
 write to me again? I must know. You must confide in 
 me; I will not allow you to be cross with me. There has 
 been crossness enough and to spare between us. As soon 
 
 in
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 as you have read this letter sit down and answer it, and at 
 a grsat length, for, although I have gone away and do 
 not mean to come back, I am still interested in Garra- 
 nard. You must tell me all its sayings and doings. You 
 may not think them interesting, but they will amuse me. 
 If my letter displeased you, I am sorry; I thought I had 
 said very many pleasant things in it. Did I not tell you 
 that when you came to London you were to go to see 
 Father O'Grady, and that you and he were to talk about 
 me? Did I not say that I would sing a beautiful Ave 
 Maria for you, one you have not heard, and one which I 
 think, if I know your taste in music, you will like ex- 
 ceedingly? 
 
 " The more I think the more pretty things do I seem 
 to have said in my unanswered letter, written more than 
 a fortnight ago. I think I told you, and if I didn't I 
 should have told you, that you must not let your con- 
 science trouble you any more about the wrong you have 
 done me. Didn't I say that? But perhaps I am wrong- 
 ing you, perhaps you have been ill, perhaps you are ill. 
 If so, get Catherine to write for you. No, you cannot 
 be ill ; I cannot imagine jou ill. I have never heard of 
 your being ill. I am writing to you because I cannot 
 help myself. I want to tell you that my prophecy has 
 come true. You remember that I wrote something in 
 my letter to the effect that I put my faith in my own per- 
 sonality to carry me straight on toward success. I told 
 you I had always foreseen that my future would be in 
 London, and that I used to sit talking about London to 
 the old sheep dog under the fir tree; and to cheer you up 
 
 112
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 I told you that the time I spent in Wilson Street before 
 my baby was born, that terrible time, was not so terrible 
 as I expected it would be. 
 
 " My letter was really a very nice one. Didn't I tell 
 you that I was happy? though when I wrote to you about 
 my happiness I didn't feel quite sure that this last piece 
 of news would please you, for human nature is very per- 
 verse, and we only care to hear of another's happiness 
 when we are the givers of it. I am afraid I should feel 
 like that myself; but you mustn't feel like that, you must 
 like to hear that I am making friends wherever I go, and 
 you must become reconciled to the idea that, though I 
 was a dissonance in Ireland, I am part of the English 
 harmony. And it is such a pleasure to find one's self in 
 harmony with one's surroundings, everything going to 
 the beat, one's ideas chiming with the ideas about one, 
 one's work interesting one so much that one goes to it 
 smiling along the street, anxious to be at it, wonder- 
 ing what the result of the day's work will be, if this 
 pupil will be able to play a little exercise better than 
 she played it yesterday, if another one will be able to sing 
 a note more clearly. 
 
 " It is easy to say these things do not matter much, 
 they matter a great deal; for when these things go right 
 we are happy; when they don't, we are depressed. 
 
 " I chatter freely about myself, for there are times 
 when one feels that one must unbosom one's self, and I 
 am afraid I am not a very reticent person. I know I lack 
 reticence; but then, if I remember right, you liked my 
 impulsiveness you used to say that I was nearer to the 
 
 "3
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 primitive woman than anyone you had ever met. So is 
 it my fault if I write to you about myself? What would 
 Father O'Grady understand if I were to tell him that I 
 tripped home every evening to Wilson Street, smiling as 
 I went along, checking myself occasionally, lest a passer- 
 by should think me mad; my head filled with stories, 
 stories singing in my head together, and all going to the 
 self-same tune, and myself the heroine of every story? 
 What should the dear man understand if I told him, as I 
 told you, that I walked home possessed by an inveterate 
 belief that a prince or a duke had called to see me? He 
 would have asked me for my reasons for thinking that a 
 prince or a duke had rapped at the door of No. 4 Wil- 
 son Street, in the course of the afternoon; he would want 
 to know how the prince or the duke had heard of my 
 existence, and of course I should not have been able to 
 answer these questions. 
 
 " We have a foreknowledge of the future in its gen- 
 eral lines, but we may not know the workings out of the 
 various transformation scenes. And when I said a prince 
 or a duke would, like the harlequin in the pantomime, 
 order the change of scene, I only knew a great change 
 was coming. So I was not discouraged when the land- 
 lady told me there was no letter, or handed me one from 
 a mamma asking me if I could give her daughter her les- 
 son in the afternoon instead of in the morning. I just 
 went upstairs, as I told you, and sat by my window watch- 
 ing the sky fading, thinking all the while what a splendid 
 thing it was to be in London, and how much more beau- 
 tiful was the view even from Wilson Street the view 
 
 114
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 from my window is of some dirty railings with children 
 playing about them than the sunlit hollows and the re- 
 fined melancholy of Garranard. Never for a moment did 
 I doubt my good fortune, and, to pass the time before I 
 went to bed, I used to invent little stories how the duke 
 who was coming to see me was not satisfied with the 
 buckles on his shoes, and had turned back to get new 
 ones. Once he ordered his valet to the scaffold, and will 
 you believe it was I who pleaded and saved the poor 
 servant's life? The next day I was inclined to believe 
 that the duke's carriage had broken down, and, having 
 dislocated his shoulder against a lamp post, the duke was 
 obliged to postpone his visit to No. 4 Wilson Street 
 until he got well again; and will you believe me when I 
 tell you that it was I who nursed him? I sat by his sick 
 bed. It was a four-post bed with a carved top. Charles 
 the Second, who was the duke's irregular ancestor, had 
 slept in that bed, and lo! I sat there handing him mix- 
 tures prepared by a learned doctor who had come all the 
 way from Trinidad. Why from Trinidad I cannot for the 
 life of me tell you. 
 
 " My vagrant imagination must not be cross-ques- 
 tioned. It foresaw my future correctly enough, though 
 it was neither a prince nor a duke who sought me out in 
 Wilson Street, but a great writer not a poet, but a 
 writer on learned subjects. When I say he is not a poet 
 I do not mean he is a writer who is insensible to poetry 
 a dry-as-dust Greek or Hebrew scholar. Mr. Ralph 
 Ellis began his literary career by writing verse ; but, feel- 
 ing it were useless to write verse unless one were a great
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 poet and to be a great poet one must have a special 
 voice, and a poet's voice is as rare as De Reszke's 
 feeling that he had not this voice, Mr. Ellis abandoned 
 poetry for scholarship. 
 
 " His views on poetry are original, and I wonder what 
 you, who have read the poets, would think of them. 
 According to Mr. Ellis, the poet is one who can tiddle- 
 diddle-diddle like a canary in a cage; many men philoso- 
 phize and psychologize and botanize in verse; but writ- 
 ing in meter does not constitute a poet, nor does the 
 invention of beautiful images and harmonious sentences. 
 The poets, according to the tiddle-diddle-diddle doctrine, 
 are Shakespeare, Shelley, Swinburne, and Edgar Allan 
 Poe. Mr. Ellis admits that he had some hesitation re- 
 garding Keats, but, after rereading the lines on a ' Gre- 
 cian Urn,' and the ' Ode to the Nightingale,' he decided 
 he must reject him. He read aloud yesterday Keats's 
 ' Ode to the Nightingale,' and Shelley's ' Ode to the Sky- 
 lark,' and I was obliged to admit that Shelley does the 
 tiddle-diddle-diddle better than Keats. 
 
 " The same doctrine may be applied to music. Bee- 
 thoven, he points out, does the tiddle-diddle-diddle much 
 better than Bach. Mozart does it better than no, not 
 better than Beethoven; but he does it better than Gluck. 
 The question Mr. Ellis and I are debating now is, could 
 Wagner tiddle-diddle-diddle? I suppose he could, for, 
 otherwise, how should we explain the ' Song of the 
 Bird' in 'Siegfried'? Mr. Ellis plays very well, and 
 we have been through the opera. But, before I tell 
 you any more about Mr. Ralph Ellis's accomplishments, 
 
 116
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 I must tell you who he is, and how I made his acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 " Mr. Ralph Ellis is the father of Miss Edith Ellis, 
 a charming girl of fourteen, one of my pupils, a pretty 
 blonde girl with bright eyes, and with many reflections 
 of her father in her face. I dare not say she is like her 
 father, for is a woman ever like a man? She has bright 
 sunny hair and intense eyes, and but you are not in- 
 terested in Edith, and why should you be? What has 
 Miss Edith Ellis got to do with you? If I am to tell you 
 about any of the family, it must be about Mr. Ellis him- 
 self. He lives with his daughter in a house in Cumber- 
 land Place, but his home is in Berkshire, which, so far as 
 I can judge from photographs and descriptions, must be 
 a delightfully romantic spot, very like the pictures one 
 sees in galleries. And I am Mr. Ellis's secretary! He 
 came into the room the other day when I was giving 
 Edith her lesson to ask me if I knew anyone who could 
 copy a manuscript. I knew no one, but, acting on the 
 impulse of the moment, I said that, if the manuscript were 
 not very difficult, I would be very glad to try to copy it 
 for him, ' if it is neither Greek nor Hebrew,' I said, lower- 
 ing my eyes. ' It is neither,' he answered. ' It is in my 
 own handwriting." It is a chapter of my new book. Do 
 you think you can copy it? ' I raised my eyes very 
 gently, and said: ' I should like to try.' I did try, and I 
 succeeded so well that Mr. Ellis has asked me to go to 
 Berkshire to act as his secretary and teach his daughter 
 music. 
 
 " Edith and I are great friends. I have been teach-
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 ing her since I came to London, and she is delighted with 
 the arrangement, and has begged of me to accept her 
 father's proposal. Her mother died years ago, and she 
 has never had a companion, so her desire for me to go to 
 Ethelstone Manor is comprehensible enough. She has 
 lived alone with her father, and is too young to be much 
 interested in libraries. She is interested in her singing 
 and in her pony. She and I go for drives together, and 
 she talks incessantly of the places she will show me. 
 
 " But again I am drifting back to telling you about 
 Edith, whereas I should be telling you about Mr. Ellis. 
 He resembles extraordinarily the idea I had formed of 
 him before seeing him, only he is younger looking. 
 Edith, as I told you, is fourteen, so he must have mar- 
 ried when he was very young, for I don't think he can be 
 more than thirty-five. He could hardly be less, for it is 
 seldom that a man marries before he is three-and-twenty. 
 I am sure he cannot be more than thirty-seven. At first 
 sight he does not look more than thirty. He is tall and 
 clean-shaven, with a high nose, which goes well with his 
 eyeglass. The chin is long and remarkable; his hair is 
 mustard color and glossy, and it curls very prettily about 
 the broad, well-shaped forehead. 
 
 " His manner is distant at first. He is reserved, and 
 this lends a charm to the permission which he very soon 
 grants you of making acquaintance with those thoughts 
 and ideas which have interested him since boyhood, and 
 which have given him his character. If he seems at first 
 sight to conceal himself from you, it is either from shy- 
 ness or because he sees no reason why he should allow 
 
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 you the privilege of walking about in his mind as in a 
 public place. I am sure he regards his mind as certain 
 people regard their parks and pleasure grounds as 
 places for themselves and their friends' recreation. He 
 is exceedingly himself, and strangely unforeseen. All 
 the forms of his thought are individual. One doesn't 
 know the mold he has come out of. He lives so much 
 in himself that he is called egotistic by many. But so 
 would Hamlet, the character in fiction which I think he 
 resembles most. He doesn't, however, dress in black. 
 I cannot expect you to be interested in another man's 
 clothes, but surely a predominant note of color is not 
 without significance, and that is why I tell you that he 
 dresses nearly always in gray. 
 
 " I said in the beginning of this letter that he was once 
 a poet. The expression is a false one; I should have said 
 that he has ceased to write verse; but though he no longer 
 writes in meter, he has not ceased to make use of his 
 poetic gifts. He uses them now and to excellent ad- 
 vantage; for they enable him to make a learned subject 
 intelligible and fascinating. His subject is you would 
 never guess it, not if you were to guess for a thousand 
 years his subject is the Bible! I can see you throw up 
 your arms. And "what a fine gesture it is! Don't I know 
 it well? And can't I hear you cry out, ' Good heavens! 
 my schoolmistress writing about the ancient Hebrews 
 and their God our God! Jehovah.' My dear Father 
 Gogarty, that is not the way you should spell the 
 Almighty's name; we spell it here Eahveh, Strange 
 things happen, and will you believe me when I tell you 
 
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 that I take a great interest in my work, and hope to 
 begin the study of Hebrew very soon? Yourself en- 
 couraged me to learn Latin, so why should it be incon- 
 gruous for me to learn Hebrew and congruous to learn 
 Latin? If the language of Rome is Latin, the language 
 of Jerusalem was Hebrew, or, to be exact, Syro-Chaldean. 
 And the importance of Jerusalem cannot be considered 
 less than that of Rome, for, whereas only popes live in 
 Rome, Himself preached and died in Jerusalem. 
 
 " Mr. Ellis has been twice to Jerusalem, and the notes 
 he took as he rode across the desert are full of color 
 and animation. He watched and noted all that the eye 
 can see, of the color of the skies and the color and the 
 shapes of the earth, from the back of the young drome- 
 dary which bore him from morn till eve along the shores 
 of the Sea of Akabah. These shores are covered with 
 shells wonderfully voluted, and he has brought many 
 home. At the end of the third day, when they left the 
 sea behind them, a troop of gazelles sprang up out of 
 some low bushes and fled before them. Wasn't it won- 
 derful? Every night he wrote in his tent, transcribing 
 the impressions of the day, and he wrote on until the 
 pencil fell from his hand and sleep was no longer to be 
 resisted. The manuscript prepared under these condi- 
 tions has to be revised afterwards, but, I assure you, that 
 some of his descriptions of the desert which will appear 
 in his book are transcribed almost word for word from 
 his notebook, and these descriptions will enable the reader 
 to realize the wanderings of the early Hebrews about 
 Mount Sinai before they settled in Palestine. He lived 
 
 I2O
 
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 six months in Galilee, and his description of the landscape 
 will transport the reader, and he will follow Christ at a 
 distance, seeing Him among His disciples. The poet will 
 therefore act as a sort of agent in advance to the man 
 of learning. You may, as Mr. Ellis often says, know 
 every secret of heaven and earth, and your knowledge 
 will avail you nothing if you are not a poet, if you can- 
 not give a literary form to your knowledge. 
 
 " Mr. Ellis is a poet, and his poetry will gain him 
 a thousand readers where all the learning of the scholars 
 would not gain him ten. I am amazed at the interest with 
 which I listen to him; he enlivens the driest subjects 
 with wit. He puts his old eyeglass into his left eye, 
 and I can see that he is amused at the tediousness of 
 his studies. ' How/ he says, ' shall I poetize these minor 
 prophets ? ' And I confess it is difficult to do so. Have 
 you ever read them, Father Gogarty? They are very 
 tedious. 
 
 " Mr. Ellis was speaking yesterday of Hosea and 
 Amos, and, passing from them, he told me how a light 
 had suddenly been thrown on certain obscure passages 
 in the Book of Daniel, how a certain German I cannot 
 tell you the story, it has suddenly slipped out of my 
 mind, but, I assufe you, it was as exciting as any riddle. 
 As for Jeremiah, I already seem to know him ; I can see 
 him when he was pulled out of the well more dead than 
 alive, cursing profusely, pouring out imprecations with 
 the volubility of an Irish tinker come from a fair, his 
 head fairly broken. I have only been a week with Mr. 
 Ellis, and I foresee that Jeremiah will become a very 
 
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 intimate acquaintance of mine ; all last evening was spent 
 reading his Jeremiads, and if I know him so well in 
 London, what will it be when we go down to Berkshire. 
 
 " To-day Mr. Ellis is reading in the British Museum. 
 There are few books here, but his library in Berkshire 
 is, I hear, one of the finest private libraries in England, 
 and every window looks out on the park. Think of me 
 sitting there learning Hebrew, raising my eyes now and 
 again to admire the curves of the beautiful trees showing 
 against the sky, and the great branches of the copper 
 beeches sweeping the green turf. There are a number 
 of deer in the park, and they come down to drink at 
 the pond. That is all I know of Ethelstone Manor, but 
 I will write to you and tell you my impressions of the 
 library and the park. We are going there in a few days, 
 and to tell you this is one of my reasons in writing to you, 
 for I should be disappointed if you were to come to 
 London, and I was not here to sing the Ave Maria for 
 you. We are, I believe, going abroad at the end of July. 
 Miss Ellis wants to go to Germany to hear some music. 
 But nothing is settled yet. 
 
 " I told you in my -.first letter that something was 
 going to happen to me well, that something has hap- 
 pened, and, so far as I can judge from a week's experi- 
 ence, I am perfectly satisfied. 
 
 "Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " ROSE LEICESTER." 
 
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 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 "June 29, 19 . 
 
 " Our letters crossed. Both letters were posted on 
 Thursday evening, so while I am reading your letter 
 about Mr. Ralph Ellis and his writings you are reading 
 my explanation why I did not answer your letter at once. 
 I think I omitted to say that your letter alarmed me so 
 much that I thought more than once of sending it on to 
 Father O'Grady, and if I did not do so it was because 
 my first blunder has rendered me cautious. I remembered 
 that I had no right to show your letter to anyone. A 
 letter is a bewildering thing ; even the most ordinary let- 
 ters often fill one with doubt. If Father Moran were to 
 write to me saying he would call at three o'clock to- 
 morrow, and if he didn't arrive punctually, if he were half 
 an hour late, I should be walking up the room, going to 
 the front door ; and having considered every possible ac- 
 cident, sick calls, broken bicycles, I should turn to his 
 letter and wonder what day he meant when he wrote ' to- 
 morrow/ asking myself if the letter were written before 
 12 P.M. or A.M. Now, if a simple note making an 
 appointment can give rise to so much conjecturing, it is 
 easy to imagine the restlessness such a letter as yours 
 would stir up in one as intimately concerned in your 
 welfare as I am. 
 
 " Knowing you as I do, I was disposed to look upon 
 the whimsical fancies expressed in your first letter as the 
 natural bent of your mind, without particular significance, 
 
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 and many things predisposed me to take this view. I 
 could not forget that I wished you to leave London. 
 ' Maybe,' I said, ' this wish predisposes me to believe 
 that she is not safe in London. I am a prejudiced per- 
 son.' Then I remembered suddenly, after posting the 
 letter, that you were working under the guidance of 
 Father O'Grady, and I was seized with qualms of con- 
 science, and returned home asking if I did well in 
 writing to you as strongly as I did. It seemed to me 
 my letter might be regarded as impugning the validity 
 of Father O'Grady's sanction and guidance. 
 
 " ' Now what position does my letter put me in ? ' I 
 said to myself. ' I drove a woman out of my parish to live 
 or die as best she could. She meets a good Samaritan, 
 who extends a friendly hand, and puts her in the way 
 of earning her bread, but on the first opportunity I inter- 
 vene again, and use every effort in my power to get her 
 away from him. Not only do I do this, I even ventured 
 to criticise him, advancing as an argument that he had 
 deserted his country.' 
 
 " I walked home overcome, alarmed at my own in- 
 capacity, feeling myself-entirely unable to cope with life, 
 and I do not think anything could have dissipated this 
 mood except your last letter. I see now that I was 
 suffering from what is known as a false conscience : my 
 scruples were fictitious. Of course, I did quite right in 
 asking you to return to Ireland. I am quite sure now 
 that Father O'Grady would not have disapproved of the 
 letter I wrote to you : he certainly would not if I were to 
 send him the letter which you have written to me. He 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 would say : ' Your suspicions that London is a great 
 danger for a young woman like her are fully justified by 
 her letter. Only by a miracle can she live there without 
 falling I will not say into -sin, but into the dangerous 
 occasions of sin.' There is, I admit, no single passage 
 in your letter which by itself would seem a sufficient 
 cause for my anxiety. It may be quite true that Eahveh 
 is a more correct spelling than the usual spelling; I'm 
 not in a position to argue the point, but I certainly think 
 that you might have expressed yourself more reverently ; 
 nor can I approve of the way in which you speak of 
 Jerusalem and Rome, though there is no doubt that what 
 you say is true. I find fault not so much with what you 
 say as with the levity with which you express yourself. 
 Another point. You say you are sure I will agree with 
 you that ' it would be madness to miss this opportunity.' 
 The opportunity of what, may I ask ? Of acquiring some 
 pseudo-knowledge regarding the early Hebrews? You 
 do not say whether Mr. Ellis is a Catholic or a Protestant. 
 From the very nature of his studies I find it difficult to 
 believe that he is a Catholic. Biblical exegesis does not 
 as a rule attract Catholics. It is a study confined to 
 Protestants and to agnostics, and the result is, I am 
 afraid, rather to. create unbelievers than converts. 
 
 " Father O'Grady said in his first letter to me that a 
 priest who drives a woman out of the parish must not 
 think that the responsibility ends at the boundary of his 
 parish. In many respects the circumstances of your case 
 are quite different from the girls who leave Ireland be- 
 cause they have outraged the moral law, but I agree with 
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 Father O'Grady that my responsibility is a serious one; 
 it is even more serious than I thought, for I am still 
 pledged to your spiritual safety. I shall be glad to have 
 some assurance from you that Mr. Ellis doesn't try to 
 influence you in your faith." 
 
 He stopped writing, for he had begun to feel that his 
 letter was absurd, and when his thoughts turned toward 
 Rose he could only think of her as an unscrupulous little 
 wanton, determined to get as much pleasure as she could 
 out of life. But he didn't want to regard her as a wan- 
 ton; and his face clouded, and he frowned when he re- 
 membered the enthusiasm with which she had spoken of 
 Mr. Ellis's learning. It would be better not to send this 
 letter; it would be better not to write to her any more. 
 And he experienced an indefinite fear that this cor- 
 respondence might lead him into difficulties. But into 
 what difficulties? Not being able to define his fears, he 
 dismissed them as unworthy. 
 
 " Nothing will be gained by writing," he muttered 
 to himself. Though he felt quite sure on this point, he 
 knew he would send his letter. Then he grew a little 
 alarmed; for his will seemed to have suddenly receded 
 from him. The sensation was a strange one. 
 
 As he sat thinking the door was suddenly flung 
 open. 
 
 " Father Moran, your reverence." 
 
 " I can see by your face, Moran, that you have come 
 to talk to me about the roofing of the abbey. You've 
 arranged something with the bishop; or is it that you 
 
 126
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 find that the blue slates on which you have set your 
 heart are more expensive than you thought ? " 
 
 " I'm sorry, Gogarty, if I'm disturbing you. I'll go 
 away." 
 
 " You aren't disturbing me. I've just finished a letter 
 which must be posted to-night." 
 
 " You'll hardly be able to catch the post ; " and Father 
 Moran looked at his watch. " You'll have to walk fast." 
 
 " Now, what will you do ? Will you wait here until 
 I come back, or will you come with me ? " 
 
 " I don't mind walking to Bohola with you. I'm not 
 tired; the walk will do me good." 
 
 " And you'll tell me about the abbey and our 
 diocesan on the way. But if I take you all the way to 
 Bohola, you'll not be able to come back here to supper." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I shall." 
 
 " And walk home afterwards ? " 
 
 " Yes. Five miles more or less won't make any dif- 
 ference to me. I'll leave my papers on your table. This 
 is a copy of Illustrated England. I thought you might 
 like to look at it." 
 
 "Illustrated England is it?" And Father Oliver 
 took up the paper, and was about to turn over the leaves, 
 when Father Moran reminded him that, if they were to 
 catch the post at Bohola, they would have to start at 
 once. " Very well ; but I must tell Catherine that you'll 
 stay to supper. She wouldn't forgive me if I didn't." 
 And Father Gogarty ran into the kitchen to ask his serv- 
 ant if she would get something nice for Father Moran's 
 supper. " We shall be back in a couple of hours." 
 
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 Catherine said she would do what she could ; Father 
 Gogarty hastened to join Father Moran, who was wait- 
 ing, for him outside, and the copy of Illustrated England 
 lay on the table until Catherine came to put the cloth on 
 for the priests' supper. She threw the paper into the cor- 
 ner of the room; it got hidden away under a mass of 
 other newspapers ; and it was an accident that brought it 
 to light some few days afterwards, and Catherine could 
 not understand what there could be in the paper that had 
 so suddenly and completely absorbed his reverence's at- 
 tention. 
 
 The newspaper contained an account of Mr. Ellis's 
 book, " The Source of the Christian River." The jour- 
 nalist who contributed the article to Illustrated England 
 looked upon Mr. Ellis as a great man, and the interview 
 he had been sent down to do as the beginning of his lit- 
 erary career. So, with the evident intention of writing 
 attractively, he began with some allusion to his own 
 pious childhood and his religious bringing-up. That such 
 a person as himself, the son of a Wesleyan minister, 
 should be chosen to interview Mr. Ellis seemed to him a 
 sign of the times. 
 
 128
 
 VIII 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 
 "July 7, 19. 
 
 I WROTE to you a few days ago what may have 
 seemed a cross letter, but I did not intend to be 
 cross: I wrote in a hurry, and I had no time to 
 consider my words. I wrote under the stress of the emo- 
 tion produced by the long letter in which you told me 
 you had resigned your post of organist, and were going 
 down to Berkshire to act as secretary to Mr. Ralph Ellis 
 and as music mistress to his daughter. Perhaps it would 
 be better if, after writing a letter, one were to put it by 
 and read it over in the morning. Letters should not be 
 sent until one were sure that they do not misrepresent 
 one's thoughts and feelings. But I was interrupted in the 
 middle of my letter by a visit from Father Moran ; I had 
 just laid down the pen, and was considering what I had 
 written, when he came in. Had he not come in, I should 
 not have finished it till the next day. He reminded me 
 that it was just post time, and suggested we should go 
 out together, and I hastily scribbled a few lines, bringing 
 my letter as well as I could to a conclusion. You know 
 how difficult it is to write with some one walking about 
 the room talking to you from time to time. I am hardly 
 responsible for what I said in that letter, though, so far 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 as I can remember, it was no more than a somewhat ill- 
 considered epistle. 
 
 " But this explanation of the possible harshness of 
 my letter is not my only object in writing to you now. 
 I am writing to tell you that I know far more about Mr. 
 Ralph Ellis than I did when I last wrote. Strange, is it 
 not, that Father Moran should have been sent a copy of 
 Illustrated England, and that he should have brought it 
 with him ? Catherine threw it away among some papers, 
 and it lay there for two or three days. I accidentally dis- 
 covered it, and I need hardly tell you that I read with 
 interest the descriptive article about Ethelstone Manor 
 and Mr. Ralph Ellis's new book, ' The Source of the 
 Christian River/ It appears from the article in 
 Illustrated England that some of his friends are priests. 
 How this can be, I know not. Why should so antichristian 
 a writer as Mr. Ellis have priests for friends ? I do not 
 understand such liberal-mindedness ; but since priests 
 come to his house, place yourself, my dear child, under 
 their friendly guidance. Ask them if they approve of 
 your remaining Mr. Ellis's secretary. I do not think 
 they will. 
 
 " I thanked God when I got Father O'Grady's letter 
 telling me that you had escaped from the dangers that 
 beset a young woman in London; but, alas! you have 
 fallen into still greater dangers, and I cannot forget that 
 I was the indirect cause of your having met Mr. Ellis. 
 Day after day, week in and week out, you will hear every 
 argument that may be heard against our holy religion. I 
 do not say that Mr. Ellis will try to influence you directly, 
 
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 but all he gives you to read, and all he says, will be anti- 
 christian doctrine. You have the advantage of being born 
 a Catholic; you were well instructed in your religion, 
 and no doubt you will accept the statements you hear 
 with caution. Knowing that you are a Catholic, Mr. 
 Ellis will, perhaps, spare you as much as possible; very 
 likely he will not try to undermine your faith ; but, after 
 all, his words will be always under your eyes, and I do 
 not think it right for a Catholic to undertake work the 
 very object of which is intended to destroy belief in the 
 revealed religion. 
 
 " I think I said in my letter that it was I who had 
 driven you out of a Catholic into a Protestant atmosphere, 
 but I did not suspect then that I had driven you into 
 the house of one who evidently hates Christianity, and 
 very possibly hates it in its Catholic form more than in 
 any other. ... If you lose your faith I am responsible 
 for it, and I am not exaggerating when I say that in 
 my walks, and in my bed at night, the thought is con- 
 stantly before me that through my fault I may have lost 
 a soul to God. I can imagine no greater responsibility, 
 and there seems to be no way of escaping from it. It 
 seems to me that I suspected this danger from the very 
 first. My dear -child, the reading that interests you so 
 much, and the learning you set your heart upon, what will 
 it benefit you if you lose your own soul ? It is your most 
 sacred possession. Will you come back here to teach 
 in the convent? I do not ask you, I dare not take up 
 that hope again, but I beseech you to return to Father 
 O'Grady. You made two pounds a week by your teach-
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 ing in London, and Father O'Grady certainly must have 
 given you a pound a week for playing his organ and 
 teaching in his church. Leave Mr. Ellis; go back to 
 work under the guidance of that good man. 
 
 " I beg of you to write to me on this subject, and at 
 once. Remember my anxiety. Tell me what kind of 
 work Mr. Ellis asks from you; above all, tell me if he 
 tries to influence you. Do not accept the assertions he 
 makes without question. The science of yesterday is not 
 the science of to-day, nor will the science of to-day be the 
 science of to-morrow; only the Church remains im- 
 mutable. Remember that the Church has always an 
 answer for these so-called scientists. I am not qualified 
 to answer or to take up the defense of the Church I 
 quite recognize and know my own deficiency in this mat- 
 ter ; but even I may be able to explain away some doubts 
 that may arise. If so, I beg of you that you will not 
 hesitate to write to me. If I cannot do it myself, I may 
 be able to put you in the way of finding out the best 
 Catholic opinion on matters of doctrine. 
 
 % , " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P." 
 
 From Miss Rose Leicester to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 " ETHELSTONE MANOR, YARKSDALE, 
 
 "July 26, 19 . 
 " MY DEAR FATHER GOGARTY : 
 
 " It is now my turn to write, excusing myself for not 
 having answered your letters before. It is so kind of 
 
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 you to write to me, and I fear that you must think me 
 neglectful, and perhaps you think I do not understand 
 the interest you take in me. If you think this you are 
 mistaken. Your letter in answer to my long letter about 
 Mr. Ralph Ellis may have been a little stern. How could 
 it be otherwise ? For, after all, you are a priest, and after 
 reading it I reproved myself for having written to you 
 so incautiously and given you pain. But you know I 
 cannot restrain myself, I let my tongue run on ; I should 
 have said my pen, but writing and talking are the same 
 to me I write just as I talk. In fact, I think that my 
 letters prattle better than my tongue. Your second letter 
 was full of kindness, and I should have answered it at 
 once if I had not been busily engaged helping Mr. Ellis. 
 He is revising his book before going to press ; it all has 
 to be rewritten, and the publisher is clamoring for it, 
 saying that he is missing a golden opportunity of publi- 
 cation. The book has been irrevocably promised for the 
 fifteenth of next month, and by that time the whole of 
 the manuscript must be in the printer's hands, so says 
 the publisher; and Mr. Ellis agrees with him, adding, 
 however, that it is equally necessary that the writing of 
 the book should be perfect. 
 
 " So we work at it all the morning and all the after- 
 noon. Sometimes Mr. Ellis dictates to me, sometimes he 
 writes himself, sometimes I have to copy his manuscript, 
 and sometimes I have to read books for him, and hunt 
 up references while he is writing. After four o'clock I 
 belong to Miss Ellis. There is her music, and after her 
 music lesson we go for a walk or a drive; and with all 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 these duties to attend to, and all these thoughts to think, 
 I found it impossible to gather sufficient collectedness of 
 mind to write you a letter. You know you said that let- 
 ters were treacherous things and that one should not 
 write one without carefully considering it; that it were 
 even a better thing not to post a letter at once, but to 
 lay it by, and not to send it until one were quite sure that 
 it did not misrepresent one's ideas or convey any false 
 impressions. I am afraid I cannot write like this at all. 
 I take up the pen, and it runs along, and I hardly know 
 what I am writing. If I am interrupted in the middle of 
 a letter I have to tear it up, I cannot go on with it ; before 
 writing I have to work myself up, and when my brain 
 begins to catch fire I take up my pen, and I can go on as 
 long as the mood lasts, and sometimes it lasts, as you 
 know, for many pages. Tell me, do you like my letters ? 
 They don't bore you, do they? If I thought they did I 
 shouldn't write any more. When you write again you 
 must not forget to answer this question. 
 
 " And now I have to answer some questions of yours. 
 You are anxious for my spiritual safety. Well, I assure 
 you that there is no need that you should be. We are 
 not theologians here, we are historians; and Mr. Ellis 
 says the Bible is not only a book of revelation it is also 
 a history and it has a history. And it is the history of 
 the Bible that interests us. This is Mr. Ellis's view of 
 this work, and a priest who comes here thinks the same. 
 The interviewer is quite right in saying that Mr. Ellis 
 has friends among priests as well as among agnostics and 
 Protestants; these men are his friends because they love 
 
 134
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 learning, not because they hold certain views. And Mr. 
 Ellis thinks that he is justified in seeking out the facts, 
 and the search, he says, is conducted not only in the in- 
 terests of science but also of theology; for though history 
 owes nothing to theology, it cannot be denied that the- 
 ology owes a good deal to history. 
 
 " In many ways the theologian is dependent on the 
 historian, and what is there unreasonable, Mr. Ellis in- 
 quires, in asking theologians to reconsider doctrines 
 raised upon doubtful foundations? True that the theo- 
 logians have written a great deal and that it will be 
 troublesome for them to revise their opinions ; but surely 
 it would be wiser to apply themselves to this task than 
 to ask historians to do what they cannot do to conceal 
 or to falsify facts. The theologian, Mr. Ellis thinks, is 
 too much given to crying out that the latest discoveries 
 are not facts. Well, if they are not facts they are worth- 
 less, and will be discarded. Meanwhile, you think that 
 they occasion many heresies. Well, that is a misfortune ; 
 but the pursuit of knowledge must go on, it cannot be 
 stopped. And this you will admit that science is 
 always willing to rectify any error she may fall into. 
 
 " We have been so busy with the last chapters of ' The 
 Source of the Christian River' that I have hardly had 
 time to see the park and the house and the river that runs 
 under the hills. But last evening I was finished earlier 
 than usual, and I walked in the beech wood with Edith, 
 listening to the oars fifty or sixty feet below us; we 
 couldn't see the boats passing, but we could hear the oars 
 chiming, and it was quite dark when we got home. It 
 
 135
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 would please me to write you a description of the garden. 
 The carnations are just coming out. If I am here when 
 they are in bloom I will write to you about them; but I 
 fear we shall have left, for we are going abroad as soon 
 as the book has been passed for press. I will write to 
 you instead from abroad, telling you about cathedrals, 
 pictures, and libraries, and about the great men we shall 
 see. For Mr. Ellis has been in correspondence from time 
 to time with all the great men of Europe I mean all 
 those who are occupied with the same work as himself. 
 We are going to visit them: some are in Amsterdam, 
 some are in Paris, some live in Switzerland. Won't it 
 be wonderful seeing them and hearing them talk? I 
 wish I understood French a little better, and I hardly 
 know any German. Edith is going with us, for we are 
 going to Bayreuth to hear Wagner and to Munich to 
 hear Mozart. 
 
 " But what will you be doing all this time, dear 
 Father Gogarty? Do you remember how you used to 
 talk to me about the lake and its castles and the hermit? 
 You had never been to Church Island, though you once 
 lived very near it, and you told me a hermit poet lived 
 there once you know his poetry. Now, why don't you 
 go there and write about the place he lived in, and trans- 
 late his poems and publish them? What a fascinating 
 book it would make ' The Story of a Lake and its 
 Castles!' 
 
 " I should like to go on writing, but I must really stop 
 now, for Edith is waiting for me to go out to walk with 
 her. Good-by, Father Gogarty ; I will write to you from 
 
 136
 
 abroad. I do not know from where from Paris, per- 
 haps, or from Munich but I will write to you. 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " ROSE LEICESTER." 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 "July 29, 19. 
 
 " DEAR Miss LEICESTER : 
 
 " You ask me to tell you if your letters interest me. 
 Indeed they do. A letter from you relieves the tedium 
 of Garranard. If I had no letter to look forward to I 
 wonder how the days would pass, so laggard have they 
 become; almost any letter would be welcome, but your 
 letters are doubly welcome, so lively are they, so like 
 yourself. You set the scene before one like a picture. 
 I can see you and Mr. Ellis together in the library, bend- 
 ing over the writing table, you on one side, he on the 
 other. I can see you standing on the high steps to get 
 down a tome. You were always eager and alert: I real- 
 ize your interest in the preparation of this book so well 
 that I have abandoned hope of ever being able to get 
 you back to Garranard, and look upon my drive round 
 the lake and the "interview with my sister as a sort of 
 dream. One dreams many things, and though my dream 
 was vain, I hope you will not look upon me as a foolish 
 person because I once dreamed you might return here. 
 Everything depends on the point of view, and I am begin- 
 ning to understand yours. I did not understand it when 
 I wrdte before, but to-day I am a more impartial witness, 
 
 137
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 and I admit that your position as Mr. Ellis's secretary 
 presents a unique opportunity of educating yourself. So 
 well do I understand your point of view now that I am 
 afraid you must look back with wonder I will not say 
 with horror at the time you spent in Garranard teach- 
 ing little barefooted children their catechism and their 
 ABC. What a task I set myself to persuade you to 
 come back and shut yourself up in a convent to teach 
 children five-finger exercises or to listen to the ' Moon- 
 light Sonata ' played out of time, with a liberal sprinkling 
 of false notes ! If you were unsuited to Garranard when 
 you were here, you are still more unsuited to it to-day, 
 and I doubt if I should try to persuade you to return even 
 if I were sure to succeed. At the same time, I cannot 
 help writing to remind you that even if we do not sacri- 
 fice the whole of our lives to duty, even if we are re- 
 solved to keep some corner of it for our pleasure, we need 
 not regard duty as a mere prejudice, without value for 
 those who have gained sufficient strength of mind to take 
 their lives into their own hands. If you will allow me to 
 speak quite candidly, I will tell you that the secretary 
 does not seem to me to correspond with the schoolmis- 
 tress I once knew. In crossing the Channel she seems 
 to have changed a good deal. There is a likeness 
 between the Irish Rose Leicester and the English, but 
 I like the Irish better. The Irish Rose was not without 
 a sense of duty, of kindness toward others ; whereas the 
 English Rose seems bent upon a life of pleasure, intel- 
 lectual and worldly adventures. She delights in the 
 prospect of foreign travel, and she enjoys the luxury of 
 
 138
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 living in a well-appointed English country house. She 
 can no longer write of the trees she sees from the library 
 windows when she raises her head from her writing with- 
 out betraying not only a too exclusive admiration for all 
 that the eye may see, but also her liking of a life of ease 
 and comfort. She places feeling above ideas, and re- 
 gards our instincts as our sovereign guides. When we 
 find ourselves delighting to this extent in the sensible, 
 we may be sure that our lives have wandered far away 
 from spiritual things. There is ever a divorce between 
 the world of sense and the world of spirit, and the 
 question of how much love we may expend upon exter- 
 nal things will always arise, and will always be a cause of 
 perplexity to those who do not choose to abandon 
 themselves to the general drift of sensual life. This 
 question is as difficult as the cognate question of what 
 are our duties toward ourselves and our duties toward 
 others. And your letters raise all these questions. I 
 ponder them in my walks by the lake in the afternoon. 
 In the evening in my house on the hilltop I sit thinking, 
 seeing in imagination the country where I have been 
 born and where I have always lived the lake winding in 
 and out of headlands, the high road shaded by sycamores 
 at one spot, a little farther on wandering like a gray 
 thread among barren lands, with here and there a vil- 
 lage, and I make application of all the suggestions your 
 letters contain to my own case. Every house in Garra- 
 nard I know, and I see each gable end and each doorway 
 as I sit thinking, and all the faces of my parishioners. 
 I see lights springing up far and near. Wherever there 
 
 139
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 is a light, there is a poor family. Upon these people I 
 am dependent for my daily bread, and they are dependent 
 upon me for spiritual consolation. I baptize them, I 
 marry them, and I bury them. How they think of me 
 I know not. I suppose they hardly think at all. When 
 they return home at night they have little time for think- 
 ing; their bodies are too fatigued with the labor of the 
 fields. But as I sit thinking of them, I regret to say that 
 my fear often is that I shall never see any human beings 
 but them; and I dream of long rambles in the French 
 country, resting at towns, reading in libraries. A voice 
 whispers, ' You could do very well with a little of her 
 life, but you will never know any other life but your 
 present one.' A great bitterness comes up, a little 
 madness gathers behind the eyes; I walk about the 
 room, and then I sit down stunned by the sudden con- 
 viction that life is, after all, a very squalid thing some- 
 thing that I would like to kick like an old hat down a 
 road. 
 
 " The conflict going on within me goes on within 
 every man, but without this conflict life would be super- 
 ficial; we shouldn't know the deeper life. Duty has its 
 rewards as well as its pain, and the knowledge that I am 
 passing through a time of probationship sustains me. I 
 know I shall come out of it all a stronger man. But in 
 addition to the fact that I am passing through a very 
 trying time of life, accident has thrown upon my shoul- 
 ders an exceptional burden. You see, I was guilty of a 
 great error of judgment. Ah, yes, and this takes me 
 back to the beginning again. I drove you out of the 
 
 140
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 parish. If it hadn't been for me you never would have 
 known Mr. Ellis, and without wishing to accuse him of 
 deliberately setting himself to destroy your faith, there 
 can be no doubt that you are living in an essentially un- 
 christian atmosphere. I cannot disguise from myself 
 the fact that if you lose your soul God will hold me re- 
 sponsible, and think of what this means to one who still 
 holds by the Christian faith. 
 
 " In your letter you defend yourself, using very spe- 
 cious arguments to show that to remain Mr. Ellis's sec- 
 retary is not beset with danger. I don't know if the 
 arguments are yours or Mr. Ellis's. Possibly they are 
 Mr. Ellis's, and I can imagine him priding himself upon 
 this phrase, ' that though history owes nothing to the- 
 ology, theology owes a great deal to history.' A neat 
 phrase, but a neat phrase does not settle anything, and 
 the matter in dispute turns on this point: With what in- 
 tention is the search being conducted? Of course, we 
 hear a great deal about impartial pursuit of knowledge, 
 but is anything impartial in this world? Will Mr. Ellis 
 deny that the upsetting of received opinions is not an in- 
 centive to the pursuit of knowledge? Are not received 
 opinions the quarry, and are not jubilant horns sounded 
 when a sudden hound brings the quarry to bay, though 
 the embaying endures but a moment? There is no such 
 thing as an impartial search, perhaps not on our side any 
 more than on yours. You see, I have said on yours. 
 The words came up, and I wrote them without thinking, 
 prompted by my instinct, knowing through it that though 
 to-day you flatter yourself that you are merely acquiring 
 10 141
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 knowledge without drawing conclusions, the day will 
 come when you will find yourself looking upon all that 
 you once held sacred and divine as the childish efforts of 
 a primitive age to explain the enigma of life. We must 
 either believe or disbelieve. There is no middle state, 
 and the indifference on which you flatter yourself to-day 
 will pass into unbelief. I foresee the day when you will 
 take up your pen to write to me, and lay it down, saying, 
 ' Why should I write? What have I got to write about? 
 Poor man! he is but a survival of the world's childhood.' 
 You will certainly come to think like this if you remain 
 Mr. Ellis's secretary, and you will continue to think like 
 this as long as you have got good health. You are going 
 abroad to visit museums, to read books, to hear music, to 
 meet learned men, but the day will come when these 
 things will cease to interest you. Then religion will come 
 to you, take you by the hand, and lead you all the way 
 back, just as a child is led by its mother." 
 
 The room had gradually darkened; he could hardly 
 see what he was writing, and the silence was so intense 
 that it caught his ear, and^ going to the window, he longed 
 for something to break it, and was glad when the rain 
 pattered among the leaves. The trees stood stark 
 against the sky; their green was unnatural; they seemed 
 like things that had changed color through fear. The 
 sheep moved toward the sycamores, and from all sides 
 came the lowing of cattle. A flash drove him back from 
 the window. He thought he was blinded. The thunder 
 rattled; it was as if a God had taken the mountains and 
 
 142
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 was shaking them together. Crash followed crash, the 
 rain came down ; it was as if the rivers of heaven had been 
 opened suddenly. Once he thought the storm was over: 
 but the thunder crashed again, the rain began to thicken ; 
 there was another flash and another crash, and the pour 
 began again. But all the while the storm was wearing 
 itself out, and he began to wonder if a sullen day, ending 
 in this apocalypse, would pass into a cheerful evening. 
 It seemed as if it would, for a little space of blue had 
 begun to appear between the drifting clouds; veils of 
 vapor were drifting westward, threatening every moment 
 to blot out the blue space, but the clouds continued to 
 brighten at the edges. " The beginning of the sunset," 
 the priest said; and he went out on his lawn and stood 
 watching the swallows in the shining air, their dipping, 
 swerving flight showing against a background of dappled 
 clouds. Never had he known so extraordinary a change, 
 and he walked to and fro in the refreshened air, in the 
 clear and exhilarating evening, thinking that, after all, 
 he had much to be thankful for. Rose was never very 
 strong. Her health would not have lasted trudging from 
 street to street, teaching the piano at two shillings an 
 hour, returning home late at night to a poky little lodg- 
 ing, eating any fobd a landlady might choose to give her. 
 So perhaps it was as well that she had met Mr. Ellis. 
 She would have had great difficulty in supporting herself 
 and her baby. He was moved to think of her child, and 
 it pleased him to imagine it as very like its mother. No 
 doubt it had fair hair. He would like to see her child if 
 he went to London. She would probably be anxious
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 about it. And going into the house, he added this 
 paragraph : 
 
 " I was interrupted while writing this letter by a sud- 
 den darkening of the light, and when I went to the win- 
 dow the sky seemed to have sunk close to the earth, and 
 there was a dreadful silence underneath it. I was driven 
 back by a flash of lightning, and the thunder was terrify- 
 ing. A most extraordinary storm. When the rain 
 ceased I went out, and it was a pleasure to see the change 
 the lake mysteriously shrouded in mist, the ducks talk- 
 ing softly in the reeds, and the swallows high up, ad- 
 vancing in groups like dancers on a background of dap- 
 pled clouds. 
 
 " I have come back to add a few more lines to my let- 
 ter. I feel I have lived too long by this lake's side, and 
 I am thinking of going to London. All you have said 
 about Father O'Grady has interested me very much; I 
 long to make his acquaintance. I suppose it was he who 
 baptized your child. You have never written to me a 
 word on this subject ; I do not know if your baby is alive. 
 If I go to London, would you like me to go to see your 
 baby? Father O'Grady and I will go together to see the 
 child, and I will write to you about her. You will be 
 glad, no doubt, to hear that she is going on well. 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 "OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P." 
 
 144
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 
 "August 1 6, 19. 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear friend, but I am compelled to 
 write to apologize for the introduction of my troubles of 
 conscience and my anxiety for your spiritual welfare into 
 my last letter. You found a way out of difficulties diffi- 
 culties into which I plunged you. But we will say no 
 more on that point; enough has been said. You have 
 created a life for yourself. You have shown yourself to 
 be a strong woman in more ways than one, and are en- 
 titled to judge whether your work and the ideas you live 
 among are likely to prove prejudicial to your faith and 
 morals. Only such an exceptional woman as you cer- 
 tainly are would have been able to forgive me ; and I have 
 often run over in my mind the mean, sordid little letter, 
 full of hatred, that the ordinary woman would have sent 
 to me, and how falsely she would have represented me 
 to Father O'Grady. 
 
 " By a virtue of forgiveness, which I admire and thank 
 you for, you write telling me of the literary work you are 
 engaged upon. If I had thought sufficiently before writ- 
 ing the letter I arri now apologizing for, I could not have 
 failed to see that you write to me because you would 
 relieve my loneliness as far as you are able. But I did 
 not think sufficiently: I yielded to my mood. I see now 
 that the letters I send you are disgracefully egotistical, 
 and very often absurd ; for do I not beg of you to remem- 
 ber that since God will hold me responsible for your 
 
 US
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 soul it would be well that you should live a life of vir- 
 tue and renunciation, in order that I shall be saved the 
 humiliation of looking down from above upon you in 
 hell? 
 
 " Loneliness begets sleeplessness, and sleeplessness 
 begets a sort of madness. I suffer from nightmare, and 
 I cannot find words to tell you how terrible are the vi- 
 sions one sees at dawn. It is not so much that one sees 
 unpleasant and ugly things life is not always pretty or 
 agreeable, that we know but, when one lies between 
 sleeping and waking, life itself is presented to one in the 
 most horrible and mean aspects, and it is whispered that 
 one has been duped till now; that now, and for the first 
 time, one knows the truth. You know how the wind 
 wails about the hilltop on which I live; I think the con- 
 stant wail of the wind has something to do with my con- 
 dition of mind. One cannot sit from eight o'clock in the 
 evening till twelve at night staring at the lamp, hearing 
 the wind, and remain perfectly sane. 
 
 " But what is it to you that I suffer from nerves ? 
 Perhaps I shall be making amends for these explanations 
 by telling you that I derived great benefit from your let- 
 ter. And a sentence I had overlooked is the cause of my 
 present happiness. You reminded me in your last letter 
 that we used to talk together of medieval Ireland, about 
 the lake and its castles; you even remembered that, 
 though I had lived near it, I had never visited Church 
 Island. So I resolved to repair at once this extraor- 
 dinary omission. If there had been a boat here I should 
 have rowed myself through the strait and along the 
 
 146
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 shores, seeing Castle Carra and Castle Burke as I passed. 
 But Church Island is nearly eight miles from here, and I 
 don't know if I should have been man enough to pull the 
 fisherman's boat so far. His boat is always away at Tin- 
 nick, so I put the gray horse into the shafts and went 
 round by road. 
 
 " Church Island lies in a bay under a rocky shore. 
 A farmer cuts grass there in the summer-time; he has a 
 boat to bring away the hay, and it was quite a special ex- 
 citement to get into it, and as the oars chimed I said to 
 myself, ' To-day I shall see where the poet hermit lived/ 
 for I had his poem in my pocket, and I said, ' I will read 
 it walking up the little path leading from his cell to his 
 church.' The lake was like a sheet of blue glass, the sky 
 was paler blue overhead, and the island lay yellow and 
 red in the blue lake. As we passed, seeking a landing 
 place, the smell of the autumn leaves mingled with the 
 freshness of the water. Tall trees grow along its shores, 
 their branches reflected in the lake. Up a beautiful little 
 inlet overhung with bushes we went. The quay is at the 
 end of it. 
 
 " On getting out of the boat I asked the boatman to 
 point out to me what remained of Marban's church, and 
 he led me across -the island. I was surprised at the size 
 of this. It is the largest in the lake not less than six or 
 seven acres, and no doubt some parts of it were once cul- 
 tivated by Marban. But very little remains of his church 
 only one piece of wall, and we had great difficulty in 
 seeing it, for it is now surrounded by a dense thicket. 
 The little pathway, however, leading from his cell to the 
 
 147
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 church still exists; it is almost the same as he left it a 
 little overgrown, that is all. 
 
 " Marban was no ordinary hermit ; he was a sympa- 
 thetic naturalist, a true poet, and his brother who came to 
 see him, and whose visit gave rise to the colloquy, was a 
 king. I hope I am not wronging Marban, but the island 
 is so beautiful that I cannot help thinking that he was 
 attracted by its beauty he went there because he loved 
 Nature as well as God. His poem is full of charming 
 observations of Nature, of birds and beasts and trees, and 
 it proves how very false the general idea is that primitive 
 man had no eyes to see the beauties of the forest and 
 felt no interest in the habits of animals or of birds, but 
 regarded them merely as food. It pleases me to think 
 of the hermit sitting under the walls of his church or by 
 his cell writing the poem which has given me so much 
 pleasure, including in it all the little lives that came to 
 visit him the birds and the beasts; enumerating them 
 as carefully as Wordsworth would, and loving them as 
 tenderly. Marban! Could one find a more beautiful 
 name for a hermit? Guaire is the brother's name. Mar- 
 ban and King Guaire. ^Now, imagine the two brothers 
 meeting for a poetic disputation regarding the value of 
 life, and each speaking from his different point of view! 
 True, that Guaire's point of view is only just indicated 
 he listens to his brother, for a hermit's view of life is 
 more interesting than a king's. It pleases me to think 
 that the day the twain met to discourse of life and its mis- 
 sion was the counterpart of the day I spent on the island. 
 It was full of drifting cloud and sunshine, and the lake lay 
 
 148
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 like a mirror reflecting the red shadow of the island. It 
 seemed to me that the reasons Marban gave for living 
 there in preference to living the life of the world are 
 valid, and I could not help peering into the bushes, trying 
 to find a rowan tree, for he speaks of one. The rowan 
 is the mountain ash. I found several, one beautiful tree 
 covered with red berries, and I broke off a branch and 
 brought it home, thinking that perchance it might be 
 descended from the one planted by Marban's hand. Of 
 blackthorns there are plenty. The adjective he uses is 
 ' dusky.' Could he have chosen a more appropriate one? 
 I thought, too, of ' the clutch of eggs, the honey and the 
 mast that God sent him, of the sweet apples and red 
 whortleberries, and of his dish of strawberries of good 
 taste and color.' 
 
 " It is impossible to give an idea in an English transla- 
 tion of the richness of the verse, heavily rhymed and 
 beautifully alliterated, but you will see that he enumer- 
 ates the natural objects with skill. The eternal sum- 
 mer the same in his day as in ours he speaks of as ' a 
 colored mantle/ and he speaks of 'the fragrance of the 
 woods.' And seeing the crisp leaves, for the summer 
 was waning, I repeated his phrase, ' the summer's colored 
 mantle,' and I remembered that when Guaire reminded 
 his brother that he was without music, Marban answered : 
 
 ' Swarms of bees and chafers, the little musicians of the world, 
 A gentle chorus.' 
 
 ' The wren,' he says, ' is an active songster among the 
 hazel boughs. Beautifully hooded birds, woodpeckers, 
 
 149
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 fair white birds, herons, seagulls, come to visit me/ 
 There is no mournful music in his island; and as for 
 loneliness, there is no such thing in 
 
 ' My lowly little abode, hidden in a mane of green-barked yew 
 
 tree. 
 
 Near is an apple tree, 
 Big like a hostel ; 
 A pretty bush, thick as a fist of hazelnuts ; a choice spring, and 
 
 water fit for a prince to drink. 
 Round it tame swine lie down, 
 Wild swine, grazing deer, 
 A badger's brood, 
 
 A peaceful troop, a heavy host of denizens of the soil 
 A-trysting at my house. 
 To meet them foxes come. 
 How delightful ! ' 
 
 " The island is about a hundred yards from the shore, 
 and I wondered how the animals crossed from the main- 
 land as I sat under the porch of the ruined church. I 
 suppose the water was shallower than it is now. But 
 why and how the foxes came to meet the wild swine is 
 a matter of little moment; suffice it that he lived in this 
 island aware of its loneliness, ' without the din of strife, 
 grateful to the Prince who giveth every good to me in 
 my bower.' And Guaire answered: 
 
 ' I would give my glorious kingship 
 With my share of our father's heritage 
 To the hour of my death let me forfeit it 
 So that I may be in thy company, O Marban.' 
 
 " There are many such beautiful poems in early Irish. 
 I know of another, and I'll send it to you one of these 
 
 150
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 days. In it a monk describes how he and his cat sit 
 together, himself puzzling out some literary or historical 
 problem, the cat thinking of hunting mice, and how the 
 taste of each is difficult and requires much patience. 
 
 " Ireland had certainly attained to a high degree of 
 civilization in the seventh and eighth centuries, and if 
 the Danes had not come and interrupted the renaissance 
 the first of all the renaissances Ireland might have 
 rivaled Italy. The poems I speak of are more beautiful 
 than any that were written in Europe at that time, 
 whether we search Italy or France or England. I never 
 read poems I like better. I like them much better than 
 the bardic tales, senseless in descriptions of slaughter. 
 
 " I write these things to you because I wish you to 
 remember that, when religion is represented as hard and 
 austere, it is the fault of those who administer religion, 
 and not of religion itself. Religion in Ireland in the 
 seventh and eighth centuries was clearly a homely thing, 
 full of tender joy and hope, and the inspiration not only 
 of poems, but of many churches and much ornament of 
 all kinds, illuminated missals, carven porches. If Ireland 
 had been left to herself if it had not been for the inva- 
 sion of the Danes, and the still worse invasion of the 
 English there is no saying what high place she might 
 not have taken in the history of the world. But I am 
 afraid the halcyon light that paused and passed on in 
 those centuries will never return. We have gotten the 
 afterglow, and the past should incite us, and I am much 
 obliged to you for reminding me that the history of the 
 lake and its castles would make an interesting book. I
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 will try to write this book: I shall look forward to the 
 day when I shall send you a copy of the work, if God 
 gives me strength and patience to complete it. Little 
 is ever completed in Ireland. . . . But I mustn't begin 
 to doubt before I begin the work, and while you and 
 Mr. Ellis are studying dry texts, trying to prove that 
 the things that men have believed and loved for centuries 
 are false, I shall be engaged in writing a sympathetic 
 history the history of natural things and natural love. 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P."
 
 IX 
 
 From Miss Rose Leicester to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 "HOTEL BELVIDERE, MUNICH, 
 "September 2, 19 . 
 
 I AM glad my letters interest you; if I didn't think 
 they did, I shouldn't be able to write any more. 
 And that would be a pity, especially now I am 
 traveling. This journey means a great deal to me: it is 
 a thing that may never happen again in my life, and if 
 I don't write down my impressions they will pass away 
 like the clouds. However intense our feelings may be 
 at the time, a few hours obliterate a good deal, and at 
 the end of a fortnight nearly everything but the facts are 
 forgotten. I discovered this yesterday as I sat thinking, 
 trying to remember something that had been said on a 
 balcony overlooking the Rhine. That I could not recol- 
 lect what Mr. Ellis had said frightened me, not because 
 what he had said was of any importance or of any par- 
 ticular interest, but because rny forgetfulness assured me 
 that I had only to wait a little while for everything to 
 become dim. ' Those days in Holland,' I said, ' at 
 present as distinct in my mind as any one of the pictures 
 I admired, will fade away.' I asked myself if I had 
 forgotten our journey from London from the time we 
 left Charing Cross till we got to Norwich, and to my 
 
 153
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 great disappointment I found that very little remained. 
 Of our journey to the coast I only remembered that I 
 had sat at the window thinking the sunset very beautiful, 
 saying to myself, * I shall never forget what I am think- 
 ing and feeling now.' Everything grew more and more 
 wonderful as we passed into the country, and I became 
 entirely aware of myself. Edith was reading a novel, 
 Mr. Ellis was turning over the pages of the evening 
 paper, and I didn't wish my admiration of the sunset to 
 be interrupted by any word. 
 
 " The world has seen many sunsets, but every one 
 is wonderful to him or her whose life is at crisis. And 
 wasn't my life at crisis? Such peaceful shadows, such 
 hallowed lights ! My mood was exalted, as well it might 
 be, for was not my dream coming true? Was I not 
 going abroad with Mr. Ellis and his daughter on a 
 journey of art and literature, going to travel through 
 many countries Holland, Belgium, and Germany to 
 stop at various cities, to meet distinguished men? My 
 head was filled with thoughts about life and the wonder 
 of life; I should have written down my thoughts they 
 were worth writing down but I neglected to do so, and 
 they are gone forever. I might easily have done so when 
 we got on board the boat. 
 
 " I told you in a former letter that Mr. Ellis's descrip- 
 tions of the desert were written in his tent every night 
 before going to sleep. So I might have known that I 
 should forget; but the experience of others teaches us 
 nothing. I lacked courage to separate myself from my 
 companions; a great deal of courage would have been 
 
 154
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 required to have gone down into a stuffy cabin to take 
 notes. For the evening was beautiful and calm, and I 
 wanted to admire the eastern coast, its low sand dunes 
 running into headlands, and the sea spreading to the 
 horizon pale and gray, and so still that I had to compare 
 it to the floor of a ballroom ; the stars were like candles, 
 and the moon like a great lamp. Presently a little mist 
 gathered on the water, and no sound was heard except 
 the churning of the paddle wheels. I feared seasickness, 
 for Edith had told me how ill she once was crossing from 
 Calais to Dover ; but there was no danger of seasickness, 
 and we stood looking over the bulwarks seeing the white 
 track of the vessel disappearing behind us. We heard 
 the captain cry ' Starboard ! ' to the helmsman, and the 
 ship veered a little. 
 
 " Edith and I lay down on a bench, and Mr. Ellis 
 came up from the cabin with rugs and tucked them about 
 us. He was very kind. We slept a little, but my sleep 
 was lighter than Edith's, and in a couple of hours I got 
 up without waking her. The vessel excited my curiosity, 
 and I wandered about, vaguely interested in the sailors, 
 trying to think, unable to do so, for my mind was tired, 
 and refused to receive any further impressions. That 
 was the time I should have gone down to the cabin to 
 write ; but Mr. Ellis came by, and we stood leaning over 
 the bulwarks. There are times when he will not talk at 
 all, and one wonders what he is thinking about. I tried 
 to speak to him about his book, but he didn't seem in 
 the humor to talk about it. So I went back and lay down 
 beside Edith. She was sleeping deeply: but I couldn't 
 
 155
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 sleep at all, and after awhile I got up. This time it 
 seemed as if we were close to the land ; and so numerous 
 were the lights on our starboard bow that I thought we 
 were passing by some town. Mr. Ellis said he thought 
 they were the lights of a fleet of fishing boats. He asked 
 one of the sailors, but he couldn't make him understand, 
 for the sailor was a Hollander. I begged Mr. Ellis, who 
 speaks a little Dutch, to try to make him understand. 
 I wanted to hear the strange language ; for it would make 
 me feel I was going to countries where English wasn't 
 spoken, and where everybody thought differently from 
 what they do in England and in Ireland. 
 
 " The conversation between Mr. Ellis and the Hol- 
 lander didn't seem to progress toward information 
 regarding the lights on the starboard bow, and during 
 the whole of it we did not seem to get away from them. 
 I suppose Mr. Ellis must have misunderstood the sailor, 
 or the sailor must have misunderstood him; we must 
 have been steaming all the while along the shore. And 
 this might well have been the case, for Holland is only 
 a few feet above the level of the sea. Later on we 
 learnt this time from an English sailor that we were 
 off the coast, and were steaming at half-speed on account 
 of the mist. The fog horn sounded continuously; the 
 ship's course was changed many times. It appears that 
 the navigation of this coast is very difficult. The 
 entrance to the harbor loomed up suddenly, and we 
 admired the way in which the vessel was steered. I am 
 sorry I didn't take a few notes, for the scene was very 
 impressive. All I can remember of it now is that the 
 
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 vessel veered many times, and that the day broke slowly. 
 Of course the vessel veered, and of course the day broke 
 slowly, and the dawn is silent and melancholy as a 
 shroud; everyone knows that. But there is much else 
 how the light changes, and the town emerges out of 
 shadow. One should write 'down one's impressions at 
 once, as Mr. Ellis did. 
 
 " The journey from Flushing to The Hague is only 
 a little way ; and what shall I tell you about The Hague ? 
 I only remember one thing clearly a portrait by Rubens ; 
 I half remember a portrait by Vandyke. These two por- 
 traits have been hung together, side by side, no doubt 
 with a view to enabling the visitor to see the two painters 
 in all their qualities. Vandyke was Rubens's pupil, and 
 at first sight Vandyke's portrait seems the better; for it 
 is more natural, more like a photograph, and I said : ' I 
 like the Vandyke best.' Mr. Ellis said : ' Do you know, 
 I think I do, too; ' but as we stood looking at the pictures 
 I saw he was beginning to regret his words, and as the 
 thought passed through my mind he said : ' We have 
 said a very stupid thing. The reason why we preferred 
 the Vandyke is because the smaller mind always attracts 
 us first. Look at them. How much nobler is the 
 Rubens ! Vandyke-'s mind was that of a lackey. Rubens's 
 mind was more lordly than any lord's, unless that lord 
 were Shakespeare.' 
 
 " And no sooner had he spoken than I began to 
 
 realize the nobility of Rubens's mind. The women Rubens 
 
 chose to paint are what are known as fat women, and 
 
 therefore to many Rubens is a vulgar painter. But a 
 
 11 157
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 loftier vision was never bestowed on man. Rubens's 
 women are beautiful, but they are not what the man in 
 the street regards as a pretty woman. They are his own 
 women, and they are women not creatures without 
 beards or mustaches. And he praises us all the while 
 in his own benign fashion. Painters are never more 
 sympathetic than when they are praising women, for 
 man's thoughts about woman are perhaps his most inti- 
 mate thoughts, and spring from the very depths of his 
 nature. 
 
 " We stood looking at this picture for a long time, 
 and we returned to it many times, and every moment 
 I seemed to see more and more clearly that this was the 
 type of woman that corresponded to Rubens's inward 
 vision. Great men bring a vision into the world with 
 them; they are not distracted by passing things like 
 inferior men; and large, fair women, fair as roses, with 
 pale gold hair and blue eyes and white curved hands 
 Rubens liked curved hands and almond nails, rose- 
 colored were the symbols through which his mind 
 found continual expression. I feel sure that if his model 
 had been a thin, dark woman, as she must sometimes have 
 been, he would have gradually transformed her till she 
 corresponded in some measure with his idea: it could not 
 be otherwise, for Rubens wasn't a photographer. 
 
 " Looking at the picture, seeing nothing but a large, 
 fair woman, fair as a tea rose, the superficial will say, 
 ' a gross sensualist ' ; but the great man always presents 
 his work in a form which deceives the public, and under- 
 lying the voluptuous exterior there is a sadness in 
 
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 Rubens which only the attentive mind perceives. I tried 
 to get Mr. Ellis to talk about this picture in the train, 
 and he told me the picture was a portrait of Helena Four- 
 ment, Rubens's second wife, a girl whom he had married 
 late in life, many years after the death of Isabelle 
 Brandes. Mr. Ellis thinks he was drawn to her by the 
 likeness she presents to his first wife. That was all he 
 would say. He lapsed into silence ; I couldn't get another 
 word from him, and we were close to Amsterdam when 
 he took out his pocketbook. After writing these verses, 
 he handed them to me : 
 
 ' Pleine de grace et de paleur 
 Elle vit ainsi qu'une fleur, 
 Evoquant une fraiche odeur 
 Par la transparente couleur. 
 
 4 Neanmoins pour toute zhne humaine, 
 Sa vie inconsciente et saine 
 Est bien 1'apparence certaine 
 De la vie ephemere et vaine.' 
 
 " You will wonder why Mr. Ellis should write French 
 poetry instead of English. I asked him, and he told me 
 that to write mediocre English poetry is unpardonable, 
 whereas he who loves verse and is not a great poet may 
 write in French, just as a nobleman may indulge in 
 private theatricals, but should refrain from the public 
 stage. 
 
 " ' French poetry is a pretty way of passing the time 
 in the train,' he said. 
 
 " ' A pretty way for you/ I answered, ' but not a 
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 pretty way for your companion; for I am really tired of 
 studying drainage.' 
 
 " At first he did not understand, and I added, ' Look 
 out.' We were passing through flat fields intersected with 
 many drains, not the little drains that one sees in Ireland, 
 but great deep drains representing extraordinary industry 
 and perseverance. 
 
 " ' These drains/ I said, ' must have taken weeks and 
 months to dig, and must give the farmers a great deal 
 of trouble to keep free from weed. I should go mad if 
 I were to live here. I like hill and dale. Just fancy walk- 
 ing for miles and never seeing a valley or a hilltop ! ' 
 
 " ' Holland is a swamp/ he answered ; and at that 
 moment we passed a field flat as a billiard table with six 
 drains in it, and this field was followed by another with 
 six more drains. But the Dutch painters, every one but 
 two, seem to have loved their country. Every one seems 
 to have rejoiced in his country's platitude, topographical 
 and domestic; so far as I remember, all the pictures we 
 saw are about eating and drinking, especially drinking: 
 coarse tavern revels, servant girls dancing, and the like. 
 Only two painters seem to have escaped the influence of 
 their surroundings: Rembrandt and Ruysdael. Rem- 
 brandt I shall admire some other time; this time I had 
 very little thought for anyone but Ruysdael. We saw two 
 pictures by him in Amsterdam. One of them I shall 
 never forget : a wild hillside, unreclaimed and unreclaim- 
 able nature; only a woodman dwells there. Some poor 
 fellow, half man, half beast, has built himself a sheiling 
 among the rocks. The roof shows against a gray sky 
 
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 deeper and soberer than any Irish sky a real Protestant 
 sky. Ruysdael must have been a Protestant. His pic- 
 tures are even Calvinistic, or perhaps I should be nearer 
 the truth if I said he was a great pessimist, attached to 
 no particular doctrine. He reminds Mr. Ellis more of 
 Spinoza than of Milton. I have not yet begun to read 
 Spinoza, but I have read a little of ' Paradise Lost,' and 
 it never interested me at all, whereas Ruysdael interested 
 me. I seem to have known him in some previous exist- 
 ence, so clear is my conception of this moody man, whom 
 I see wandering by himself in lonely places, in sparsely 
 populated districts, sometimes miles and miles away from 
 human habitation, speaking to no one except, perhaps, a 
 charcoal burner, in whose hut he lies down at night. At 
 daybreak I see him wandering away by himself, con- 
 tinually making drawings. But where did he find the 
 scenes he painted? Not in Holland, surely. There are 
 no waterfalls nor mountains in Holland, nor, so far as 
 I know, a forest; not a single rough wood did we see. 
 He must have gone to Norway to paint. 
 
 " It appears that nothing is known about him except 
 the dates of his birth and death. Berghem and Dujardin 
 painted figures into his pictures, so he must have been 
 the friend of these painters, and I can imagine his face 
 lighting up when he saw them. I can imagine their talks ; 
 sometimes their talk was pleasant, and anecdotes were 
 told or hinted at, but no one could have dared to speak 
 very openly of light things in Ruysdael's presence. But 
 what I can imagine most distinctly of all is his good-by. 
 When he bade them good-by his original nature, for- 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 gotten for a time, returned to him, a sadness came into 
 his voice. I am sure his good-by was a sad one; I am 
 sure it resembled an amen. ' So be it, so much life is over 
 and done with.' 
 
 " I said just now that he probably went to Norway 
 to paint. However this may be, he seems to have dis- 
 liked the Dutch country as much as I do. But if I dis- 
 liked the Dutch country as much as he, I love the Dutch 
 towns as much as any one of the painters, not excepting 
 Van de Meer, who, I feel, must have loved them very 
 much. I remember one street, just the street that Van 
 de Meer's studio window should have looked out on. 
 Edith and I used to sit there on a bench watching the 
 pretty morning sunlight, and the little breezes lifting the 
 foliage of the trees. It was a broad street, and, I need 
 not say, it was level. You must remember that every- 
 thing is level in Holland. The houses are low, and they 
 have nice shutters and doorways; and what makes the 
 street so attractive are the dog carts. Carts drawn by 
 dogs were always going by, and wagons drawn by oxen. 
 Life seems more docile and quiet in Holland than else- 
 where, and for this reason I like Holland, and I think 
 I shall always remember this street. The great Pro- 
 fessor lives in a little house at the end of it, with 
 
 one servant, and when we went to see him I watched 
 her peeling onions in the courtyard, and I thought of the 
 
 pictures we had seen in the galleries. Professor is 
 
 a nice old man, short and fat, and he wore a red dressing 
 gown. His furniture was the same as one sees in hotels 
 sofas and chairs covered with plush, and everywhere 
 
 162
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 there were books and manuscripts. I think there were 
 more reviews than newspapers. I don't think I ever 
 saw so many reviews ; every corner was rilled with them. 
 He and Mr. Ellis talked in French, so it was difficult for 
 me to follow the conversation. I heard, however, the 
 names of my good friends, Jeremiah and Hosea and 
 Amos. Esdras came in for a good deal of criticism, that 
 I know, for Mr. Ellis dictated to me the professor's 
 views on the worthy Esdras, and these views, it appears, 
 are most important. 
 
 " When we got out of the house he explained to me 
 what these views were. But I have got so much else to 
 tell you that we will omit Esdras from this letter. 
 I might very well omit the mention of the two pic- 
 tures that hung on the professor's walls, but they inter- 
 ested me, so I will tell you that they were two portraits 
 painted by Angelica Kauffmann. Now, I wonder how 
 these two portraits of pretty women ever found their way 
 into the professor's house? Did the professor ever care 
 for pretty women, I wonder? And I suppose I shall go 
 on wondering, for my curiosity on this point is not likely 
 to be satisfied. 
 
 " From Amsterdam we went to Haarlem to see Hals's 
 pictures, and we saw some six or seven, each thirty feet 
 long by twenty feet high. Burgomasters in profile, burgo- 
 masters in full face, burgomasters in three-quarter face. 
 There are about thirty in each picture, and that would 
 make 180 heads, 360 hands well, perhaps not quite so 
 many, perhaps all the hands are not shown. I cannot tell 
 you how many faultlessly painted swordhilts and scarfs 
 
 163
 
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 these pictures contain ; but faultless painting wearies one. 
 Everything is so perfect that the pictures lack humanity. 
 They seem a little mechanical. Mr. Ellis calls Hals the 
 maitre d'armes of painting, and I do not think the com- 
 parison is unappropriate. He is the undefeated maitre 
 d'armes, he whose wrist never slackens, over whose guard 
 a thrust never comes. This is Mr. Ellis's picturesque way 
 of expressing himself. I think a somewhat plainer com- 
 parison would help you to understand why I don't seem 
 to like these pictures. I cannot admire thirty heads all 
 a-row. Pictures of this kind reminded me too much of 
 the inside of omnibuses. But his picture of the old 
 women, a picture painted when he was eighty, is quite 
 different. It is full of emotion and beauty. Hals seems 
 to have grown tender and sentimental in his old age, or 
 was it that he merely painted these old women to please 
 himself, whereas he painted the burgomasters at so much 
 a head? There is no suspicion of the omnibus in the 
 picture of the old women. He saw them together in the 
 almshouse; they made a group, a harmony, and he was 
 moved by the spectacle of the poor old women, fading 
 like flowers, having only^a few years to live old women 
 in their last shelter, an almshouse. He was at that time 
 as old as any of his sitters, and the picture of the old 
 men which he began immediately after was never 
 finished. I suppose that one morning he felt unable to 
 paint ; he grew fainter and died. 
 
 " When one has seen Hals there is nothing else to 
 see in Haarlem. One walks about until the train comes 
 to take one away. That I did not take a note of the 
 
 164
 
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 weariness I experienced during one dusty afternoon is 
 not a matter for regret. I recollect the afternoon suffi- 
 ciently well the walk along the dusty roads by little 
 woods dusty as the roads, and the tea we had at a very 
 uncomfortable hotel in a barren room. There seemed to 
 be no one in the hotel except the proprietor, and he 
 cheated us, charging two shillings for a cup of tea, which 
 made Mr. Ellis very angry. The railways in Holland are 
 small, or they seem small, and the miserable Dutch land- 
 scape irritated me. Hour after hour I sat looking at flat 
 fields. Sometimes I counted the number of drains in each 
 field. I don't know what the others did ; they sat in the 
 corner of the carriage. We had been together since early 
 morning, and were a little tired of each other. I don't 
 think any of us had anything to say. You can hardly be- 
 lieve that I had nothing to say. Well, believe it or not, 
 as you like, but I didn't speak a word, and when I don't 
 speak I always feel cross. 
 
 " We left Haarlem by the four o'clock train, and I felt 
 grateful when night came and blotted the landscape out. 
 The train seemed as if it were going to wriggle on for- 
 ever; it wriggled into and out of many a little station, 
 and we were so hot in our first-class carriage that we got 
 into a third. The" change was a pleasant one. After a 
 time some yokels got in, and they reminded us of the pic- 
 tures we had seen. But one can't go on considering yokels 
 forever, and at last, unable to contain myself, I said: 
 
 " ' Now, what are you thinking of, Mr. Ellis ? Do 
 you know you haven't spoken to me for two hours ? Are 
 you composing a new French poem ? ' 
 
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 " ' Well, no ; not exactly. But the rhymes in the 
 second stanza of the little poem I composed in the train 
 coming from The Hague are all adjectival, and in French 
 verse adjectives should rhyme as much as possible with 
 verbs and substantives/ 
 
 " ' Do you think you have improved it ? ' 
 " ' Yes, I think I have. I'll write out the new version.' 
 " And with the gold pencil that always hangs on his 
 chain he wrote : 
 
 ' Dans sa gracieuse paleur 
 Elle vit ainsi qu'une fleur, 
 EVoquant une fraiche odeur 
 Par la transparente couleur. 
 
 ' Loin de 1'Emotion charnelle 
 Rubens, oubliant son module, 
 Pressentit la vie e"ternelle 
 Qui s'encarae un moment en elle. 
 
 ' Sa pense'e est dans cette main, 
 Dans sa pose et dans son dessin 
 Et dans ses yeux pleins du chemin 
 Que traverse le coeur humain. 
 
 ' Ne'anmoins^>our tout ame en peine 
 Que son calme altier rasserdne, 
 Elle est 1'image souveraine 
 De la vie 6phe"mere et vaine.' 
 
 " Next day we went to the cathedral, but we were 
 so conscious of our obligation to admire, and of the 
 gravity of our visit, that we experienced a sense of our 
 unworthiness when we first saw the pictures of the 
 Crucifixion. We wandered from one to the other a little 
 
 166
 
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 disconsolate, shocked to find that they did not seem to 
 us nearly as intense as we had expected. We were glad 
 to get away from both, and we found the ' Coronation 
 of the Virgin/ which, we were told, had been repainted, 
 much more to our taste. But Mr. Ellis does not believe 
 in the story of the repainting, and, while we stood looking 
 at the ' Ascent of the Cross,' he told us that the greatest 
 art critic that ever lived preferred the ' Ascent ' to the 
 ' Descent.' We wondered at his preference, and tried to 
 find a reason for it. It could not be because the paint- 
 ing of the ' Ascent ' seemed to him better than the first. 
 The painting is obviously the same; the pictures differ 
 in conception rather than in execution. Whereas the 
 ' Descent ' is restrained and correct in drawing even to 
 the point of a suspicion of pedantry, the ' Ascent ' is 
 tumultuous in composition, and so deliberately reckless 
 that the scene fails to impress. The Middle Ages repre- 
 sented the scene on Calvary with great realism, but the 
 realism of the Middle Ages was sincere and childlike, 
 quite unlike the calculated realism of Rubens one might 
 almost say purposeful realism ; and the thought came by, 
 whispering in our ears, that the explanation of the differ- 
 ence between the pictures is that Rubens had begun to 
 weary of the echoes of Greece heard in Italy, and that 
 the second picture is his first attempt to return to the 
 primitive art of his own country, to the ages of faith, to 
 the fifteenth century, which in the low country was the 
 equivalent to the fourteenth century in Italy. 
 
 " I am quoting, of course, from Mr. Ellis, but I only 
 quote so far as what he says interests me. I have not 
 
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 been to Italy, and know nothing of Italian art except the 
 pictures I saw in Amsterdam, but I think I understand 
 and feel quite clearly that Mr. Ellis is right when he says 
 that Titian never designed a more beautiful young man 
 than the one who slips, in all the pallor and beauty of 
 death, down the white sheet into the hands of devoted 
 women. The Renaissance made Christ beautiful. It 
 transformed the medieval Victim into a beautiful youth 
 who preached in Galilee, and captivated the imaginations 
 of many holy men and women ; but this Hellenization of 
 Christ for it is that and nothing else, the intention being 
 to draw our attention to bodily perfection rather than to 
 show us a suffering Redeemer is, so says Mr. Ellis, a 
 mistake not only from a religious point of view, but also 
 from a dramatic. For, after all, sincerity counts for a 
 great deal in our enjoyment, and who can say that 
 Rubens is sincere when he is painting a crucifixion? All 
 the while he is trying to escape from his subject; and I'm 
 not nearly sure but he would have been a greater painter 
 if he had never painted Helena Fourment as anything 
 but the mother of his children, or a nymph amid a group 
 of satyrs and fauns, the demi-animality of the vales of 
 Thessaly. As Mr. Ellis said yesterday, supposing the 
 gentle monk of Fiesole had been forced to depict a wood- 
 land revel, with Silenus carried by, drunken, with vine 
 leaves in his hair, he would certainly have failed to con- 
 vey any conceivable idea of the mythology of the woods. 
 We shall never know whether Christ was a beautiful 
 youth who preached about Galilee, or an emaciated ascetic. 
 Very likely He was one and the other at different times 
 
 168
 
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 of His life. Be this as it may, the pictures in which He 
 is represented at Cologne carry more conviction than 
 those of Antwerp the bleeding emaciated Victim is more 
 in the spirit of Christianity. This we can say for cer- 
 tain, that the desire of the Cologne painters was not to 
 escape from the subject, but to approach it and identify 
 themselves with it. 
 
 " My dear Father Gogarty, you must forgive my 
 simplicity of expression. You complained of it in a for- 
 mer letter, and I have been puzzling ever since to know 
 what you meant. So long as I do not say anything 
 against faith and morals, may I not express myself fully 
 and clearly ? Is it not true that the Middle Ages are al- 
 ways considered the ages of faith ? and is it not true that 
 the Middle-Age representations of Christ are not so 
 lovely as the Renaissance ? Will you be shocked if I ask 
 you how it is that the bleeding Victim has been better 
 worshiped than the beautiful young man? And is it 
 wrong for me to ask you why it is that faith goes out of 
 the window when beauty comes in at the door? 
 
 " I am afraid you will consider this last remark un- 
 seemly, but you will forgive me nevertheless. And so 
 that I may not offend your religious sense again, I will 
 tell you no more about pictures. To be quite truthful, 
 I am a little tired of pictures ; we have seen too many, 
 and I was glad to get away from Cologne and to stop at 
 little towns on the Rhine, where there are no pictures 
 only parks and pleasure grounds, with walks winding 
 through woods. In these woods one comes across temples 
 and statues. The features of the nymphs and the fauns 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 are weatherworn,, hardly distinguishable, and I think I 
 like statues better when the hand of man is not apparent 
 upon the stone. We lost ourselves in one of these parks, 
 and were very much afraid we should be captured as 
 trespassers; but we got out without being perceived, 
 across a little wall, and an hour later we were seated on a 
 balcony overlooking the river. A ferryboat moved back- 
 ward and forward in the dusk, across the slow cur- 
 rent. There is something mysterious in a river; not in 
 a babbling river, but in a slow-flowing river. And the 
 Rhine reminds one of Time. How many thousand years 
 has the Rhine flowed ! Just as it flowed the day we were 
 at Bopart it was flowing when Wotan was God, and there 
 were nymphs in the Rhine watching the gold, the innocent 
 gold, that Alberich stole from them and converted into 
 money. One night we sat on a balcony drinking Rhine 
 wine, talking of Siegfried and his joyous horn. It is 
 worth one's while to live in Germany for the sake of the 
 wine, and I'm sure the wine we drank that night was the 
 same as the wine in the goblet out of which Siegfried 
 drank forgetfulness of Brunehild. That dinner I shall 
 never forget. We sat leaning over the dining table watch- 
 ing the Rhine, hearing the Rhine; and when the waiter 
 brought candles and put them upon our table we didn't 
 get up, but we talked on about the various legends, and 
 how they were woven together. Mr. Ellis was the talker, 
 and his narrative was intermingled with anecdotes about 
 the unhappy life of the great man who had woven these 
 stories into drama, and would have written them in words 
 if he had been Shakespeare; but, fortunately, he was 
 
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 not, for the world doesn't want two Shakespeares. Na- 
 ture, as Mr. Ellis says, took pity upon men ; and he made 
 up this little parable on the spot : A good fairy was hid- 
 ing among the flowers in a garden, probably in a lily 
 cup ; and when no one was about, she came into a room 
 where a chfld was sleeping, and she said, ' Thou shalt 
 weave world stories into dramas as beautiful as any man 
 has ever heard.' But there was a bad fairy up the chim- 
 ney who heard the blessing, and, when the good fairy 
 went away, she came down and said, ' I cannot take away 
 my sister's gifts. Thou shalt conceive great dramas, but 
 thou shalt not have the power to write them.' 
 
 " On that the bad fairy went up the chimney, think- 
 ing she had done a very clever thing. But the good 
 fairy, who hadn't yet fallen asleep in the cup of a great 
 lily growing by the window sill, came into the room again, 
 and looked sorrowfully at the cradle, for she knew not 
 how to redeem the child from the curse that had been 
 placed upon him. Suddenly an idea occurred to her. ' I 
 can't take off the curse that has been placed upon thee,' 
 she said. ' Never shalt thou write thy dramas in words, 
 but I will give thee music to write them with.' . . . And 
 that child was Richard Wagner. 
 
 " There was a piano in the room behind the balcony. 
 We went to it. Mr. Ellis plays intelligently. As he puts 
 it himself, he plays sufficiently well to give us a foretaste 
 of the music we were on our way to hear. He played on, 
 sketching for us the most salient things in ' The Ring.' 
 There was something in that night I shall never meet 
 again. On the morrow we hastened away. We were still 
 
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 far from Bayreuth. We stopped at to admire the 
 
 cathedral, and then we started off again. This stage was 
 the last on our journey, for we got a train at Nurem- 
 berg, and Bayreuth is but a couple of hours from 
 Nuremberg, and about three hours from Munich. We 
 heard * The Ring ' at Bayreuth, and we shall hear it 
 again at Munich. It will be as well done at Munich, but 
 I feel sure it will not be the same thing. To hear Wag- 
 ner you must hear him where he chose to be heard, and 
 he knew that one could not hear the ' Dusk of the 
 Gods,' for instance, amid the distractions of a city. One 
 has to leave all things and to follow him to Bayreuth. 
 
 " The town is full of the florid architecture of the 
 eighteenth century, pillared fagades and balconies, and 
 the old streets are paved with the original cobblestones. 
 Millions of feet will pass, bruised and aching, but the 
 cobblestones shall never pass away, and they hurt one's 
 feet terribly. When the midday sun shines they burn 
 through the leather sole. Nevertheless, I would not have 
 these old streets torn up and paved in asphalt or wood. 
 The cobblestones are part of the entertainment. They 
 remind one that one 4ias to suffer for the master's 
 sake. And these streets lead from open space to open 
 space, by red-brick palaces in which dukes once lived. 
 Germany is full of palaces, nearly all of which are empty. 
 One can obtain permission to walk through the rooms, 
 but I don't think that one derives any special benefit from 
 these walks. The pictures are bad and the furniture 
 is clumsy. There is one thing, however, extraordinarily 
 beautiful in Bayreuth, and, like everything else in Bay- 
 
 172
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 reuth, it seems an intrinsic part of an appreciation of 
 Wagner. It is the Court Theater, built for the pleasure 
 of some landgrave, a German prince or duke. I do not 
 know if landgraves existed in the eighteenth century. 
 There is one in ' Tannhauser.' ' Tannhauser ' is tenth 
 century ; but if a landgrave existed in the eighteenth, . I 
 should have liked to have seen him coming to hear a 
 performance in this beautiful theater. Trumpeters would 
 stand on either side on balconies to announce his arrival, 
 and all his little court would be sitting about him in the 
 boxes and the stalls. It would be so different from 
 Wagner every man would wear a sword, and the women 
 would wear brocade and long pointed stays, elaborately 
 stitched. 
 
 " The opera I should like to see performed in this 
 theater would be Gluck's ' Orfeo,' for instance, or per- 
 haps ' Armide,' for Wagner himself rearranged the 
 overture, or did something to this opera. However, he 
 didn't take the theater and try to convert it to his pur- 
 pose, as a lesser man would have done; he admired it, 
 and a great man does not destroy the beautiful works 
 of others in order to make way for his own works. 
 
 " Wagner built his theater in the woods, some one 
 added a restaurant maybe it was himself who built it, 
 for, though he wished the people to come from a dis- 
 tance to hear his operas, he wished them to hear in 
 comfort, and one cannot listen in comfort without food. 
 It is possible to spend the day by the theater, walking 
 in the woods, dining between the acts. An undulating 
 country surrounds the hilltop, and when the sun strikes 
 12 173
 
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 a distant town, the disputants forget their argument, and 
 eyes rejoice in the effect of light. Seeing a peasant 
 driving his plow, one ceases to discuss ' The Valkyrie,' 
 and one wonders which is right the man who drives 
 his plow, or one's self, who has traveled to hear ' The 
 Ring/ knowing it to be the greatest musical work the 
 world has ever known. I said to Mr. Ellis a week ago, 
 as we toiled up a steep part in the woods fir trees stood 
 about us in solemn rows; we had reached the middle of 
 the woods I said : ' But he wrote these things because 
 he was a great genius, and knew nothing of our pains 
 and woes he stood aside, and would not know them. 
 He wrote about love, but he never stooped to such 
 triviality as woman's love. He knew all about it. It was 
 all in his brain, but he never loved.' 
 
 " ' You are mistaken,' Mr. Ellis answered. ' He loved 
 more deeply, and suffered more than any other man, and 
 there will be just time to tell you the story before we get 
 back to the theater.' 
 
 " And as we retraced our steps, walking hastily, for 
 the third act of ' The Valkyrie ' was about to begin, Mr. 
 Ellis told me of the woman who inspired ' Tristan.' I 
 listened breathless, and when the story was finished I said : 
 
 " ' Then nothing is wanting. For once Nature filled 
 up the cup.' 
 
 " Can I tell you of my expectation to hear this opera, 
 written out of the man's own flesh and blood ? And when 
 the second act was over I said to Mr. Ellis : ' It is the 
 man himself. He wrote like this not because he was less 
 human than ourselves, but because he was more human, 
 
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 more capable of suffering.' Mr. Ellis agreed with me in 
 this, saying that, having experienced more intense emo- 
 tions than anyone else. Wagner was able to distill a 
 magical juice out of them, which sinks into the flesh, 
 enters the very current of the blood, transforms, dis- 
 integrates, and produces a sort of syncope. And this 
 is just it. One loses all power of will listening to this 
 music, and the joy of it is an abdication of self. Yet 
 it was written as an assertion of self; it is an extraor- 
 dinary spasm of self-consciousness. I said just now that 
 ' The Ring,' to be appreciated, must be heard in the con- 
 dition that Wagner wished it to be heard in at Bayreuth. 
 But that is not so with ' Tristan.' One can hear it very 
 well in Munich quite as well as at Bayreuth. It is a 
 work suited to the city, full of the -emotions of the city. 
 " To go to Munich we had to go through Nurem- 
 berg, but the journey through Bavaria does not bore one 
 like the journey from Cologne. The railway from 
 Cologne passes through long fields, or, I should say, 
 stretches of country where there are no hedges, and in 
 these fields one sees peasants cutting corn hundreds of 
 yards apart. They seemed very lonely, and I thought 
 how they must suffer from the heat, for there is no hedge 
 where they can lie under. The only variation in the 
 landscape are the pine forests. Pines are very nice 
 among other trees, they are a variety; but imagine if 
 you can the weariness of seeing mile after mile of pine 
 stems, and overhead a cloudless sky. There is no under- 
 wood; nothing grows under pines, and the ground is 
 brown, covered with spiky things that the pine sheds. A 
 
 175
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 circle of shadow gathers round the roots of the pine at 
 midday, and as the sun sets the shadows trickle out. 
 That is all. A rabbit is a pretty thing when one sees 
 one, but when one sees a thousand one gets to hate them. 
 So it is with pines. . . . Bavaria is quite different from 
 the rest of Germany. The landscape takes beautiful 
 shapes, and the shapes of the ground are different from 
 anything one sees in England. Trees climb up the hill- 
 sides in the quaintest way possible, and there are plenty 
 of villages at the foot of the hills. There are villages 
 all the way to Munich, and they seem as if they had been 
 built many hundred years ago. The only thing I don't 
 like about Bavaria is its capital town. Munich is white 
 and ugly, and very hot. There is a river, it is true, but 
 not an interesting river. I prefer the brook that flows 
 through Bayreuth; that brook is brown and pretty, and 
 there are trees about it. But there are only white, ugly 
 buildings about the Munich river, and the color of the 
 water is unpleasant. It is green, and I hate green water. 
 I was told that melted snow makes green water, and this 
 may or may not be true. Everything in Munich is un- 
 pleasant except the music. The picture gallery is most 
 unpleasant. It is full of little side galleries. One is 
 always popping in and out to see something, and in this 
 way one gets tired and loathes pictures. All picture 
 galleries are too long, and I have come to the conclusion 
 that, however beautiful the pictures may be, no gallery 
 ought to exceed a couple of miles. 
 
 " We came here not only to hear ' Tristan,' but to 
 hear Mozart, and last night we all went to hear ' The 
 
 176
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Marriage of Figaro.' I knew nothing of Mozart except 
 his religious music that little Mass for four voices 
 which I used to play in church and an Agnus Dei. Do 
 you remember them ? The first act of ' The Marriage of 
 Figaro ' is the most beautiful and enchanting ever written. 
 Dear little Cherubino! how pretty he was behind the 
 armchair, and how exhilarating Figaro's song telling him 
 he must go to the war and be a soldier ! 
 
 " We met a young Frenchman, Emile Canton, at 
 Bayreuth, and he has come on here with us. He, too, 
 is an exegetist, and he is a musician. So far as my ex- 
 perience goes, I am beginning to think that the Bible and 
 music are inseparable. He is quite a young man, not 
 more than thirty a plump, good-looking Frenchman, 
 with clear eyes, a clear skin, and a nice mustache. He 
 is a good talker, and he is going on to Switzerland with 
 us. We shall see another professor there, for Mr. Ellis 
 and M. Emile Canton are going to found a review to- 
 gether, and the object of our journey is to try to persuade 
 the Swiss professor to write for the review. The con- 
 versation will be in French, and I am glad of this; I 
 want practice, for I am determined to learn French. I 
 want to understand Canton's ideas about Esdras and 
 Jeremiah. It is extraordinary how real Jeremiah is to 
 these people. He was hardly more than a name to me 
 two months ago, and now I am beginning to feel quite 
 interested in him. And it is well that I can take an 
 interest in him, for if I didn't I am afraid I should hardly 
 keep my wits. Perhaps Nature, who foresaw my destiny, 
 endowed me with a capacity for taking an interest in 
 
 177
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 almost anything. Mr. Ellis said that he never knew a 
 more appreciative person. It is well that I am apprecia- 
 tive, for if I were not it would be impossible for me 
 to remain his secretary. . . . 
 
 " I had to put this letter aside Mr. Ellis called me 
 to do some work for him and, coming back to it, I am 
 astonished at the number of pages I have written; but 
 it is too late to regret my garrulousness. Now, I wish 
 you would come out here and join us. This long letter, 
 describing my pleasure in foreign travel, was written 
 partly in the hopes of tempting you out of Garranard. 
 You say that you have been longing for a holiday, and 
 that you require one. Why not take a real holiday and 
 come out here? You will find Mr. Ellis a very interest- 
 ing man. You and he will not agree on all subjects, that 
 is true, but I don't think that a certain difference of 
 opinion makes any difference. You are both clever men, 
 and clever men are always interested in each other, how- 
 ever different their views may be. Will you be advised 
 by me, dear Father Gogarty? Come out here and take 
 your holiday with us. One cannot take a holiday in 
 one's own country; one must go abroad. I have told 
 Mr. Ellis about you, and he is very interested, and will 
 be delighted to see you. You have never been out of 
 Ireland in your life, and you want to see Italy. Perhaps 
 it would suit you as well to go straight to Rome. We 
 shall be going there, and it will be interesting to meet 
 in Rome. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 "ROSE LEICESTER." 
 178
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 " September 6, 19 . 
 
 " DEAR Miss LEICESTER : 
 
 YOUR letter received this morning has been read 
 and read again; but I remain plunged in per- 
 plexity, unable to make up my mind as to what 
 your object might be in sending it to me. You do not, I 
 take it, expect me to write you a letter of equal length, 
 discussing all the points you raise in your appreciations 
 of the arts of Rubens and Wagner. Garranard is a dull, 
 peaceful place, with plenty of leisure, but hardly suffi- 
 cient leisure for such a lengthy correspondence as your 
 letter suggests. Even you feel some explanation neces- 
 sary, for you tell me that your object in writing is to 
 preserve some memory of your educational journey 
 through Europe^ with Mr. Ellis. Well, a letter writer 
 must have a correspondent, but how curiously you have 
 chosen yours ! I am, as you well know, not in a position 
 to discuss the matters of which your letter treats; if I 
 were, it would be difficult for me to discuss matters with 
 you, knowing as I do that your knowledge is second 
 hand, and only just acquired. I will admit that the music 
 you have heard may have inspired you. You are capable 
 
 179
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 of thinking for yourself in musical matters ; but what do 
 you know of the art of painting? Had you chosen an- 
 other correspondent he might have accepted your appre- 
 ciations of Ruysdael and Rubens as your own, for they 
 are well written, and you seem to have assimilated, in 
 a way, Mr. Ellis's opinions. But the assimilation is more 
 apparent than real. Sometimes you have to fall back 
 upon Mr. Ellis's very words. 
 
 " Now, why should you be at such pains to write 
 me Mr. Ellis's views regarding the * Ascent ' and the 
 ' Descent of the Cross ' unless, indeed, he dominates 
 your mind so thoroughly that you cannot get him out 
 of your mind? While reading your letter, I seemed to 
 see you following him about, listening, hanging on to 
 his every word; and this much credit I must give you: 
 you seem to have reported him very well indeed. I must 
 compliment you upon your excellent memory; a short- 
 hand reporter would not have represented him better, 
 possibly not so well. You seem to have sifted what he 
 said, and produced a fine essence, which, I confess, I 
 found interesting. 
 
 " So far so good. But what was your object in writ- 
 ing at this length to me? Am I really to believe that 
 you wrote with a view to recording your impressions? 
 If this be so, the best thing I can do is to return you 
 your letter. ... I send it back by this post, and I engage 
 to send back any other documents of the same kind that 
 you may send me, it being clear to me that my business 
 is merely to read, to approve, and to return. Were I to 
 destroy your letter there would be no record. You 
 
 J8o
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 would have wasted your time. Nothing would have 
 been accomplished except the astonishment of a Con- 
 naught priest, the proving to him that you are making 
 great progress toward a cultured comprehension of the 
 Renaissance. But mere vanity would not have sufficed 
 to induce you to undertake the labor of writing at such 
 a length. There is another motive. Indeed, you admit 
 as much. You say that one of your reasons for writing 
 me this letter is to put before me the pleasures that 
 await me if I can be beguiled from Garranard. You 
 wish to meet me in Rome. This request plunges me 
 again into all my former perplexities. Why should you 
 wish to meet me in Rome? How can my presence add 
 to your pleasure? You are clearly enjoying every 
 moment of your life. My presence could only prove a 
 detriment, an obstacle, unless, perhaps, your unselfish- 
 ness is such that you are willing to sacrifice your pleas- 
 ure for the sake of my education. I grant you that to 
 walk behind Mr. Ellis and to listen to every remark that 
 may fall from his lips, whether he be speaking of Michael 
 Angelo or Raphael or the architecture of St. Peter's, 
 would be a privilege that could not be overestimated. 
 Your object in asking me to meet you in Rome cannot 
 be because you think that anything I might say would 
 be of the slightest interest to so superior a person as 
 Mr. Ellis. 
 
 " I said in a former letter that perhaps you wrote 
 to me with a view to relieving the tedium of my life in 
 Garranard, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that 
 inspired your last letter. If so, I think it might have 
 
 181
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 been more judiciously worded, for not the least odd are 
 the passages in which you speak with marked irrever- 
 ence of our Divine Lord and Redeemer. If a desire to 
 please me formed any part of your motive in writing 
 this letter, you would have avoided saying things which 
 you knew would wound me in my most intimate feelings. 
 But no; you seem to go out of your way to say things 
 which you know must shock me indeed, you admit as 
 much. You refer to a letter in which I reproved the 
 license of your speech. Nevertheless, you go on to speak 
 with still further irreverence of Him whom you know I 
 hold as Divine. The only interpretation I can put upon 
 your manner of writing is that you are unable to restrain 
 yourself from writing anything that amuses you for the 
 moment. I am willing to think that you are unable to 
 restrain your incurable levity of mind. If this excuse 
 were not available, it would be impossible for me, as a 
 priest, to reply to your letter. The passages I refer to 
 were written, more or less unconsciously, in obedience 
 to an impulse to be witty, to be sprightly, but I cannot 
 help thinking that if you had really wished me to meet 
 you in Rome you would have written me a different 
 letter. However this may be, the result would be the 
 same. I cannot leave Garranard this year, however 
 much I stand in need of a holiday, and I stand in great 
 need of one. But I shall not leave Garranard, cer- 
 tainly not for a long while. And my reasons for re- 
 maining here will not appeal to you; they are entirely 
 conscientious. I am passing through a difficult period. 
 There is no reason why I should disguise this fact from 
 
 182
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 you, or from anyone. There are times in every life 
 when life seems a burden. Even my sister sometimes 
 wearies of her convent, and no one ever had a more 
 distinct religious vocation than she; but, for all that, 
 she would not leave it. I must wait till my present mood 
 has passed before I go abroad. If I left Garranard now 
 I might never have courage to come back. The best 
 way not to fall into temptation is not to put yourself in 
 the way of it, for the flesh is always weak. I might 
 grow interested in what you call ideas; I might linger 
 abroad until it was no longer possible for me to return, 
 and then, what a scandal would arise if I remained 
 away! Think of the shame I should cause my poor 
 people ! They would be pained to find that the priest they 
 had looked up to was unworthy of the confidence they 
 had placed in him. There are material reasons, also, 
 which will appeal to you. I have accepted, and I still 
 accept, the money of these poor folk. You will say 
 that I can gain my living elsewhere in London. You 
 gained your living in London, and it would be disgrace- 
 ful if I could not succeed where you succeeded; but 
 that has nothing to do with what I am thinking now. 
 I entered the priesthood of my own free will; I chose a 
 path, and I shall follow it through life till the end. I 
 have not ceased to believe in my vocation. I am as con- 
 vinced of it as I ever was, more than I ever was; for 
 were it not the most real thing in me I should have gone 
 away for a holiday long ago, and left it to chance whether 
 I should ever return to Garranard. This mood of dis- 
 content, which I do not hesitate to admit, which has
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 its origin, perhaps, in the great error of judgment I com- 
 mitted when I spoke about you in church, will pass away. 
 As I said in a previous letter, I have only got to bear my 
 discontent for a while, and I shall come out at the other 
 side a stronger and a better man. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY." 
 
 184
 
 XI 
 
 AFTER posting his letter he walked home, con- 
 gratulating himself that he had made it plain 
 to her that he was not a man she could dupe. 
 She had written that long letter in order to annoy him, 
 and the more he thought of her letter the more plain 
 did it seem that it had been inspired by Ellis. But what 
 could Ellis's reason be for wishing well, to make a 
 guy of him? Was he jealous of him? There was a 
 moment's satisfaction in the thought, but it could not 
 be entertained. Ellis might wish to make a guy of him, 
 but what was her reason ? Revenge ? Revenge was too 
 strong a word. A desire to punish him? Very likely. 
 In the course of the evening it suddenly struck him 
 that, after all, she might have written that letter with 
 a view of inducing him to come to Rome. She was so 
 capricious. He meditated a long while upon her character 
 without being able- to arrive at any very clear estimate 
 of it. But all the while he was thinking of her the sus- 
 picion rankled at the back of his mind that he had written 
 her a very intemperate letter. " Good heavens ! " he 
 muttered, getting up from his chair suddenly, " if I am 
 suspecting her wrongly! No, no ... the first reason 
 she gave for writing was that she wished to keep a 
 record of this educational journey." All the old bitter- 
 
 185
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 ness swam up again, and he felt he had done well by 
 returning her letter. Only by doing so could he prove 
 that she was not going to make a fool of him she and 
 the cultured Mr. Ellis. But if she were Ellis's mistress, 
 who was responsible? He turned upon himself savagely, 
 hating himself, but he could not blot out his conscience ; 
 and the conviction strengthened that by sending her 
 back her letter he had done no more than to repeat the 
 mistake he had made long ago when he spoke against 
 her in church and drove her out of the country. It was 
 he who had driven her into Ellis's arms. 
 
 He walked to the window, and stood there a long 
 while staring at the still autumn weather. And while 
 standing there it seemed to him that he would give any- 
 thing for a piece of blue in the sky, a ray of light on the 
 grass, a wind in the trees. For these still, gray days 
 seemed to deprive him of all courage. He had met a 
 villager yesterday driving a tired horse home from mar- 
 ket. The horse tripped and fell by the roadside, and 
 Father Oliver had felt that he, too, might fall at any 
 moment by the roadside, so weary did he feel. " If I 
 could only make known my suffering she would take 
 pity on me, but no one knows another's suffering." 
 And he wandered from his window sighing. A moment 
 after he stopped, he did not know why, in front of his 
 writing table. Perhaps it was the writing table that put 
 the thought into his mind that she might like to read 
 a description of an Irish autumn. He wanted a pretext 
 for a letter: the season was one. He might leave out 
 mention of the angry letter he had sent her. 
 
 186
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 
 "October 10, 19 . 
 
 " You know the wind is hardly ever at rest about 
 the hilltop on which my house stands. Even in summer 
 the wind sighs, a long, gentle little sigh, sometimes not 
 unpleasant to hear. You used to speak of an ^Eolian 
 harp, and say that I should place one on my window 
 sill. A doleful instrument it must be a loud wailing 
 sound in winter time, and in the summer a little tinkle. 
 But in these autumn days an ^Eolian harp would be 
 mute. There is not wind enough to-day on the hillside 
 to cause the faintest vibration. Yesterday I went for a 
 long walk in the woods, and I can find no words that 
 would convey an idea of the stillness. It is easy to 
 speak of a tomb, but it was that. After all, the dead 
 are dead. Somnambulism is more mysterious than death, 
 and the season seemed to stand on the edge of a preci- 
 pice, will-less, like a sleepwalker. Now and then the 
 sound of a falling leaf caught my ear, and I shall always 
 remember how a crow, flying high overhead toward the 
 mountains, uttered an ominous ' caw ' ; another crow 
 answered, and there was silence again. The branches 
 dropped, and the leaves hung out at the end of long 
 stems. One could not help pitying the trees, though 
 one knew one's pity was vain. 
 
 " As I wandered in Derrinrush, I came suddenly 
 upon some blood-red beech trees, and the hollow was 
 full of blood-red leaves. You have been to Derrinrush: 
 
 187
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 you know how mystic and melancholy the wood is, full 
 of hazels and Druid stones. After wandering a long 
 while I turned into a path. It led me to a rough western 
 shore, and in front of me stood a great Scotch fir. The 
 trunk had divided, and the two crowns showed against 
 the leaden sky. It had two birch trees on either side, 
 and their graceful stems and faint foliage, pale like gold, 
 made me think of dancers with sequins in their hair and 
 sleeves. There seemed to be nothing but silence in the 
 wood silence, and leaves ready to fall. I had not spoken 
 to anyone for a fortnight I mean I had no conversation 
 with anyone and my loneliness helped me to perceive 
 the loneliness of the wood, and the absence of birds 
 made me feel it. The lake is never without gulls, but 
 I didn't see one yesterday. ' The swallows are gone,' 
 I said; ' the wild geese will soon be here,' and I remem- 
 bered their doleful cry as I scrambled under some black- 
 thorn bushes, glad to get out of the wood into the fields. 
 Though I knew the field I was in well, I didn't remember 
 the young sycamores growing in one corner of it. Yes- 
 terday I could not but notice them, for they seemed to 
 be like children dying of consumption in a hospital ward 
 girls of twelve or thirteen. You will think the com- 
 parison far-fetched and unhealthy, one that could only 
 come out of a morbidly excited imagination. Well, I 
 cannot help that; like you, I must write as. I feel. 
 
 " Suddenly I heard the sound of an ax, and I can 
 find no words to tell you how impressive its sound was 
 In the still autumn day. ' How soon will the tree fall?' 
 I thought; and, desirous of seeing it fall, I walked on, 
 
 188
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 guided by the sound, till I saw at the end of the glade 
 whom do you think? Do you remember an old man 
 called Patsy Murphy ? He had once been a very good car- 
 penter, and had made and saved money. He is now 
 ninety-five, and I could hardly believe my eyes when I 
 saw him trying to cut down a larch. What his object 
 could be in felling the tree I could not tell, and, feeling 
 some curiosity, I walked forward. He continued to chip 
 away pieces of the bark till his strength failed him, and 
 he had to sit down to rest. Seeing me, he took off his 
 hat you know the tall hat he wears a hat given him 
 twenty or thirty years ago by whom? Patsy Murphy's 
 mind is beginning to wander. He tells stories as long 
 as you will listen to him, and it appears now that his 
 daughter-in-law turned him out of his house the house 
 he had built himself, and that he had lived in for half a 
 century. This, however, is not the greatest wrong she 
 had done him. He could forgive her this wrong, but 
 he cannot forgive her stealing of his sword. ' There 
 never was a Murphy/ he said, * who hadn't a sword.' 
 Whether this sword is an imagination of Patsy's fading 
 brain I cannot say; perhaps he had some old sword and 
 lost it. The tale" he tells to-day differs wholly from the 
 tale he told yesterday and the tale he will tell to-morrow. 
 He told me once he had been obliged to give up all his 
 savings to his son. I went to interview the son, deter- 
 mined to sift the matter to the bottom, and discovered 
 that Patsy had still one hundred and twenty pounds in 
 the bank. Ten pounds had been taken out for I needn't 
 trouble you with further details. Sufficient has been said 
 13 189
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 to enable you to understand how affecting it was to meet 
 this old man in the red and yellow woods, at the end 
 of a breathless autumn day, trying to fell a young larch. 
 He talked so rapidly, and one story flowed so easily 
 into another, that it was a long time before I could get 
 in a word. At last I was able to get out of him that the 
 colonel had given him leave to build a house on the 
 shore, where he would be out of everybody's way. ' All 
 my old friends are gone, the colonel's father and his 
 mother. God be merciful to her! she was a good woman, 
 the very best. And all I want now is time to think of 
 them that's gone. . . . Didn't I know the colonel's 
 grandfather and his grandmother? They're all buried 
 in the cemetery yonder in Kiltoon, and on a fine evenin' 
 I do like to be sittin' on a stone by the lake, thinkin' of 
 them all.' 
 
 " It was at once touching and impressive to see this 
 old man, weak as a child, the only trembling thing in a 
 moveless day, telling these wanderings of an insane brain. 
 You will say, But what matter? They may not be true 
 in fact, but they are his^truth, they are himself, they are 
 his age. His ninety-five years are represented in his 
 confused talk, half recollection, half complaints about the 
 present. He knew my father and mother, too, and, peer- 
 ing into my face, he caught sight of a gray hair, and I 
 heard him mutter : 
 
 " ' Ah ! they grow gray quicker now than they 
 used to.' 
 
 " As I walked home in the darkening light, I remem- 
 bered that I had only to live a few years to become as 
 
 190
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 frail as Patsy Murphy, and there is no reason why I 
 shouldn't live till ninety-five, losing my teeth one by one, 
 and my wits." 
 
 "OCTOBER 12, 19 . 
 
 " I was interrupted in my description of the melan- 
 choly season, and I don't know how I should have 
 finished that letter if I had not been interrupted. The 
 truth is that the season was but a pretext. I did not 
 dare to write asking you to forgive me for having re- 
 turned your letter. I do not do so now. I will merely 
 say that I returned the letter because it annoyed me, 
 and, shameful as the admission may be, I admit that I 
 returned it because I wished to annoy you. I said to 
 myself. ' If this be so if, in return for kind thought 
 Why shouldn't she suffer? I suffer.' One isn't one 
 cannot be held responsible for every base thought that 
 enters the mind. How long the mind shall entertain a 
 thought before responsibility is incurred I am not pre- 
 pared to say. One's mood changes, and we become dif- 
 ferent beings. A storm gathers, rages for a while, and 
 disperses; but the traces of the storm remain after the 
 storm has passed "away. I am thinking now that per- 
 haps, after all, you were quite sincere when you asked 
 me to leave Garranard and take my holiday in Rome. 
 In my present mood I see there is no shadow of excuse 
 for attributing base designs to you. The baseness of 
 which for a moment I deemed you capable was the 
 creation of my own soul. I don't mean that my mind, my 
 soul, is always base. At times we are all more or less 
 
 191
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 unworthy mystery, mystery, everywhere we look. Our 
 tempers, are they part of our real selves? I have been 
 pondering this question lately. Which self is the true 
 self, now the peaceful or the choleric? Why shouldn't 
 you wish to see me ? There is no reason, and I believe in 
 your good will toward me, and thank you for it. I 
 wonder if I may lay claim to some further indulgence? 
 My wretched temper aggravated my disappointment. 
 You had suggested to me I should write a book about the 
 history of the lake and its castles, and I have been 
 trying to write it; but I cannot, either because I am 
 without talent for literary composition, or from some 
 other cause. I have tried and tried again ; I have spent 
 long evenings walking up and down the room trying to 
 arrange my thoughts, but to no purpose. And my failure 
 to write no doubt contributed to produce a nervous de- 
 pression. Moreover, it seems to me that, without leaving 
 myself open to an accusation of wishing to defend or 
 to excuse my unpardonable rudeness in sending back 
 your letter, I may point out that your I hardly know 
 what word to use ; * irrelevancy ' does not express my 
 meaning ; ' inconsequences ' is nearer, yet it isn't the 
 word I want well, your inconsequences perplex and dis- 
 tract one's thoughts. If you will look through the letter 
 you sent me last you will find that you have written many 
 things that might annoy a man living in the conditions 
 in which I live. You follow the current of your mood, 
 but the transitions you omit, and the reader is left 
 hopelessly conjecturing. 
 
 " I have been rereading your letters and thinking 
 192
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 over the letter which I returned, and I have compared 
 it with the others, trying to discover the real Rose 
 Leicester, but without much success. I cannot discover 
 any analogy between the woman who used to decorate 
 my altar and sing Ave Marias in my church and the 
 woman who takes an interest in Mr. Ellis's adventures 
 in biblical criticism, and to the extent that she cannot 
 keep herself from writing to me about Jeremiah, Hosea, 
 and Amos. Now, if I accept this pedantic woman as the 
 real Rose Leicester, how am I to coordinate her tastes 
 with those of the woman who writes irreverent descrip- 
 tions of Rubens's ' Descent ' and ' Ascent of the Cross,' 
 and to whom the world seems but a toy shop and her- 
 self a child running from one plaything to another? 
 Everything in you seems a discrepancy. The men you 
 like are as dissimilar as they could well be. My thought 
 goes back to the father of your child. I do not know 
 if he were a soldier from the barracks or a shepherd from 
 the hills, but, whosoever he was, he certainly differed 
 from the man whose secretary you now are. Yet I sup- 
 pose you liked him. Your liking for Mr. Ellis is ap- 
 parent in every sentence you write. . . ." 
 
 He stopped writing, and after thinking for a little 
 while he laid down the pen and walked about the room. 
 He had come to the real point of his letter, and having 
 come to it he found himself without words to express 
 himself. What was in his mind was to ask her if she 
 were merely Ellis's secretary, if there was nothing be- 
 tween them but her interest in his books. She had said 
 
 193
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 that her life would be intolerable if she hadn't acquired 
 an interest in the Bible and in biblical criticism, and he 
 could understand that. But he did not dare to ask her if 
 she loved Mr. Ellis, if there was any chance of her 
 marrying him; if he were to ask such a question she 
 might never write to him again. 
 
 " I laid aside my pen, fearing I should ask what are 
 your relations with Mr. Ellis. I have tried to keep myself 
 from putting this question to you, but the torture of 
 doubt overcomes me, and even if you should never write 
 to me again I must ask it. Remember that I am respon- 
 sible to God for the life you lead. Had it not been for 
 me you would never have known Ellis. You must grant 
 to every man his point of view, and as a Christian I 
 cannot put my responsibility out of mind. If you lose 
 your soul, I am responsible for it. Should you write 
 that your relations with Mr. Ellis are not innocent, I shall 
 not be relieved of my responsibility, but it will be a relief 
 to me to know the truth. I shall pray for you, and you 
 will repent your sins if you are living in sin. Forgive 
 me the question I am putting to you. I have no right to 
 do so whatever. Whatever right I had over you when 
 you were in my parish has passed from me. I exceeded 
 that right, but that is the old story. Maybe I am repeat- 
 ing my very fault again. It is not unlikely, for what do 
 we do all through our lives but to repeat ourselves? 
 You have forgiven me, and, having forgiven me once, 
 maybe you will forgive me again. However this may be, 
 it will be, my hope. 
 
 " Do not delay writing, for every day will be a little 
 194
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 agony till I hear from you. At the end of an autumn 
 day, when the dusk is sinking into the room, one lacks 
 courage to live. Religion seems to desert one, and I am 
 thinking of the leaves falling, falling, in Derrinrush. All 
 night long they will be falling, like my hopes. Forgive 
 me this long and miserable letter. But if I didn't write 
 it, I should not be able to get through the evening. Write 
 to me. A letter from Italy will cheer me and help me to 
 live. All my letters are not like this one. Not very long 
 ago I wrote to you about a hermit who never wearied 
 of life, though he lived upon an island in this lake. Did 
 you receive that letter? I wonder. Maybe it is still 
 following you about. It was a pleasant letter, and I 
 should be sorry if you did not get it. Write to me about 
 Italy about sunshine, about statues and pictures. 
 " Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY." 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 " October 20, 19 . 
 
 " DEAR Miss LEICESTER : 
 
 " I wrote last week apologizing for troubling you 
 again with a letter, pleading that the melancholy of 
 autumn and the falling of the leaf forced me to write to 
 some one. I wrote asking for a letter, saying that one 
 about Italian sunshine would help me to live. I am 
 afraid my letter must have seemed exaggerated. One 
 
 195
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 writes out of a mood. The mood passes, but when it is 
 with one, one is the victim of it. And this letter is written 
 to say I have recovered somewhat from my depression of 
 spirits. ... I have found consolation in a book, and I 
 feel that I must send it to you, for even you may one day 
 feel depressed and lonely. Did you ever read ' The Imita- 
 tion of Christ ' ? There is no book more soothing to the 
 spirit than it ; and on the very first page I found some lines 
 which apply marvelously well to your case : 
 
 " ' If thou didst know the whole Bible outwardly, and 
 the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it all profit 
 thee without charity and the grace of God ? ' 
 
 " Over the page the saint says : ' Every man naturally 
 desireth to know ; but what doth knowledge avail without 
 the fear of God?' 
 
 " * Truly, a lowly rustic that serveth God is better 
 than a proud philosopher who pondereth the course of 
 the stars and neglecteth himself.' 
 
 " ' He that knoweth himself becometh vile to himself, 
 and taketh no delight in the praises of men.' 
 
 " ' If I knew all things that are in the world, and 
 were not in charity, what would it profit me in the sight 
 of God, who will judge according to deeds?' 
 
 " ' Cease from overweening desire of knowledge, be- 
 cause many distractions are found there, and much 
 delusion.' 
 
 " I might go on quoting till I reached the end, for 
 on every page I note something that I would have you 
 read. But why quote when I can send you the book? 
 You have lost interest in the sentimental side of religion, 
 
 196
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 but your loss is only momentary. You will never find 
 anyone who will understand you better than this book. 
 You are engaged now in the vain pursuit of knowledge, 
 but some day, when you are weary of knowledge, you will 
 turn to it. I do not ask you to read it now, but promise 
 me that you will keep it. It will be a great consolation 
 to me to know that it is by you. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P." 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 
 "November 3, 19 . 
 
 " DEAR Miss LEICESTER : 
 
 " I sent you I think it must be a fortnight ago a 
 copy of ' The Imitation of Christ.' The copy I sent is 
 one of the original Elizabethan edition, a somewhat rare 
 book and difficult to obtain. I sent you this copy in order 
 to make sure that you would keep it; the English is 
 better than the English of our modern translations. You 
 must not think that I feel hurt because you did not write 
 to thank me at once for having sent you the book. My 
 reason for writing is merely because I should like to 
 know if it reached you. If you have not received it, I 
 think it would be better to make inquiries at once in the 
 post. It would be a pity that a copy of the original Eliza- 
 bethan edition should be lost. Just write a little short 
 note saying that you have received it. 
 
 "Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P." 
 197
 
 XII 
 
 THE " Imitation " dropped on his knees, and he 
 wondered if the spiritual impulse it had 
 awakened in him had been exhausted, or if 
 the continual splashing of the rain on the pane had got 
 upon his nerves. 
 
 " But it isn't raining in Italy," he said, getting up 
 from his chair ; " and I am weary of the rain, of myself 
 I am weary of everything." And going to the window 
 he tried to take an interest in the weather, asking himself 
 if it would clear up about three o'clock. It generally 
 cleared late in the afternoon for some short while, and 
 he would be able to go out for half an hour. But where 
 should he go? He foresaw his walk from end to end 
 before he began it : the descent of the hill, the cart track 
 and the old ruts full of water, the dead reeds on the shore 
 soaking, the dripping trees. He knew that about three 
 o'clock the clouds would lift, the sunset would begin in 
 the gaps in the mountains. Perhaps he might get as far 
 as the little fields between Derrinrush and the planta- 
 tions. From the hillside he could watch the sunset ; when 
 the sunset was over he could return home. And then 
 a long evening would lie before him. Terrible! And 
 he began to feel that he must have an occupation his 
 book! To write the story of the island castles would 
 
 198
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 pass the time, and wondering how he might write them, 
 whether from oral tradition or from the books and manu- 
 scripts which he might find in national libraries, he went 
 out about three o'clock and wandered down the old cart 
 track, getting his feet very wet. When he came to the 
 pine wood he went to the water's edge, and stood looking 
 across the lake, wondering if he should go out to Castle 
 Island in a boat there was no boat, but he might borrow 
 one somewhere and examine what remained of the 
 castle. But he knew every heap of old stones, every 
 brown bush, and the thick ivy that twined round the last 
 corner wall. Castle Hag had an interest Castle Island 
 had not. The cormorants roosted there; and they must 
 be hungry, for the lake had been too windy for fishing 
 this long while. A great gust whirled past, and he stood 
 watching the clouds drifting overhead the same thick 
 vapor drifting and going out. For nearly a month he 
 had waited in vain for a space of blue sky, and it had 
 begun to seem as if the sky would never be blue again. 
 A great sadness fell upon him, a sick longing for a 
 change ; but if he yielded to this longing he would never 
 return to Garranard. There seemed to be no way out 
 of the difficulty at least, he could see none. 
 
 A last ray lit up a distant hillside, his shadow 
 floated on the wet sand ; then the evening darkened 
 rapidly, and he walked in a vague diffused light, inex- 
 pressibly sad. 
 
 Father Moran was waiting for him at the end of an 
 old cart track, where the hawthorns grew out of a 
 tumbled wall. 
 
 199
 
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 " I've come to see you, Gogarty ; I don't know if I'm 
 welcome." 
 
 " It's joking you are. You'll stay and have some 
 supper with me ? " 
 
 " Indeed I will, if you give me some drink, for it's 
 drink that I'm after, and not eating. I'd better get the 
 truth out at once and have done with it. I've felt the 
 craving coming on me for the last few days you know 
 what I mean and now it's got me by the throat. I must 
 have drink. Come along, Gogarty, and give me some, 
 and then I'll say good-by to you forever." 
 
 "Now what are you saying?" 
 
 " Don't stand arguing with me. . . . You can't un- 
 derstand, Gogarty no one can; I can't myself. But it 
 doesn't matter what anyone understands I'm done for." 
 
 " We'll have a bit of supper together. ... It will 
 pass from you." 
 
 " Ah, you little know ; " and the priests walked up the 
 windy hill in silence. 
 
 " Gogarty, there's no use talking; I'm done for. Let 
 me go." 
 
 " Come in, will you ? " and he took him by the arm. 
 " Come in. I'm a bigger man than you, Moran ; 
 come in ! " 
 
 " I'm done for," Father Moran said again. 
 
 Father Oliver made a sign of silence, and when they 
 were in the parlor, and the door shut behind them, he 
 said: 
 
 "You mustn't talk like that, and Catherine within a 
 step of you." 
 
 200
 
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 " I've told you, Gogarty, I'm done for, and I've just 
 come here to bid you good-by; but before we part I'd 
 like to hear you say that I haven't been wanting in my 
 duties that in all the rest, as far as you know, I've been 
 as good a man as another." 
 
 " In all but one thing I know no better man, and I'll 
 not hear that there's no hope." 
 
 " Better waste no time talking. Just let me hear you 
 say again that I've been a good man in everything but 
 one thing." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; " and the priests grasped hands. 
 
 And Catherine came into the room to ask if Father 
 Moran was stopping to supper. Father Oliver answered 
 hurriedly : " Yes, yes, he's staying. Bring in supper as 
 soon as you can ; " and she went away, to come back 
 soon after with the cloth. And while she laid it the priests 
 sat looking at each other, not daring to speak, hoping that 
 Catherine did not suspect from their silence and manner 
 that anything was wrong. She seemed to be a long while 
 laying the cloth and bringing in the food ; it seemed to 
 them as if she was delaying on purpose. At last the door 
 was closed, and they were alone. 
 
 " Now, Moran, sit down and eat a bit, won't you ? " 
 
 " I can't eat anything. Give me some whisky ; that 
 is what I want. Give me some whisky, and I will go 
 away and you'll never see me again. Just a glass to keep 
 me going, and I will go straight out of your parish, so 
 that none of the disgrace will fall upon you; or what 
 do you think ? You could put me up here. No one need 
 know I'm here. All I want are a few bottles of whisky." 
 
 201
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " You mean that I should put you up here and let 
 you get drunk?" 
 
 " You know what I mean well enough. I'm like that. 
 And it's well for you who don't want whisky. But if it 
 hadn't been for whisky I should have been in a mad- 
 house long ago. Now, just tell me if you'll give me 
 drink. If you will, I'll stay and talk with you, for I 
 know you're lonely; if not, I'll just be off with myself." 
 
 " Moran, you'll be better when you've had something 
 to eat. It will pass from you. I will give you a glass 
 of beer." 
 
 " A glass of beer ! Ah, if I could tell you the truth ! 
 We've all our troubles, Gogarty trouble that none 
 knows but God. I haven't been watching you I've been 
 too tormented about myself to think much of anyone 
 else but now and then I've caught sight of a thought 
 passing across your mind. We all suffer, you like 
 another, and when the ache becomes too great to be 
 borne we drink. Whisky is the remedy; there's none 
 better. We drink and forget, and that is the great thing. 
 There are times, Gogarty, when one doesn't want to 
 think, when one's afraid, aren't there ? when one wants 
 to forget that one's alive. You've had that feeling, 
 Gogarty. We all have it. And now I must be off. I 
 must forget everything. I want to drink and to feel the 
 miles passing under my feet." 
 
 And on that he got up from the fire. 
 
 " Come, Moran, I won't hear you speak like that." 
 
 " Let me go. It's no use ; I'm done for ; " and Father 
 Oliver saw his eyes light up. 
 
 202
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " I'll not keep you against your will, but I'll go a 
 piece of the road with you." 
 
 " I'd sooner you didn't come, Gogarty." 
 
 Without answering, Father Oliver caught up his hat 
 and followed Father Moran out of the house. They 
 walked without speaking, and when they got to the gate 
 Father Oliver began to wonder which way his unhappy 
 curate would choose for escape. " Now, why does he 
 take the southern road ? " And a moment after he 
 guessed that Moran was making for Michael Garvey's 
 public house, " and after drinking there," he said to him- 
 self, " he'll go on to Tinnick." After a couple of miles, 
 however, Moran turned into a byroad leading through 
 the mountains, and they walked on without saying a 
 word. 
 
 And they walked mile after mile through the worn 
 mountain road. 
 
 " You've come far enough, Gogarty ; go back. 
 Regan's public house is outside of your parish." 
 
 "If it's outside my parish, it's only the other side of 
 the boundary; and you said, Moran, that you wouldn't 
 touch whisky till to-nlorrow morning." 
 
 The priests walked on again, and Father Oliver fell 
 to thinking now what might be the end of this adventure. 
 He could see there was no hope of persuading Father 
 Moran from the bottle of whisky. 
 
 " What time do you be making it, Gogarty ? " 
 
 " It isn't ten o'clock yet." 
 
 " Then I'll walk up and down till the stroke of 
 twelve. . . . I'll keep my promise to you." 
 
 203
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " But they'll all be in bed by twelve. What will you 
 do then?" 
 
 Father Moran didn't give Father Gogarty an answer, 
 but started off again, and this time he was walking very 
 fast; and when they got as far as Regan's public house 
 Father Oliver took his friend by the arm, reminding him 
 again of his promise. 
 
 " You promised not to disgrace the parish." 
 
 " I said that . . . Well, if it's walking your heart is 
 set upon, you shall have your bellyful of it." 
 
 And he was off again like a man walking for a wager. 
 But Father Oliver, who wouldn't be outwalked, kept 
 pace with him, and they went striding along, walking 
 without speaking. 
 
 Full of ruts and broken stones, the road straggled 
 through the hills, and Father Oliver wondered what 
 would happen when they got to the top of the hill. For the 
 sea lay beyond the hill. The road bent round a shoulder 
 of the hill, and when Father Oliver saw the long road be- 
 fore him his heart began to fail him, and a cry of despair 
 rose to his lips; but at that moment Moran stopped. 
 
 " You've saved me, Gogarty." 
 
 He did not notice that Father Gogarty was breathless, 
 almost fainting, and he began talking hurriedly, telling 
 Father Oliver how he had committed himself to the reso- 
 lution of breaking into a run as soon as they got to the 
 top of the hill. 
 
 " My throat was on fire then, but now all the fire is 
 out of it; your prayer has been answered. But what's 
 the matter, Gogarty? You're not speaking." 
 
 204
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " What you say is wonderful indeed, Moran, for I 
 was praying for you. I prayed as long as I had breath ; 
 one can't pray, without breath, or speak. We'll talk of 
 this presently." 
 
 The priests turned back, walking very slowly. 
 
 " I feel no more wish to drink whisky than I do to 
 drink bog water. But I'm a bit hot, and I think I'd 
 like a drink, and a drink of water will do me first-rate. 
 Now, look here, Gogarty, a miracle has happened, and 
 we should thank God for it. Shall we kneel down ? " 
 
 The road was very wet, and they thought it would 
 do as well if they leant over the little wall and said some 
 prayers together. 
 
 " I've conquered the devil ; I know it. But I've been 
 through a terrible time, Gogarty. It's all lifted from me 
 now. I'm sorry I've brought you out for such a walk 
 as this." 
 
 " Never mind the walk, Moran, so long as the tempta- 
 tion has passed from you that's the principal thing." 
 
 To speak of ordinary things was impossible, for they 
 believed in the miracle, and, thanking God for this act 
 of grace, they walked on until they reached Father 
 Oliver's gate. 
 
 " I believe you're right, Moran ; I believe that a 
 miracle has happened. You'll go home straight, won't 
 you?" 
 
 Father Moran grasped Father Oliver's hand. 
 
 " Indeed I will." 
 
 And Father Oliver stood by his gate looking down 
 the road, and he didn't open it and go through until 
 14 205
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Father Moran had passed out of sight. Pushing it open 
 he walked up the gravel path, seeing the lamp burning 
 in his study window, and his eyes fixed upon it, he said 
 to himself that a miracle had happened ; a miracle Moran 
 had called it, and verily it seemed like one. But would 
 the miracle endure? Was Father Moran cured of his 
 disease? Father Oliver thought how his curate had 
 gripped his hand, feeling sure that that grip meant a 
 great deal ; it meant, " You've done me a great service, 
 one I can never sufficiently repay," and it was a pleasure 
 to think that Moran would always think well of him. 
 
 Whatever happened, Moran would always think well 
 of him. He would think well of him because he knew 
 him better than others. And now he would go to bed 
 and think of something else. To-morrow morning he 
 could set off to see Moran. Moran's misfortune inter- 
 ested him, and he resolved to see Moran through it. He 
 began to remember everything from the beginning: his 
 own melancholy by the lake, and how Moran had come 
 down to fetch him; their conversation and the walk 
 through the mountains 7 their prayer leaning over the 
 wall looking up at the white sky above them, full of white 
 flimsy clouds. It was wonderfully exciting, and he sat 
 thinking, though it was time to go to bed, the lamplight 
 streaming over him, feeling no longer lonely. 
 
 But as all roads are said to lead to Rome, so do man's 
 thoughts lead to the woman that lives in his heart; and 
 as Father Oliver stumbled to his feet he had walked 
 many miles, and was tired he began to think he must tell 
 Rose of the miracle that had happened about a mile he 
 
 206
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 thought it was just a mile past Patsy Regan's public 
 house. The miracle would impress her, and he looked 
 round the room. It was then he caught sight of a letter 
 her letter! The envelope and foreign stamp told him 
 that before he read the address her writing! He 
 turned pale, for she was telling him the very things he 
 had longed to know. There could be no doubt any longer 
 that she was in love with Ellis ; she was not only in love 
 with him she was his mistress! 
 
 The room seemed to tumble about him, and he 
 grasped the end of the chimney-piece. And then, feeling 
 that he must get out into the open air, he thought of 
 Moran. He began to feel he must speak to him. He 
 couldn't remember exactly what he had to say to him, 
 but there was something on his mind which he must 
 speak to Moran about. It seemed to him that he must 
 go away with Moran to some public house far away and 
 drink. Hadn't Moran said that there were times when 
 we all wanted drink? He tried to collect his thoughts. 
 . . . Something had gone wrong, but he couldn't remem- 
 ber what had gone wrong or where he was. It seemed 
 to him that somebody had lost her soul. He must seek 
 it. It was his duty. Being a priest, he must go forth 
 and find the soul, and bring it back to God. And then he 
 remembered no more until he found himself suddenly in 
 the midst of a great wood, standing in an open space; 
 about him were dripping trees, and a ghostly sky over- 
 head, and no sound but the sound of the leaves falling. 
 Every now and again a large leaf floated down, and each 
 interested him till it reached the wet earth. 
 
 207
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 And then he began to wonder why he was in the 
 wood at night, and why he should be waiting there, look- 
 ing at the glimmering sky, seeing the oak leaves falling. 
 He was looking for her soul, for her lost soul ; and some- 
 thing had told him he would find the soul he was seeking 
 in the wood. He was drawn from glade to glade through 
 the underwoods, and through places so thickly overgrown 
 that it seemed impossible to pass through, but even thorn 
 bushes gave way before them. For he was no longer 
 alone. He had found her. She had descended from the 
 trees into his arms, white and cold. Every moment the 
 wood grew dimmer; but when he expected it to disap- 
 pear, when he thought he was going to escape forever 
 with her, an opening in the trees discovered the lake, 
 and in fear he turned back into the wood, seeking out 
 paths where there was little light. There was no remem- 
 brance of the past, only a happy sympathy. 
 
 Once he was within the wood the mist seemed to in- 
 corporate again; she descended again into his arms, and 
 this time he would have lifted the veil and looked into 
 her face, but she seemed to forbid him to recognize her 
 under penalty of loss. His desire overcame him, and he 
 put out his hand to lift the veil. As he did so his eyes 
 opened, he saw the wet wood, the shining sky, and she sit- 
 ting by a stone waiting for him. A little later she came 
 to meet him from behind the hawthorns that grew along 
 the cart track a tall woman with a little bend in her 
 walk. 
 
 He wondered why he had been so foolish as to 
 disobey her, and besought her to return to him. They 
 
 208
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 roamed again in the paths that led round the rocks over- 
 grown with briars, by the great oak tree where the leaves 
 were falling. They had been smiling gently, but sud- 
 denly she seemed to tell him that he must abide by the 
 shores of the lake why he could not understand, for the 
 wood was much more beautiful, and he was more alone 
 with her in the wood than by the lake. 
 
 Till now the sympathy had been so complete that 
 there had been no need for words. And now it was 
 no longer her voice ! He strove to understand, for what 
 voice could it be but hers? There was a roughness in 
 the voice, and presently he heard somebody asking him 
 why he was about this time of night, and very gradually 
 he began to understand that one of his parishioners was 
 by him, asking him whither he was going. 
 
 " You'll be catching your death at this hour of the 
 night, Father Oliver." 
 
 And the man told Father Oliver he was on his way 
 to a fair, and for a short cut he had come through the 
 wood. And Father Oliver listened, thinking all the while 
 that he must have been dreaming, for he could remember 
 nothing that had .happened. 
 
 " Now, your reverence, we're at your own door, and 
 the door is open. When you went out you forgot to 
 close it." 
 
 The priest didn't answer. 
 
 " I hope no harm will come to your reverence ; and 
 you'll be lucky if you haven't caught your death." 
 
 209
 
 XIII 
 
 HE stopped in his undressing to remember how 
 Moran had come to him to tell him he was 
 going away on a drinking bout. All that had 
 happened came back to him he remembered the miracle, 
 and how he had sat down in his armchair to think the 
 matter out after bidding Moran good-by. It was not 
 until he had risen to his feet to go to bed that he had 
 caught sight of the letter. And in it Rose had told him 
 he could not remember exactly what she had said. The 
 letter was in his pocket, but his brain was too tired to 
 read, and he threw himself into bed, hoping he had mis- 
 understood her letter. He would see it in the morning. 
 After sleeping for many hours, his eyes at last opened, 
 and he awoke wondering, asking himself where he was. 
 Even the familiar room "surprised him. And then began 
 the painful process of picking his way back. He remem- 
 bered a good deal, but he couldn't remember what had 
 happened from the time he left his house in search of 
 Moran till he was overtaken by Alec in the wood. In 
 some semiconscious state he must have wandered off to 
 Derrinrush. He must have wandered a long while two 
 hours, maybe more through the familiar paths, but un- 
 aware that he was choosing them. As well as he could 
 remember, he had followed something. He shrank from 
 
 210
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 trying to remember; he was almost glad to listen to Cath- 
 erine, who had already learned what had happened. She 
 had come to tell him that Alec had come up from the 
 village to inquire how the priest was. 
 
 She waited to hear Father Oliver's account of him- 
 self, but not having a story prepared he pretended he 
 was too tired to speak; and as he lay back in his chair 
 he composed a little story, telling how he had been for 
 a long walk with Father Moran, and, coming back in the 
 dark, had missed his way on the outskirts of the wood. 
 She began to raise some objections, but he said she was 
 not to excite herself unduly, and went out to see Alec, 
 who was, fortunately, not a very quick-witted fellow. 
 
 So far as Alec remembered, the priest was wandering 
 about like one daft, but Father Oliver impressed upon 
 him that he was mistaken. Alec went away trying to 
 assimilate a very modified version of the incident, and 
 Father Oliver returned to his study wondering if he had 
 succeeded in deceiving Catherine. Apparently he had, 
 for when she came to visit him again from her kitchen 
 she spoke of something quite different; and he was sur- 
 prised, for she was a very observant woman, and her 
 curiosity was inexhaustible. This time, however, he had 
 managed to keep his secret from her, and, dismissing her, 
 he remembered Rose's letter. She could have only had 
 one object in writing him as she did. She wouldn't have 
 taken the trouble to tell the story of the man who had 
 murdered his mistress's husband unless she were tired of 
 this correspondence, and wished to break it off. She had 
 told the story callously in order to prove to him that she 
 
 211
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 was indifferent to Christian morality. Her letter was a 
 piece of callous paganism from end to end. Her ad- 
 miration of Italy, her description of the sculpturesque 
 mountains about Rapallo, were written for a purpose. 
 Her letter seemed to him antichristian even when she 
 spoke of orange trees and terraces and balustrades, and, 
 as if she feared she might be misunderstood, she had 
 added that anecdote that terrible anecdote of the man 
 who had murdered his mistress's husband. 
 
 From Miss Rose Leicester to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 " RAPALLO, ITALY, 
 "Norember 12, 19 . 
 
 " DEAR FATHER GOGARTY: 
 
 " I received ' The Imitation ' to-day and your two 
 letters, one asking me if I had got the book. We had 
 left Munich without giving instructions about our let- 
 ters, so please accept my apologies and my best thanks. 
 The Elizabethan translation, as you point out, is beauti- 
 ful English, and I am glad to have the book; it will 
 remind me of you, and I will keep it by me even if I do 
 not read it very often. I do not know that it is especially 
 suited to me; it certainly isn't in tune with my present 
 mood, and will you be very shocked if I tell you that 
 it doesn't strike me as a very truthful book? It may be 
 pretty to write, ' Learn to be a fool and to be despised ' ; 
 but does anyone really want to learn to be a fool and to 
 be despised? Do you? And I don't like any better the 
 admonition, ' If thou canst endure so little, how wilt 
 
 212
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 thou be able to suffer eternal torments ? ' I have never 
 felt like this, and I do not think I ever shall. I hope not, 
 for it doesn't seem to me to be a very pretty way of 
 thinking about God. I passed the book over to Mr. Ellis ; 
 he read it for a few minutes, and then returned it to me. 
 ' A worthy man, no doubt,' he said, ' but prone to taking 
 things for granted.' 
 
 " ' The Imitation ' reminds me of a flower growing 
 in the shade of a cloister, dying for lack of sun, and this 
 is surely not the right kind of reading for you, above all 
 people, to indulge in at the present moment of your life. 
 Your letters tell me very plainly of your despondency, 
 and I fear I am in a way the cause of it. I was a trouble 
 to you when I was in the parish, and I seem to have 
 become a worse trouble to you now that I am out of it. 
 You brood over your responsibility, and nothing can cure 
 you but change of scene. I feel sure you want a change. 
 Change of scene brings a change of mind. Why don't 
 you come to Italy? Italy is the place for you. Italy 
 is your proper mind. Mr. Ellis says that Italy is every 
 man's proper mind, and you're evidently thinking of Italy, 
 for you ask for a description of where I am staying, 
 saying that a ray of Italian sunlight will cheer you. 
 Come to Italy. You can come here without danger of 
 meeting us. We are leaving at the end of the month. 
 You want the sun. You want life. You want to see 
 people living, not for the next world, but for this, and 
 there is no place where people enjoy life as much as in 
 Italy. Not only the men, but the women enjoy them- 
 selves, even the very poorest. The houses of the poor 
 
 213
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 are odd and pretty, and they are painted pretty colors. 
 There are flowers and plants everywhere, hanging out 
 of balconies and in out-of-the-way niches. The poor 
 wear pretty, quaint clothes, and drink nice wine, and not 
 that horrid porter. And the country! No wonder the 
 Italians were sculptors. The very hills are like pieces 
 of sculpture, quite unlike the Irish hills, shuffling down 
 the sky like an old priest reading his breviary. You will 
 forgive me this phrase, for you are not old, and I cannot 
 help writing it, for it amuses me to write it. 
 
 " I am having a heavenly time yes, indeed, a really 
 heavenly time and constantly I find myself thanking 
 you for it. For hadn't it been for your bad temper I 
 might still be teaching little barefooted children their 
 A B C in Garranard. But you won't like this allusion, 
 and I feel I am unkind. I would scratch it out, only I 
 should have to write the letter over again. Forget I've 
 written it, and listen to me telling you about Italy. I 
 wish you could see some of the gardens here, the marble 
 gateways and the trees growing about them. You, who 
 are fond of trees, would appreciate the ilex, and the little 
 villages, every one compact round its domed church and 
 campanile, with the house shaded on the sunny side by 
 a screen of vines ten feet or so from the wall. In the 
 fields along the hillside one finds lavender and rosemary 
 and myrtle and sweet bay growing wild every sort of 
 sweet-scented thing. 
 
 " Mr. Ellis and I go for long walks. To-day we 
 walked up to a monastery; it stands in a grove of ilex 
 trees, right at the top of the mountains, two and a half 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 hours' steady walk up a sunny paved path, where no 
 carts can go Mont Allegro is its name. The moun- 
 tains opposite were covered with snow, but the stony 
 valley between us was full of violet mist, and nearly all 
 the way up were olive orchards. We stopped to ponder 
 on the industry of the Italian people in terracing that 
 steep hill for the olives to find roothold. You would be 
 interested in the churches, but I do not know that you 
 would appreciate religion as it is practiced here. It 
 seems to me to be no more than a little superstition 
 affecting human life, no more than the belief in fairies 
 affects the life of the Irish peasant. 
 
 " If the people do not go often to confession, they go 
 to fortune tellers, and sometimes the results are serious. 
 A man living in the very street I am living in consulted 
 one about a woman whom he was passionately in love 
 with his neighbor's wife. The sorcerer told him that 
 very soon the husband, of whom the lover was very 
 jealous, would lose his wife's affection, and the lover was' 
 so overjoyed at hearing this that he went away and killed 
 the husband. The poor fellow has been imprisoned in a 
 great old tower built up in the sea. And there can't be 
 much light, for the windows are little holes ; and it must 
 be mournful, for the sea growls all the time. I expect 
 he is sorry, and I often wonder how they will punish him. 
 
 " But I could go on chattering page after page, tell- 
 ing you about gardens and orange trees (the orange trees 
 are the best part of the decoration ; even now the great 
 fruit hangs in the green leaves) ; and when I had de- 
 scribed Italy, and you had described all the castles and 
 
 215
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 the islands, we could turn back and discuss our religious 
 differences. But I doubt if any good would come of 
 this correspondence. You see, I have got my work to 
 do, and you have got yours, and, notwithstanding all you 
 say, I do not believe you to be unable to write the history 
 of the lake and its castles. Your letters prove that you 
 can, only your mind is unhinged by fears for my spiritual 
 safety, and depressed by the Irish climate. I remember it 
 when I lived in my little cottage, and how lonely I was 
 in the evenings, and how dreadful the thought was that 
 one day I should have to tell you I was going to have 
 a baby, and must go away. There were times when I 
 was so miserable that I knelt down and prayed that I 
 might die. But these moods pass away. . . . Your let- 
 ter about the hermit that lived on Church Island is most 
 beautiful. You have struck the right note the wistful 
 Irish note and if you can write a book in that strain I 
 am sure it will meet with great success. Go on with your 
 book, and don't write to me any more at least, not for 
 the present. I have got too much to do, and cannot at- 
 tend to a lengthy correspondence. We are going to 
 Paris, and are looking forward to spending a great deal 
 of time reading in the National Library. Some day we 
 may meet, or take up this correspondence again. At 
 present I feel that it is better for you and better for me 
 that it should cease. But you will not think hardly of 
 me because I write you this. I am writing in your own 
 interests, dear Father Gogarty. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " ROSE LEICESTER." 
 216
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 He read the letter slowly, pondering every sentence 
 and every word, and when he had finished it his hand 
 dropped upon his knee ; and when the letter fell upon the 
 hearthrug he did not stoop to pick it up, but sat looking 
 into the fire, convinced that everything was over and 
 done. There was nothing to look forward to; his life 
 would drag on from day to day, from week to week, 
 month to month, year to year, till at last he would be 
 taken away to the grave. And to live on, never seeing 
 her or even hearing from her seemed to him the most 
 unbearable lot that could have fallen to his share. The 
 hunt was over, and the spoil lay hearing with dying ears 
 the horns calling to each other in the echoing distances ; 
 and cast in his chair, his arms hanging like dead arms, 
 his senses mercifully benumbed, he lay, how long he 
 knew not, but it must have been a long time. 
 
 Catherine came into the room with some spoons in 
 her hands, and asked him what the matter was, and, 
 getting up hastily, he answered her rudely, for her 
 curiosity annoyed him. It was irritating to have to wait 
 for her to leave the room, but he did not dare to begin 
 thinking again while she was there. The door closed 
 at last ; he was alone again, and his thoughts fixed them- 
 selves at once on the end of her letter, on the words, 
 " Go on with your book, and don't write to me any more 
 at least, not for the present. I have got too much to 
 do, and cannot attend to a lengthy correspondence." 
 The evident cruelty of her words surprised him. There 
 was nothing like this in any of her other letters. She in- 
 tended these words as a coup de grace. There was little 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 mercy in them, for they left him living, he still lived in 
 a way. 
 
 There was no use trying to misunderstand her words. 
 To do so would be foolish, even if it were possible for 
 him to deceive himself, and the rest of her letter mat- 
 tered nothing to him. Her descriptions of Italy and her 
 admiration of a murderer he regarded as the common 
 affectations of " culture," and he had little taste for them. 
 The two little sentences with which she dismissed him 
 were his sole concern; they were the keys to the whole 
 of this correspondence which had beguiled him. And 
 to beguile him had been her primary object. Fool that 
 he had been not to see it ! Alas ! we see only what we 
 want to see. He might have known that she would not 
 have put herself to the trouble of writing all these let- 
 ters without a purpose, pages and pages, and her purpose 
 was his punishment. Well, she had succeeded, and to 
 the top of her bent. Nor would he attempt to argue that 
 he did not deserve all the punishment that she had meas- 
 ured out to him. Great as the pain of loss undoubtedly 
 was, it seemed to him that he could bear that pain with 
 greater fortitude if there had not been added the possibly 
 greater pain of finding her unworthy. The intrigue he 
 had discovered was a miserably cruel one. Such an in- 
 trigue should have been played off on a man of the 
 world; to select a poor lonely priest like him was not 
 worthy of her. 
 
 Occasionally he meditated Ellis's complicity in this 
 intrigue. But Ellis didn't interest him this man was 
 a shadow and he wandered about, trying to bring him- 
 
 218
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 self to hate her. He even stopped in his walks to ad- 
 dress insulting words to her. Words of common abuse 
 came to his tongue readily, but there was an unconquer- 
 able tenderness in his heart always; and one day the 
 thought went by that it was nobler of her to make him 
 suffer than to have meekly forgiven him, as many women 
 would have done, remembering he was a priest. He 
 stopped affrighted, and presently he began to wonder if 
 this were the first time her easy forgiveness of his mis- 
 take had seemed suspicious. No, he remembered that 
 some sort of shadow of disappointment had passed at the 
 back of his mind when he read her first letter. After 
 having been buried for months at the back of his mind 
 this idea had come to the surface. Truly an extraordinary 
 perversion, which he could only account for by the fact 
 that he had always looked upon her as being more like 
 what the primitive woman must have been than anyone 
 else in the world, and the first instinct of the primitive 
 woman would be to revenge any slight on her sexual 
 pride. He had misread her character, and in this new 
 reading he found a temporary consolation. 
 
 As he sat thinking of her he heard a mouse gnawing 
 under the boards, and every night after the mouse came 
 to gnaw. " The teeth of regret are the same ; my life is 
 being gnawed away. . . . Never shall I see her." It 
 seemed impossible that life would close on him, and he 
 not to see her face or hear her voice again. The black- 
 ness of the loveless death he saw in front of him turned 
 his thoughts heavenward, and he began to think how it 
 would be if they were to meet on the other side. For he 
 
 219
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 believed in heaven, and that was a good thing. Without 
 such belief there would be nothing for him to do but to 
 go down to the lake and make an end of himself. But 
 believing as he did in heaven, and the holy Catholic 
 Church to be the surest way of getting there, he had a 
 great deal to be thankful for. . . . Ellis's possession of 
 her was but temporary, a few years at most, whereas 
 his possession of her, if he were so fortunate as to gain 
 heaven, and by his prayers to bring her back to the true 
 fold, would endure forever and ever. The wisest thing, 
 therefore, for him to do would be to enter a Trappist 
 monastery. But our Lord says that in heaven there is 
 neither marriage nor giving in marriage, and what would 
 heaven be to him without Rose ? No more than a union 
 of souls, and he wanted her body as well as her soul. He 
 must pray. He knew the feeling well a sort of mental 
 giddiness, a delirium in the brain; and it increased 
 rapidly, urging him to fall on his knees. If he resisted', 
 it was because he was ashamed and feared to pray to God 
 to reserve Rose for him. But the whirl in his brain soon 
 deprived him of all power of resistance, and, looking 
 round the room hurriedly to assure himself he was not 
 watched, he fell on his knees and burst into extemporary 
 prayer : " O my God, whatever punishment there is to be 
 borne, let me bear it. She sinned, no doubt, and her sins 
 must be atoned for. Let me bear the punishment that 
 Thou, in Thy infinite wisdom, must adjudge to her, poor 
 sinful woman that she is, poor woman persecuted by men, 
 persecuted by me. O my God, remember that I lent a 
 willing ear to scandalmongers, that I went down that day 
 
 220
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 to the school and lost my temper with her, that I spoke? 
 against her in my church. All the sins that have been 
 committed are my sins; let me bear the punishment. O 
 my Lord Jesus Christ, do Thou intercede with Thy 
 Father and ask Him to heap all the punishment on my 
 head. O dear Lord Jesus, if I had only thought of Thee 
 when I went down to the school, if I had remembered 
 Thy words, 'Let him who is without sin cast the first' 
 stone,' I should have been spared this anguish. If I had 
 remembered Thy words she might have gone to Dublin 
 and had her baby there, and come back to the parish. O 
 my God, the fault is mine; all the faults that have been 
 committed can be traced back to me; therefore I beseech 
 of Thee, I call upon Thee, to let me bear all the punish- 
 ment that she has earned by her sins, poor erring creature 
 that she is. my God, do this for me; remember that I 
 served Thee well for many years when I lived among the 
 poor folk in the mountains. For all these years I ask this 
 thing of Thee, that Thou wilt let me bear her punishment. 
 Is it too much I am asking of Thee, O my God, is it too 
 much?" 
 
 When he gofe up from his knees a chime of bells 
 seemed to be going on in his head, and he wondered if 
 another miracle had happened. It certainly was as if 
 some one had laid hands on him and forced him on his 
 knees. But to ask the Almighty to extend His protection 
 to him rather than to Mr. Ellis, who was a Protestant, 
 seemed not a little gross. Father Oliver experienced a 
 shyness that he had never known before, and he hoped 
 the Almighty would not be offended at the familiarity 
 15 221
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 of the language, or the intimate nature of the request, 
 for to ask for Rose's body as well as her soul was not 
 very orthodox. 
 
 Next day his mood had changed, and the Mass he 
 offered up that she might not die in mortal sin seemed 
 to him a very trite and commonplace affair compared 
 with the personal ecstasy of his prayer over night. A 
 moment of religious ecstasy had been vouchsafed to him, 
 but he must not understand this last spiritual exaltation 
 as a return to religion; and feeling that his faith was 
 about to be taken from him, he looked back upon his 
 prayer as a belated bird struggling after the flock that 
 had disappeared long ago over the horizon. It was 
 queer to think like that. Perhaps his brain was giving 
 way. And he pushed the plates aside; he could not 
 eat any dinner, nor could he take any interest in his 
 garden. 
 
 The dahlias were over, the chrysanthemums were 
 beginning, and in these languid autumn days the desire 
 to write to Rose crept nearer, until it always seemed about 
 him, like some familiar animal. Never had the country 
 seemed so still ; dead birds in the woods, and the sounds 
 of leaves, and the fitful November sunlight on the 
 strands these were his distractions when he went out 
 for a walk, and when he came in he often thought it 
 would be well if he did not live to see another day, so 
 heavy did the days seem, so uninteresting had life 
 become. Very often there was a lightness in his brain 
 which he could not account for, a desire to go mad, a 
 nervous sense of time and things; the strain grew so 
 
 222
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 intense that he fancied something would break in his 
 brain, and to save himself he began a letter. 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 "November 18, 19 . 
 
 " DEAR Miss LEICESTER : 
 
 " I should have written to you before, but I lacked 
 courage. Do you remember saying that the loneliness 
 of the country sometimes forced you to kneel down to 
 pray that you might die? I think the loneliness that 
 overcame you was the loneliness that comes at the end 
 of an autumn day when the dusk gathers in the room. 
 It seems to steal all one's courage away, and one looks 
 up from one's work in despair, asking of what value is 
 one's life. The world goes on just the same, grinding 
 our souls away. Nobody seems to care; nothing seems 
 to make any difference. 
 
 " Human life is a very lonely thing ; I never knew 
 how lonely till this autumn. Perhaps my perceptions 
 were quickened -by your kind advice to come abroad. 
 A caged bird simply beats its wings and dies, but a 
 human being does not die of loneliness, even when he 
 prays for death. You have experienced it all, and you 
 will know what I feel when I tell you that I spend my 
 time watching the eternal rain, thinking of sunshine, pic- 
 ture galleries, and libraries. 
 
 " But you were right to bid me remain here, fulfilling 
 the duties that I had undertaken. Had I gone away, as 
 
 223
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 you first suggested, I should have been unhappy, for I 
 should have thought continually of the poor people I had 
 left behind; and the fear that I had expressed in my 
 letter, that if I once went away I should not return, has 
 become a settled conviction. I might get a parish in 
 England or a chaplaincy, but I should always look upon 
 the desertion of my poor people as a moral delinquency. 
 A quiet conscience is, after all, a great possession, and 
 for the sake of a quiet conscience I will remain here, and 
 you will be able to understand my scruple when you 
 think 'how helpless my people are, and how essential is 
 the kindly guidance of the priest. 
 
 " Without a leader the people are helpless ; they 
 wander like sheep on a mountain side, falling over rocks 
 or dying amid snowdrifts. Sometimes the shepherd 
 grows weary of watching, and the question arises if one 
 has no duty toward one's self. Then one begins to 
 wonder what is one's duty and what is duty if duty is 
 more than the opinions of others, a convention which no 
 one would like to hear called into question, because he 
 feels instinctively that it is well for everyone to continue 
 in the rut, for, after all, a rut means a road, and roads 
 are necessary. If one lets one's self go on thinking, 
 one very soon finds that wrong and right are indis- 
 tinguishable, so perhaps it is better to follow the rut 
 if one can. But following of the rut is beset with diffi- 
 culties; there are big holes on either side. Sometimes 
 the road ends nowhere, and one gets lost in spite of 
 one's self. But why am I writing all these things to 
 you?" 
 
 224
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Why, indeed? If he were to send this letter she 
 would show it to Mr. Ellis, and they would laugh over 
 it together. " Poor priest ! " they would say. He 
 crumpled up the paper and threw it into the fire. " My 
 life is unendurable," he said, as he watched the sheets of 
 paper burn. "And it will grow worse." He fell to 
 thinking how he would grow old, getting every day more 
 like an old stereotyped plate, the Mass and the rosary at 
 the end of his tongue, and nothing in his heart. He had 
 seen many priests lik*e this. Could he fall into such 
 miserable decadence? Could such obedience to rule be 
 any man's duty ? But where should he go ? What matter 
 where he went, for he would never see her any more, 
 and she was, after all, the only real thing in the world 
 for him. 
 
 So did he continue to suffer like an animal, mutely, 
 instinctively, mourning his life away, forgetful of every- 
 thing but his grief; unmindful of his food, and unable 
 to sleep when he lay down, or to distinguish between 
 familiar things the birds about his house, the boys and 
 girls he had baptized. He had to think a moment before 
 he knew which was Mary and which was Bridget, which 
 was Patsy and which was Mike, and very often Catherine 
 was in the parlor many minutes before he noticed her 
 presence. She stood watching him, wondering of what 
 he was thinking, for he sat in his chair, getting weaker 
 and thinner; and soon he began to look haggard as an 
 old man or one about to die. He seemed to grow feebler 
 in mind ; his attention wandered away every few minutes 
 from the book he was reading. Catherine noticed the 
 
 225
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 change, and, thinking that a little chat would be of help, 
 she often came up from her kitchen to tell him the gossip 
 of the parish : but he could not listen to her, her garru- 
 lousness seemed to him more than ever unbearable, and 
 he kept a book by him, an old copy of " Ivanhoe " ; when 
 he heard her step he pretended he was reading it. 
 
 Father Moran often came to discuss the business of 
 the parish with him. He had insisted on relieving Father 
 Oliver of a great deal of it, saying that he wanted a rest, 
 and he often urged Father Oliver to go away for a holi- 
 day. He was kind, but his talk was wearisome, and Father 
 Oliver thought he would prefer to read about the fabu- 
 lous Rowena than to hear any more about the arch- 
 bishop. But when Father Moran left, Rowena bored him, 
 and so completely that he could not remember at what 
 point he had left off reading, and his thoughts wandered 
 from the tournament to some phrase he had made use of 
 in writing to Rose, or, it might be, some phrase of hers 
 that would suddenly spring into his mind. He sought 
 no longer to discover her character from her letters, nor 
 did he criticise the many contradictions which had per- 
 plexed him ; it seemed to him that he accepted her now, 
 as the phrase goes, " as she was," thinking of her as he 
 might of some supernatural being whom he had offended, 
 and who had revenged herself. Her wickedness became 
 in his eyes an added grace, and from the rack on which 
 he lay he admired his executioner. Even her liking for 
 Mr. Ellis became submerged in a tide of suffering, and 
 of longing, and weakness of spirit. He no longer had 
 any strength to question her liking for the minor 
 
 226
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 prophets; there were discrepancies in everyone, and no 
 doubt there were in him as well as in her. He had once 
 been very different from what he was to-day. Once he 
 was an ardent student in Maynooth, he had been an 
 energetic curate; and now what was he? Worse still, 
 what was he becoming? And he allowed his thoughts 
 to dwell on the fact that every day she was receding 
 from him. He, too, was receding. All things were 
 receding becoming dimmer. 
 
 He piled the grate up with turf, and when the blaze 
 came leaned over it, warming his hands, asking himself 
 why she liked Mr. Ellis rather than him. For he no 
 longer tried to conceal from himself the fact that he loved 
 her. He had played the hypocrite long enough ; he had 
 spoken about her soul, but it was herself that he wanted. 
 This admission brought some little relief, but he felt that 
 the relief would only be temporary. Alas! it was sur- 
 render. It was worse than surrender it was abandon- 
 ment. He could sink no deeper. But he could ; we can 
 all sink deeper. Now what would the end be? There 
 is an end to everything; there must be an end even to 
 humiliation, to self-abasement. It was Moran over again. 
 Moran was ashamed of his vice, but he had to accept it, 
 and Father Oliver thought how much it must have cost 
 his curate to come to tell him that he wanted to lie drunk 
 for some days in an outhouse in order to escape for a 
 few days from the agony of living. " That is what he 
 called it, and I, too, would escape from it." 
 
 He remembered a poem, a beautiful poem, written by 
 a peasant in County Cork a hundred years ago. This 
 
 227
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 man met a woman who inspired such a passion that his 
 brain gave way. She deserted him, but before he went 
 mad he composed this set of verses, " which will live 
 always, and always be read and admired by men like 
 myself," Father Oliver murmured, " for there will always 
 be men who are suffering as I am to-day." And he 
 wondered if madness would be the end of his suffering, 
 or if he would go down to the lake and find rest in it. 
 
 " Oh, succor me, dear one, give me a kiss from thy mouth, 
 And lift me up to thee from death, 
 
 Or bid them make for me a narrow bed, a coffin of boards, 
 In the dark neighborhood of the worm and his friends. 
 My life is not life but death, my voice is no voice but a wind, 
 There is no color in me, nor life, nor richness, nor health ; 
 But in tears and sorrow and weakness, without music, without 
 
 sport, without power, 
 I go into captivity and woe, and in the pain of my love of thee." 
 
 228
 
 XIV 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 " GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 " March 12, 19 . 
 
 ALONG time has passed without your hearing 
 from me, and I am sure you must have said 
 more than once : ' Well, that priest has more 
 sense than I gave him credit for. He took the hint. He 
 understood that it would be useless for us to continue to 
 write long letters to each other about remorse of con- 
 science and Mr. Ellis's criticism of the Bible.' But the 
 sight of my handwriting will call into question the opinion 
 you have formed of my good sense, and you will say: 
 ' Here he is, beginning it all over again.' No, I am not. 
 I am a little ashamed of my former letters, and am writ- 
 ing to tell you so. My letters, if I write any, will be quite 
 different in the future, thanks to your candor. Your 
 letter from Rapallo cured me; like a surgeon's knife, it 
 took out the ulcer that was eating my life away. The 
 expression will seem exaggerated, I know; but let it 
 remain. You no doubt felt that I was in ignorance of my 
 own state of feelings regarding you, and you wrote just 
 such a letter as would force me to look into my heart 
 and to discover who I really was. You felt that you 
 
 229
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 could help me to some knowledge of myself by telling 
 me about yourself. 
 
 " The shock on reading your confession for I look 
 upon your Rapallo letter as one was very great, for 
 on reading it I realized that a good deal that I had 
 written to you about the salvation of your soul was in- 
 spired, not by any pure fear that I had done anything 
 that might lose a soul to God, but by pure selfishness. I 
 did not dare to write boldly that I loved yourself, and 
 would always love you; I wore a mask and a disguise, 
 and in order to come to terms with myself I feel it neces- 
 sary to confess to you ; otherwise all the suffering I have 
 endured would be wasted. 
 
 " But this is not all my confession ; worse still remains. 
 I have discovered that when I spoke against you in 
 church, and said things that caused you to leave the 
 parish, I did not do so, as I thought, because I believed 
 that the morality of my parish must be maintained at any 
 cost. I know now that jealousy yes, sensual jealousy 
 prompted me. And when I went to my sisters to ask them 
 to appoint you to the post of music teacher in their school, 
 I did not do so for their sake, but for my own, because I 
 wished to have you back in the parish. But I do not 
 wish you to think that when I wrote about atonement I 
 wrote what I knew to be untrue. I did not; the truth 
 was hidden from me. Nor did I wish to get you back 
 to the parish in order that I might gratify my passion. 
 All these things were very vague, and I didn't under- 
 stand myself until now. I have never had any experience 
 of life ; you were my first experience. It is curious that 
 
 230
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 one should know so little of one's self, and I might have 
 gone down to my grave without ever knowing how false 
 I was at heart, if I had not been stricken down with a 
 great illness. 
 
 " One day Catherine told me that the lake was frozen 
 over, and, as I had been within doors a long while, she 
 advised me to go out and see the boys sliding on the ice. 
 Her advice put an idea into my head, that I might take 
 out my skates and skate recklessly without trying to 
 avoid the deeper portions where the ice was likely to be 
 thin. I was weary of life, and knowing that I could not 
 go back upon the past, and that no one would ever love 
 me, I wished to bring my suffering to an end. You will 
 wonder why I did not think of the sufferings that I 
 might have earned for myself in the next world. I had 
 suffered so much that I could think of nothing but the 
 present moment. God was good, and He saved me, for 
 as I stood irresolute before a piece of ice which I knew 
 wouldn't bear me, I felt a great sickness creeping over 
 me. I returned home, and for several days the doctor 
 could not say whether I would live or die. You remem- 
 ber Catherine, my servant? She told me that the only 
 answer the doctor would give her was that if I were not 
 better within a certain time there would be no hope of 
 my recovery. At the end of the week he came into my 
 room. Catherine was waiting outside, and I hear that 
 she fell on her knees to thank God when the doctor said : 
 ' Yes, he is a little better ; if there's no relapse he'll live.' 
 
 " After a severe illness one is alone with one's self, 
 and the whole of one's life sings in one's head like a 
 
 231
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 song. Listening to it, I learned that jealousy had 
 prompted me to speak against you, and not any real care 
 for the morality of my parish. I discovered, too, that 
 my moral ideas were not my own. They had been bor- 
 rowed from others, and badly assimilated. I remembered 
 how at Maynooth the tradition was always to despise 
 women, and in order to convince myself I used to exag- 
 gerate this view, and say things that made my fellow- 
 students look upon me askance, if not with suspicion. 
 But when the body is at rest the mind is clear, and dozing 
 through long convalescent hours many things hitherto 
 obscure to me became clear, and it seems now to me to 
 be clearly wrong to withhold our sympathy from any side 
 of life. It seems to me that it is only by our sympathy 
 we can do any good at all. God gave us our human 
 nature; we may misuse and degrade our nature, but we 
 must never forget that it came originally from God. 
 
 " What I am saying may not be in accordance with 
 current theology, but I am not thinking of theology, but 
 of the things that were revealed to me during my sick- 
 ness. It was through my fault that you met Mr. Ralph 
 Ellis, and I must pray to God that He will bring you 
 back to the fold. I shall pray for you both. I wish you 
 all happiness, and I thank you for the many kind things 
 you have said, for the good advice you have given me. 
 You are quite right: I want a change. You advise me 
 to go to Italy, and you are right to advise me to go there, 
 for my heart yearns for Italy. But I dare not go ; for I 
 still feel that if I left my parish I should never return to 
 it; and if I were to go away and not return a great 
 
 232
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 scandal would be caused, and I am more than ever re- 
 solved not to do anything to grieve the poor people, who 
 have been very good to me, and whose interests I have 
 neglected this long while. 
 
 " I send this letter to Ethelstone Manor, where you 
 will find it on your return. As I have already said, you 
 need not answer it; no good will come by answering it. 
 In years to come, perhaps, when we are both different, 
 we may meet again. 
 
 "OLIVER GOGARTY." 
 
 From Miss Rose Leicester to Father Oliver Gogarty. 
 
 "IMPERIAL HOTEL, CAIRO, EGYPT, 
 "Mays, I 9 
 
 " DEAR FATHER GOGARTY : 
 
 " By the address on the top of this sheet of paper you 
 will see that I have traveled a long way since you last 
 heard from me, and ever since your letter has been fol- 
 lowing me about from hotel to hotel. It is lucky that it 
 has caught me up in Egypt, for we are going East to 
 visit countries where the postal service has not yet been 
 introduced. We leave here to-morrow. If your letter 
 had been a day later it would have missed me ; it would 
 have remained here unclaimed unless, indeed, we come 
 back this way, which is not likely. You see what a near 
 thing it was ; and as I have much to say to you, I should 
 be sorry not to have had an opportunity of writing. 
 
 " Your last letter has put many thoughts into my 
 head, and made me anxious to explain many things 
 
 233
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 which I feel sure you do not know about my conduct 
 since I left London, and the letters I have written to you. 
 Has it not often seemed strange to you that we go 
 through life without ever being able to reveal the soul 
 that is in us ? Is it because we are ashamed, or is it that 
 we do not know ourselves? Certainly it is a very hard 
 task to learn the truth about ourselves, and I appreciate 
 the courage your last letter shows; you have faced the 
 truth, and having learned it, you write it to me in all 
 simplicity. I like you better now, Oliver Gogarty, than 
 I ever did before, and I always liked you. But it seems 
 to me that to allow you to confess yourself without con- 
 fessing myself, without revealing the woman's soul 
 in me as you have revealed the man's soul in yourself, 
 would be unworthy. Our destinies got somehow en- 
 tangled, there was a wrench, the knot was broken, and the 
 thread was wound upon Another spool. The unravel- 
 ing of the piece must have perplexed you, and you must 
 have wondered why the shape and the pattern should 
 have passed suddenly away into thread again, and then, 
 after a lapse of time, why the weaving should have 
 begun again. 
 
 " You must have wondered why I wrote to you, and 
 you must have wondered why I forgave you for the 
 wrong you did me. I guessed that our friendship when 
 I was in the parish was a little more than the platonic 
 friendship that you thought it was, so when you turned 
 against me, and were unkind, I found an excuse for you. 
 When my hatred was bitterest, I knew somehow, at the 
 back of my mind for I only allowed myself to think of 
 
 234
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 it occasionally that you acted from there is but one 
 word jealousy (not a pretty word from your point of 
 view) ; and it must have shocked you, as a man and as a 
 priest, to find that the woman whom you thought so 
 much of, and whose society gave you so much pleasure 
 (I know the times we passed together were as pleasant 
 to you as they were to me), should suddenly, without 
 warning, appear in a totally different light, and in a light 
 which must have seemed to you mean and sordid. The 
 discovery that I was going to have a baby threw me sud- 
 denly down from the pedestal on which you had placed 
 me ; your idol was broken, and your feelings for you are 
 one of those men who feel deeply got the better of you, 
 and you indulged in a few incautious words in your 
 church. 
 
 " I thought of these things sometimes, not often, I 
 admit, in the little London lodging where I lived till my 
 baby was born, seeing my gown in front getting shorter, 
 and telling lies to good Mrs. Dent about the husband 
 whom I said was abroad, whom I was expecting to 
 return. That was a miserable time, but we won't talk 
 of it any more. When Father O'Grady showed me the 
 letter that you wrote him, I forgave you in a way. A 
 woman forgives a man the wrongs he does when these 
 wrongs are prompted by jealousy, for, after all, a woman 
 is never really satisfied if a man is not a little jealous. 
 His jealousy may prove inconvenient, and she may learn 
 to hate it and think it an ugly thing and a crooked thing, 
 but, from her point of view, love would not be complete 
 without it. 
 
 235
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " I smiled, of course, when I got your letter telling 
 me that you had been to your sisters to ask them if 
 they would take me as a schoolmistress in the convent, 
 and I walked about smiling, thinking of your long inno- 
 cent drive round the lake. I can see it all, dear man that 
 you are, thinking you could settle everything, and that 
 I would return to Ireland to teach barefooted little 
 children their catechism and their ABC. How often 
 has the phrase been used in our letters ! It was a pretty 
 idea of yours to go to your sisters; you did not know 
 then that you cared for me you only thought of atone- 
 ment. I suppose we must always be deceived. Mr. Ellis 
 says self-deception is the very law of life. We live en- 
 veloped in self-deception as in a film ; now and again the 
 film breaks like a cloud and the sun shines through. It 
 is really very difficult to tell the truth, Father Gogarty; 
 I find it difficult now to tell you why I wrote all these 
 letters. Because I liked you ? Yes, and a little bit because 
 I wished you to suffer; I don't think I shall ever get 
 nearer the truth than that. But when I asked you to meet 
 us abroad, I did so in good faith, for you are a clever 
 man, and Mr. Ellis's studies would please you. At the 
 back of my mind I suppose I thought to meet him would 
 do you good; I thought, perhaps, that he might redeem 
 you from some conventions and prejudices. I don't like 
 priests ; the priest was the only thing about you I never 
 liked. Was it in some vain, proselytizing idea that I in- 
 vited you? Candidly, I don't know, and I don't think I 
 ever shall; there is much that we don't know, not only 
 about the next world, but even about this. 
 
 236
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " I said in one of my letters that I was not suited to 
 Ireland, and what I meant by that was that this world 
 was good enough for me, that I liked to live in a world of 
 ideas and human passions, and that religion did not 
 interest me. The book you sent me, ' The Imitation,' I 
 did not like at all, and I wrote to tell you to put it by, to 
 come abroad and see pictures and statues in a beautiful 
 country where people do not drink horrid porter, but 
 nice wine, and where sacraments are left to the old people 
 who have nothing else to interest them. I suppose it was 
 a cruel, callous letter, but I did not mean it so ; I merely 
 wanted to give you a glimpse of my new life and my new 
 point of view. As for this letter, Heaven knows how you 
 will take it whether you will hate me for it or like me ; 
 but since you wrote quite frankly to me, confessing your- 
 self from end to end, I, feel bound to tell you everything 
 I know about myself and since I left Ireland I have 
 learned a great deal about myself and about life. Per- 
 haps I should have gone on writing to you if Mr. Ellis 
 had not one day said that no good would come of this 
 long correspondence ; he suspected I was a disturbing in- 
 fluence, and, as you were determined to live in Ireland, 
 he said it were better that you should live in conven- 
 tions and prejudices; without them your life would be 
 impossible. 
 
 " Then came your last letter, and it showed me how 
 right Mr. Ellis was. Nothing remains now but to beg 
 your forgiveness for having vainly disturbed your life. 
 The disturbance is, perhaps, only a passing one. You may 
 recover your ideas the ideas that are necessary to you 
 16 237
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 or you may go on discovering the truth, and in the end 
 may perhaps find a way whereby you may leave your 
 parish without causing scandal. To be quite truthful, 
 that is what I hope will happen. However this may be, 
 I hope if we ever meet again it will not be till you have 
 ceased to be a priest. But all this is a long way ahead. 
 We are going East, and shall not be back for many 
 months ; we are going to visit the buried cities in Turkes- 
 tan. I do not know if you have ever heard about these 
 cities. They were buried in sand somewhere about 
 a thousand years ago, and some parts have been disin- 
 terred lately. Vaults have been discovered, and were 
 broken into in search of treasure. Gold and precious 
 stones were discovered, but far more valuable than the 
 gold and silver, so says Mr. Ellis, are certain papyri now 
 being deciphered by the learned professors of Berlin. 
 
 " You know the name of Mr. Ellis's book, * The 
 Source of the Christian River ' ? He had not suspected 
 that its source went farther back than Palestine, but now 
 he says that some papyri may be found that will take it 
 far back into Central Asia. 
 
 " I am going with him on this quest. It sounds a 
 little absurd, doesn't it? my going in quest of the Chris- 
 tian river? But if one thinks for a moment, one thing 
 is as absurd as another. Do you know, I find it difficult 
 to take life seriously, and I walk about the streets think- 
 ing of you, Father Gogarty, and the smile that will come 
 over your face, half-angry, half-pleased, when you read 
 that your schoolmistress is going to Central Asia in quest 
 of the Christian river. What will you be doing all this 
 
 238
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 time? You say that you cannot leave your parish be- 
 cause you fear to give scandal ; you fear to pain the poor 
 people, who have been good to you and who have given 
 you money, and your scruple is a noble one ; I appreciate 
 and respect it. But we must not think entirely of our 
 duties to others; we must think of our duties to our- 
 selves. Each one must try to realize himself I mean 
 that we must try to bring the gifts that Nature gave us 
 to fruition. Nature has given you many gifts: I won- 
 der what will become of you? 
 
 "Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " ROSE LEICESTER." 
 
 " Good God, how I love that woman ! " the priest 
 said, awaking from his reverie, for the clock told him 
 that he had sat for nearly three-quarters of an hour, 
 her letter in his hand, after having read it. And lying 
 back in his armchair, his hands clasped, his eyes fixed 
 on the window, listening to the birds singing in the vine 
 it was already in leaf, and the shadows of the leaves 
 danced across the carpet he sought to define that sense 
 of delight he could find no other words for it which 
 she exhaled unconsciously as a flower exhales its per- 
 fume, that joy of life which she scattered with as little 
 premeditation as the birds scattered their songs. But 
 though he was constantly seeking some new form of ex- 
 pression of her charm, he always came back to the 
 words " sense of delight." Sometimes he added that 
 sense of delight which we experience when we go out 
 of the house on an April morning and find everything 
 
 239
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 growing about us, the sky willful and blue, and the 
 clouds going by, saying, " Be happy as we are." 
 
 She was so different from every other woman. All 
 other women he had met were plain instincts, come 
 into the world for the accomplishment of things that 
 women had accomplished for thousands of years. They 
 were no more than animated clay, whereas this woman 
 seemed to him a spirit. That she had been the mistress 
 of a soldier or a shepherd in his parish, that she was 
 now the mistress of the cultured Mr. Ellis, did not seem 
 to materialize her. He pondered, trying to explain to 
 himself how this might be, finding only this explanation, 
 that materialism is not fleshy lust but conformity to a 
 code. Other women think as their mothers thought, and 
 as their daughters will think, expressing the thoughts of 
 the countless generations behind and in front of them. 
 But this woman was moved merely by impulses ; and what 
 is more inexplicable than an impulse ? What is the earth 
 but an impulse? This woman was as mysterious as the 
 impulse we know as the springtide. She was as mysteri- 
 ous as the breath of spring; she was the springtide, and 
 henceforth he thought of her as Primeverae. And just 
 as the sun blinds us when we look upon it, so did she 
 blind him. Light can deprive us of sight as well as dark- 
 ness. In no other way could he explain her. She was 
 quite clear to him, though he could not find words to 
 express her clearly. She had once said to him she had 
 come to gather flowers for the altar; he was talking of 
 the music she had played that afternoon, of her singing, 
 and the difference it made to him to have one who could 
 
 240
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 direct the music in his church, and she had said " I look 
 upon myself as your amusement. You are a ruler in this 
 parish; you direct it, you administer its affairs, the ad- 
 ministration of the parish is your business, and I am the 
 little amusement that you turn to when your business is 
 done." He had not known how to answer her. In this 
 way her remarks often covered him with confusion. She 
 just thought as she pleased, and spoke as she pleased, 
 and he returned to his idea that she was more than anyone 
 else like what the primitive woman must have been. 
 
 Pondering on her words for the hundredth time, they 
 seemed to him stranger than ever. That any human 
 being should admit that she was but the delight of an- 
 other's life seemed at first only extraordinary, but if one 
 considered her words, it seemed to signify knowledge 
 latent, no doubt that her beauty was part of the great 
 agency. Her words implied that she was aware of her 
 mission. She had not spoken herself, it was her un- 
 conscious self that had spoken, and it was that very fact 
 that had given significance to her words. 
 
 For a moment he escaped from the tangle of his own 
 special unhappiness, and believed himself to be on the 
 point of discovering what he had long sought, an ex- 
 planation of this woman's charm ; not only of her charm, 
 but of herself so utterly he recurred to an old idea so 
 utterly emancipated from all human obligations. Was 
 there one among Shakespeare's fantastic half women, half 
 spirits who reminded him most of Rose? Was she 
 Miranda, or Puck, or Ariel? Shakespeare created many 
 of these creatures, apparently emancipated from reality, 
 
 241
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 and yet expressing a great deal of reality. She seemed 
 to him to go back to an earlier time, and he turned to 
 the joyous animality of woodland antiquity, feeling sure 
 there must be some pagan myth in which a goddess came 
 down to earth to take her joy among men, an irresponsible 
 being obedient to no human laws. 
 
 As he sat looking through his window his thoughts 
 went off at right angles. He had often desired a foun- 
 tain a garden without a fountain had always seemed to 
 him incomplete but it would be too expensive to bring 
 water up from the lake. It was a pity, for a fountain 
 amid his roses would be a refreshment for the garden 
 all the summer time. Now it occurred to him, and sud- 
 denly, that she shed light upon his life, just as a fountain 
 sheds refreshment upon the garden she was like a 
 fountain ! A fountain was the only simile he could find 
 that conveyed any idea of this extraordinary woman, con- 
 trolled, no doubt, as the fountain, by some law, but a 
 law hidden from him. The water seemed to burst up as 
 it liked. The water sang a tune which could not be 
 caught and written down in notes, but which nevertheless 
 existed. The water was full of iridescent colors, chang- 
 ing every moment. The fountain was the best simile he 
 could find for that joy and beauty and grace, that enchant- 
 ment of the senses, one by one, which he had known, 
 which had appeared to him in the name of Rose Leicester. 
 
 At that moment Catherine came into the room. 
 " No, not now," he said ; and he went into the garden 
 and through the wicket at the other end, remembering 
 how he had gone out last year on a day just like the 
 
 242
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 present day, trying to keep thoughts of her out of his 
 mind. 
 
 The day was the fifteenth of May. Last year the 
 sky was low and full of cottonlike clouds ; the lake seemed 
 to doze and murmur about the smooth limestone shingle. 
 There was a chatter of ducks in the reeds ; the reeds them- 
 selves were talking. This year the sky was brighter; 
 there was more blue in it, the clouds lifted. The lake was 
 very still; there was less mist about. Suddenly it oc- 
 curred to him that it was this day last year that he had 
 begun to grieve about her. As he wandered about the 
 shore, sorrow had begun to lap about his heart like soft 
 lake water. He had thought he was grieving deeply, 
 but that was because he did not know what grief was. 
 Since last year he had learned all that a man could know 
 of grief. Last year he was able to take an interest in the 
 spring, to watch for the hawthorn bloom; this year he 
 didn't take any interest in them. What matter whether 
 they bloomed a week earlier or a week later ? As a matter 
 of fact they were late. The frost had thrown them 
 back. There would be no flowers till June. Last year 
 he had admired -the larches. How beautifully the tas- 
 seled branches swayed, throwing shadows on the long 
 May grass! And they were not less beautiful this year, 
 though they were less interesting to him. 
 
 He wandered through the woods, over the country, 
 noting the different signs of spring, for, in spite of his 
 sorrow, he could not but admire the slender spring. 
 He could not tell why, but he always associated Rose 
 with the gayety of the springtime. She was thin like 
 
 243
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 the spring, and her laughter was blithe like the 
 spring. She seemed to him like a spirit, and isn't the 
 spring like a spirit? He recognized her in the cow 
 parsley just coming up, and the sight of the campions be- 
 tween the white spangles reminded him of the pink 
 flowers she wore in her hat. The underwood was full of 
 bluebells, and he thought of her eyes. The aspens on the 
 hillside were brown the aspen was gayer and less cere- 
 monial than the poplar and he noticed the little green 
 and yellow leaves of the willows, and he came to a place 
 where they stood all a-row in front of a stream, like 
 girls courtesying. 
 
 Seeing a bird disappear into a hole in the wall, he 
 climbed up. The bird pecked at him, for she was hatch- 
 ing. " A starling," he said. In the field behind his 
 house, under the old hawthorn tree, an amiable-looking 
 donkey had given birth to a foal, and he watched the 
 little thing, no bigger than a sheep, covered with long 
 gray hair. . . . There were some parishioners he would 
 be sorry to part with, and there was Catherine. If he 
 went away he would never see her again, nor all those 
 who lived in the village. All this present reality would 
 fade, his old church, surrounded with gravestones and 
 stunted Scotch firs, would become like a dream, every 
 year losing a little in color and outline. He was going, 
 he did not know when, but he was going. For a long 
 time the feeling had been gathering in him that he was 
 going, and the letter he had just read had increased that 
 feeling. He would go just as soon as a reputable way 
 of leaving his parish was revealed to him. 
 
 244
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 By the help of his reason he could not hope to find 
 out the way. Nothing seemed more impossible than that 
 a way should be found for him to leave his parish with- 
 out giving scandal; but however impossible things may 
 seem to us, nothing is impossible to Nature. He must 
 put his confidence in Nature ; he must listen to her. She 
 would tell him. And he lay all the afternoon listening 
 to the reeds and the ducks talking together in the lake. 
 Very often the wood was like a harp; a breeze touched 
 the strings, and every now and then the murmur seemed 
 about to break into a little tune, and as if in emulation, or 
 because he remembered his part in the music, a black- 
 bird, perched near to his mate, whose nest was in the 
 hawthorns growing out of the tumbled wall, began to 
 sing a joyful lay in a rich round contralto, soft and deep 
 as velvet. " All nature," he said, " is talking or singing. 
 This is talking and singing time. But my heart can speak 
 to no one, and I seek places where no one will come." 
 And he began to wonder if he prayed he might die God 
 would answer his prayer. 
 
 The sunlit grass, already long and almost ready for 
 the scythe, was swept by shadows of the larches, those 
 long, downward-growing boughs hung with green tas- 
 sels, moving mysteriously above him. Birds came and 
 went, each on its special errand. Never was Nature more 
 inveigling, more restful. He shut his eyes, shapes passed, 
 dreams filled the interspaces. Little thoughts began. 
 Why had he never brought her here? A memory of her 
 walking under those hawthorns would be delightful. The 
 murmur of the boughs dissipated his dreams or changed 
 
 245
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 them, or brought new ones; his consciousness grew 
 fainter, and he could not remember what his last thoughts 
 had been when he opened his eyes. 
 
 And then he wandered out of the wood, into the sun- 
 lit country, along the dusty road, trying to take an interest 
 in everyone whom he met. It was fair day, and he met 
 drovers and chatted to them about the cattle, and he heard 
 a wonderful story about a heifer that one of them had sold, 
 and that found her way back home again, twenty-five 
 miles. ... A little farther on a man came across the 
 fields toward him, with a sheep dog at his heels, a beauti- 
 ful bitch who showed her teeth so prettily when she was 
 spoken to ; she had long gold hair, and it was easy to see 
 that she liked to be admired. 
 
 " They're all alike, the feminine sex," the priest 
 thought. " She's as pretty as Rose, and acts very much 
 the same." 
 
 And he trudged on again, amused by the playful sun- 
 light dancing in and out of the underwoods. He heard 
 many stories. One was about a poacher wrjo hadn't 
 slept in a bed for years ; who lived out in the heather and 
 in the woods, and trapped rabbits, and beat people when 
 he met them. Sometimes he enticed them far away, and 
 then turned upon them savagely. He came upon a cart 
 filled with pigs which had broken down, and the pigs 
 escaped in all directions into a young plantation, and the 
 efforts of a great number of country people were directed 
 to collecting them. Father Oliver helped in the chase, 
 and at last he saw them driven along the road, for it 
 had been found impossible to mend the cart. 
 
 246
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 But the moment came for him to return home. He 
 thought he would never return at all if he had had any 
 money in his pocket; for a wandering mood was upon 
 him, and he might have just wandered out of the parish. 
 And he imagined that that would be how Father Moran 
 would leave the parish he would just go on walking 
 without worrying himself with vexatious questions. 
 
 The sun was sinking when he found himself back in 
 the woods again ; they were silent now only the cuckoo 
 was heard, and the familiar cry sounded pleasantly from 
 hill to hill. The evening was beautiful, more beautiful 
 than any picture, and so quiet that he thought of some 
 great cathedral nave; but it was far more beautiful than 
 that, for a nave is filled with twilight and incense, whereas 
 this evening was bright and pure. The earth was warm 
 and green and full of the love of the springtime, with 
 nests in every bough, and flowers growing bluebells and 
 campions and cow parsley ; and he admired these flowers 
 more than he had admired them in the morning. Nor 
 had the mountains ever seemed so beautiful as they 
 seemed now ; he could follow every crest and valley. Half 
 the beauty of these mountains lay in the fact that they 
 were turned hither and thither, and not seen in profile. 
 
 In the sky a lake was forming, the very image and 
 likeness to the lake under the hill. One glittered like 
 silver, the other like gold, and so wonderful was this 
 celestial lake that he began to think of immortals, of an 
 assembly of goddesses waiting for their gods, or a god- 
 dess waiting on an island for some mortal, sending bird 
 
 247
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 messengers to him. A sort of pagan enchantment was 
 put upon him, and he rose up from the ferns to see an 
 evening as fair as Rose and as fragrant. He tried to 
 think of the color of her eyes, which were fervid and 
 oracular, and of her hands, which were long and sweet 
 and curved, and of her breath, which was fragrant. The 
 evening was like her, as subtle and as persuasive, and the 
 sensation of her presence was so clear that he shut his 
 eyes, feeling her about him as near to him as if she 
 lay in his arms, just as he had felt her that night in 
 the wood, only then she was colder and more remote. 
 He walked along the shore feeling like an instrument that 
 had been tuned. His perception seemed to have been 
 indefinitely increased, and it seemed to him as if he were 
 in communion with the stones in the earth and the 
 clouds in heaven; it seemed to him as if the past and 
 the future had become one. 
 
 The moment was one of extraordinary sweetness; 
 never might such a moment happen in his life again. 
 The earth and sky were enfolding in one tender har- 
 mony of rose and blue, the blue shading down to gray, 
 and the lake floated amid vague shores, vaguely as a 
 dream floats through sleep. The swallows were flying 
 high, quivering overhead in the blue air. There was a 
 sense of security and persuasion and loveliness in the 
 evening. 
 
 248
 
 XV 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 
 " May 18, 19 . 
 
 THOUGHTS are rising up in my mind, and I 
 am eager to write them down quickly, and 
 with as little consideration as possible. Per- 
 haps my thoughts will seem trivial when I have written 
 them, but the emotion that inspired them was very won- 
 derful and overpowering. I am, as it were, propelled to 
 my writing table. I must write: my emotion must find 
 expression. Even if I were sure you would not get this 
 letter for months, I should write it. I believe if I knew 
 you would never get it I should write. But if I send 
 it to Ethelstone Manor it will be forwarded, I suppose, 
 for you will not remain whole months without hearing 
 from Europe. ... In any case, you will get this letter 
 on your return, and it will ease my heart to write it. 
 Above all things, I would have you know that the re- 
 port that I was drowned while bathing is not true. A 
 report to this effect will certainly find its way into the 
 local papers, and in these days, once a piece of news gets 
 reported, it flies along from newspaper to newspaper, 
 and newspapers have a knack of straying into our hands 
 when they contain a disagreeable item of news. 
 
 249
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " You will remember how the interview with Mr. 
 Ellis, published in Illustrated England, came into my 
 hands. That number was the first of Illustrated England 
 I had seen. My curate brought it here and left it upon 
 the table, and only the fate that is over us knows why. 
 In the same way, a paper containing a report of my sup- 
 posed drowning may reach you when you return to Eng- 
 land, and, as I do not want you to think that I have 
 gone out of this life, I am writing to tell you that the 
 report of my death is untrue, or, to speak more exactly, 
 it will not be true, if my arms and legs can make it a 
 false report. These lines will set you wondering if I 
 have taken leave of my senses. Read on, and my sanity 
 will become manifest. Some day next month I intend 
 to swim across the lake, and you will, I think, appreciate 
 this adventure. You praised my decision not to leave 
 my parish because of the pain it would give the poor 
 people. You said that you liked me better for it, and 
 it is just because my resolve has not wavered that I 
 have decided to swim across the lake. Only in this way 
 can I quit my parish without leaving a scandalous name 
 behind me. Moreover, the means whereby I was en- 
 lightened are so strange that I find it difficult to believe 
 that Providence is not on my side. 
 
 " Have not men always believed in bird augury from 
 the beginning of time? and have not prognostications a 
 knack of coming true? I feel sure that you would think 
 as I do if what had happened to me had happened to 
 you. Yet when you read this letter you will say, ' No 
 sooner has he disentangled himself from one superstition 
 
 250
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 than he drops into another ! ' However this may be, I 
 cannot get it out of my head that this strangely ill-fated 
 bird that came out of the wood last February was sent 
 for a purpose. But I have not told you about that bird. 
 In my last letter my mind was occupied by other things, 
 and there was no reason why I should have mentioned it, 
 for it seemed at the time merely a curious accident no 
 more curious than the hundred and one accidents that 
 happen every day. I believe these things are called coinci- 
 dences. But to the story. The day I went out skating 
 there was a shooting party in Derrinrush, and at the 
 close of day, in the dusk, a bird got up from the sedge, 
 and one of the shooters, mistaking it for a woodcock, 
 fired, wounding the bird. 
 
 " We watched it till we saw it fall on the shore of 
 Castle Island, and, thinking that it would linger there for 
 days, dying by inches, I started off with the intention of 
 putting it out of its misery. The bird I found on the 
 rocks was but a heap of skin and feathers, and no won- 
 der, for its legs were firmly tied together with a piece 
 of stout string, twisted and tied so that it would last 
 for years. There was no possibility of the bird getting 
 free from its fetter. Who had ever heard of a curlew 
 with its legs tied together? From long pondering 
 whether it was a tame bird that had escaped from cap- 
 tivity, or whether it had fallen into a fowler's net and 
 been let loose after its legs had been tied together from 
 sheer love of cruelty, this strangely fated curlew came 
 to occupy a sort of symbolic relation toward my past and 
 my future life, and it was in thinking of it that the idea
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 occurred to me that, if I could cross the lake on the 
 ice, I might swim it in the summer time when the weather 
 was warm, having, of course, hidden a bundle of clothes 
 amid the rocks on the Joycetown side. My clerical 
 clothes will be found on this side, and the assumption will 
 be, of course, that I swam out too far. 
 
 " This way of escape seemed at first fantastic and 
 unreal, but it has come to seem to me the only practical 
 way out of my difficulty. In no other way can I leave the 
 parish without giving pain to the poor people, who have 
 been very good to me. And you, who appreciated my 
 scruples on this point, will, I am sure, understand the 
 great pain it would give my sisters if I were to leave the 
 Church. It would give them so much pain that I shrink 
 from trying to imagine what it would be. They would 
 look upon themselves as disgraced, and they would think 
 that I had disgraced the whole family. My disappear- 
 ance from the parish would even do them harm Eliza's 
 school would suffer. This may seem an exaggera- 
 tion, but certainly Eliza would never quite get over it. 
 If this way of escape had not been revealed to me, I don't 
 think I ever should have found courage to leave, and if 
 I didn't leave I should die. Life is so ordered that a 
 trace remains of every act, but the trace is not always 
 discovered, and I trust you implicitly. You will never 
 show this letter to anyone ; you will never tell anyone. 
 
 " The Church would allow me, no doubt, to pick up 
 a living as best I could, and would not interfere with me 
 till I said something or wrote something that the Church 
 thought would lessen its power; then the cry of un- 
 
 252
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 frocked priest would be raised against me, and calumny, 
 the great ecclesiastical weapon, would be used. I do not 
 know what my future life will be: my past has been so 
 beset with misfortune that, once I get on the other side, 
 I shall never look back. I cannot find words to tell you 
 of the impatience with which I wait the summer time, the 
 fifteenth of July, when the moon will be full. I cannot 
 think what would have happened to me if I had stayed 
 at home the afternoon that the curlew was shot; some- 
 thing would have happened, for we cannot go on always 
 sacrificing ourselves. We can sacrifice ourselves for a 
 time, but we cannot sacrifice ourselves all our life long, 
 unless we begin to take pleasure in the immolation of self, 
 and then it is no longer sacrifice. Something must have 
 happened, or I should have gone mad. 
 
 " I had suffered so much in the parish. I think the 
 places in which we have suffered become distasteful to 
 us, and the instinct to wander takes us. A migratory bird 
 goes, or dies of homesickness ; home is not always where 
 we are born it is among ideas that are dear to us : and 
 it is exile to live among people who do not share our 
 ideas. Something must have happened to me. I can 
 think of nothing except suicide or what did happen, for I 
 could never have made up my mind to give pain to the 
 poor people and to leave a scandalous name behind ; still 
 less could I continue to administer sacraments that I had 
 ceased to believe in. I can imagine nothing more shame- 
 ful than the life of a man who continues his administra- 
 tions after he has ceased to believe in them, especially 
 a Catholic priest, so precise and explicit are the Roman 
 17 253
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 sacraments. A very abject life it is to murmur ' Absolve 
 te ' over the heads of parishioners, and to place wafers 
 on their tongues, when we have ceased to believe that 
 we have power to forgive sins and to turn bread into 
 God. A layman may have doubts, and continue to live 
 his life as before, without troubling to take the world 
 into his confidence, but a priest may not do so. The 
 money an unbelieving priest receives, if he be not in- 
 conceivably hardened in sin, must be hateful to him, and 
 his conscience can leave him no rest. 
 
 " At first I used to suspect my conversion. It seemed 
 to me unseemly that a man should cease to believe that we 
 must renounce this life in order to gain another, without 
 much preliminary study of the Scriptures, and I began to 
 look upon myself as a somewhat superficial person whose 
 religious beliefs had yielded before the charm of a pretty 
 face and winsome personality. But this view of the ques- 
 tion no longer seems superficial. The very contrary seems 
 true. And the superficial ones are those who think that 
 it is only in the Scriptures that we may discover whether 
 we have a right to live. Our belief in books rather than 
 in Nature is one of humanity's most curious character- 
 istics, and a very irreligious one, it seems to me ; and I 
 am glad to think that it was your sunny face that raised 
 up my crushed instincts, that brought me back to life, 
 and ever since you have been associated in my mind with 
 the sun and the springtide. 
 
 " One day in the beginning of March, coming back 
 from a long walk on the hills, I heard the bleat of the 
 lamb and the impatient cawing of the rook that could 
 
 254
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 not get its nest to hold together in the windy branches, 
 and as I stopped to listen it seemed to me that some- 
 thing passed by in the dusk : the springtide itself seemed 
 to be fleeting across the tillage toward the scant fields. 
 As the springtide advanced I discovered a new likeness 
 to you in the daffodil ; it is so shapely a flower. I should 
 be puzzled to give a reason, but it reminds me of an- 
 tiquity, and you were always a thing divorced from the 
 Christian ideal. While mourning you, my poor instincts 
 discovered you in the wind-shaken trees, and in the gayety 
 of the sun, and the flowers that May gives us. ... I 
 shall be gone at the end of July, when the carnations are 
 in bloom, but were I here I am sure many of them would 
 remind me of you. There have been saints who have 
 loved Nature, but I always wondered how it was so, for 
 Nature is like a woman. I might have read the Scrip- 
 tures again and again, and all the arguments that Mr. 
 Ellis can put forward, without my faith having been 
 shaken in the least. When the brain alone thinks, the 
 thinking is very thin and impoverished. It seems to me 
 that the best thinking is done when the whole man thinks, 
 the flesh and the brain together, and for the whole man to 
 think the whole man must live ; and the life I have lived 
 hitherto has been a thin life, for only my body lived. 
 And not even all my body. My mind and body had 
 been separated; neither were of any use to me. I owe 
 everything to you. My case cannot be defined merely as 
 that of a priest who gave up his religion because a 
 pretty woman came by. He who says that does not try 
 to understand ; he merely contents himself with uttering 
 
 255
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 facile commonplace. What he has to learn is the great 
 oneness in Nature. There is but one element, and we 
 but one of its many manifestations. If this were not so, 
 why should your whiteness and color and gayety remind 
 me always of the springtime? 
 
 " My pen is running fast, I hardly know what I am 
 writing, but it seems to me that I am beginning to see 
 much clearer. The mists are dissolving, and life emerges 
 like the world at daybreak. I am thinking now of an 
 old, decrepit house with sagging roof and lichen-covered 
 walls, and all the doors and windows nailed up. Every 
 generation nailed up a door or a window till all were 
 nailed up. In the dusty twilight creatures wilt and pray. 
 About the house the doleful sound of shutters creaking 
 on rusty hinges never ceases. Your hand touched one, 
 it fell, and I found myself looking upon the splendid sun 
 shining on hills and fields, wooded prospects with rivers 
 winding through the great green expanses. At first I 
 dared not look, and withdrew into the shadow trem- 
 blingly; but the light drew me forth again, and now I 
 look upon the world without fear. I am going to leave 
 that decrepit, dusty house and mix with my fellows, and 
 maybe blow a horn on the hillside to call comrades to- 
 gether. My hands and eyes are eager to know what I 
 have become possessed of. I owe to you my liberation 
 from prejudices and conventions. Ideas are passed on. 
 We learn more from each other than from books. I 
 was unconsciously affected by your, example. You dared 
 to stretch out both hands to life and grasp it; you ac- 
 cepted the spontaneous natural living wisdom of your 
 
 256
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 instincts when I was rolled up like a dormouse in the 
 dead wisdom of codes and formulas, dogmas and opin- 
 ions. I never told you how I became a priest. I did 
 not know until quite lately. I think I began to sus- 
 pect my vocation when you left the parish. 
 
 " I remember walking along the lake just this time 
 last year, and the story of my life was singing in my 
 head, and you were in the background of it all, beat- 
 ing the time. You know, we had a shop in Tinnick, 
 and I had seen my father standing before a high desk 
 by a dusty window year after year, selling half-pounds 
 of tea, and hanks of onions, and farm implements, and 
 if I had married my cousin Annie McGrath our lives 
 would have reproduced those of my father and mother 
 in every detail, and I felt I really could not undertake 
 the job. For a long time I did not know why; I was 
 pious, but I can see now that it was not my piety that 
 sent me to Maynooth, but a certain spirit of adventure, 
 a dislike of the commonplace, of the prosaic that is to 
 say, of the repetition of the same things. I was in- 
 terested in myself, in my own soul, and I did not want 
 to accept something that was outside of myself, such as 
 the life of a shopman behind a counter, or that of a 
 clerk of the petty sessions, or the habit of a policeman. 
 These were the careers that were open to me, and when 
 I was hesitating, wondering if I should be able to buy up 
 the old mills and revive the trade in Tinnick, my sister 
 Eliza reminded me that there had always been a priest 
 in the family. And the priesthood seemed to offer op- 
 portunities of realizing myself, of preserving the spirit 
 
 257
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 within me. In this I was mistaken; it offered no such 
 opportunities to me. I might as well have become a 
 policeman. . . . Everyone must try to cling to his own 
 soul, to cherish what is inly. And that is the only law, 
 the only binding law I can believe in. If we are here 
 for anything, it is surely for that. 
 
 " But one does not free one's self from habits and 
 ideas, that have grown almost inveterate, without much 
 pain and struggle ; one falls back many times, and there 
 are always good reasons for following the rut. We be- 
 lieve that the worn way leads us somewhere; in reality 
 it leads us nowhere, the worn way is only a seeming; the 
 mysterious lights of instincts are alone worth following, 
 implicated though they be and zigzag. . You say in your 
 letter that our destinies got entangled, and the piece that 
 was being woven ran out into thread, and was rewound 
 upon another spool. It seemed to you and it seemed to 
 me that there was no pattern; we think there is none 
 because Nature's pattern is undistinguishable to our 
 eyes, her looms are so vast, but sometimes even our little 
 sight can follow a design here and there. And does it 
 not seem to you that, after all, there was some design in 
 what has happened? You came and released me from 
 conventions, just as the spring releases the world from 
 winter rust. 
 
 " A strange idea has come into my mind, and I can- 
 not help smiling at the topsy-turvydom of Nature, or what 
 seems to be topsy-turvydom. You, who began by living 
 in your instincts, are now wandering beyond Palestine in 
 search of scrolls ; and I, who began my life in scrolls, am 
 
 258
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 now going to try to pick up the lost thread of my in- 
 stincts in some great commercial town, in London or New 
 York. My life for a long time will be that of some poor 
 clerk or some hack journalist, picking up thirty shillings 
 a week when he is in luck. I imagine myself in a thread- 
 bare suit of clothes edging my way along the pavement, 
 nearing a great building, and making my way to my 
 desk, and, when the day's work is done, returning home 
 along the same pavement to a room high up among the 
 rafters, close to the sky, in some cheap quarter. 
 
 " I do not doubt my ability to pick up a living it 
 will be a shameful thing indeed if I cannot ; for the poor 
 curlew with its legs tied together managed to live some- 
 how, and cannot I do as much? And I have taken care 
 that no fetters shall be placed upon my legs or chain 
 about my neck. Anything may happen life is full of 
 possibilities but my first concern must be how I may 
 earn my living. To earn one's living is an obligation 
 that can only be dispensed with at one's own great risk. 
 What may happen afterwards Heaven knows! I may 
 meet you, or I may meet another woman, or I may re- 
 main unmarried. " I do not intend to allow myself to 
 think of these things ; my thoughts are set on one thing 
 only how to get to New York, and how I shall pick 
 up a living when I get there. Again I thank you for 
 what you have done for me, for the liberation you have 
 brought me of body and mind. I need not have added 
 the words ' body and mind/ for these are not two things, 
 but one thing. And that is the lesson I have learned. 
 Good-by. OLIVER GOGARTY." 
 
 259
 
 XVI 
 
 IT would be a full moon on the fifteenth of July, and 
 every night he went out on the hillside to watch 
 the horned moon swelling to a disk. 
 
 And on the fifteenth, the day he had settled for his 
 departure, as he sat thinking how he would go down 
 to the lake in a few hours, he remembered the last let- 
 ter he had written to her. As well as he could re- 
 member, he had written her a foolish, vainglorious letter 
 a stupid letter that made him appear like a fool in her 
 eyes. Had he not said something about The thought 
 eluded him; he could only remember the general tone 
 of his letter, and in it seemed to consider Rose as a 
 sort of medicine a cure for religion. 
 
 He should have written her a simple little letter, 
 telling her that he was leaving Ireland because he had 
 suffered a great deal, and would write to her from New 
 York, whereas he had written her the letter of a booby. 
 And feeling he must do something to rectify his mistake, 
 he went to his writing table, but he had hardly put the 
 pen to the paper when he heard a step on the gravel out- 
 side his door. 
 
 " Father Moran, your reverence." 
 
 " I see that I'm interrupting you. You're writing." 
 
 " No, I assure you." 
 
 260
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " But you've got a pen in your hand." 
 
 " It can wait a matter of no importance. Sit down." 
 
 " Now, you'll tell me if I'm in the way ? " 
 
 " My good man, why are you talking like that? Why 
 should you be in the way ? " 
 
 " Well, if you're sure you've nothing to do, may I 
 stay to supper ? " 
 
 "To supper?" 
 
 " But I see that I'm in the way." 
 
 " No ; I tell you you're not in the way. And you're 
 going to stay to supper." 
 
 Father Oliver flung himself between Father Moran 
 and the door; Father Moran allowed himself to be led 
 back to the armchair. Father Oliver took the chair op- 
 posite him, for he couldn't send Moran away ; he mustn't 
 do anything that would give rise to suspicion. 
 
 " You're quite sure I'm not in the way I'm not in- 
 terfering with any plans ? " 
 
 " Quite sure. I'm glad you have come this evening." 
 
 " Are you? ... Well, I had to come." 
 
 " You had to come ! " 
 
 " Yes, I had to come ; I had to come to see if anything 
 had happened. You needn't look at me like that; I 
 haven't been drinking, and I haven't gone out of my 
 mind. I can only tell you that I had to come to see 
 you this evening." 
 
 " And you don't know why ? " 
 
 " No, I don't ; I can't tell you exactly why I've come. 
 As I was reading my breviary, walking up and down the 
 road in front of the house, I felt that I must see you. 
 
 261
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 I never felt anything like it in my life before. I had 
 to come." 
 
 " And you didn't expect to find me ? " 
 " Well, I didn't. How did you guess that? " 
 "You'd have hardly come all that way to find me 
 sitting here in this armchair." 
 
 " That's right. It wasn't sitting in that chair I ex- 
 pected to see you; I didn't expect to see you at all at 
 least, I don't think I did. You see, it was all very queer, 
 for it was as if somebody had got me by the shoulders. 
 It was as if I were being pushed every yard of the road. 
 Something was running in my mind that I shouldn't see 
 you again, or if I did see you that it would be for the 
 last time. You seemed to me as if you were going away 
 on a long journey." 
 
 " Was it dying or dead you saw me ? " 
 " That I can't say. If I said any more I shouldn't be 
 telling the truth. No, it wasn't the same feeling when 
 I came to tell you I couldn't put up with the loneliness 
 any more the night I came here roaring for drink. I 
 was thinking of myself then, and that you might save me 
 or do something for me give me drink or cure me. I 
 don't know which thought it was that was running in 
 my head, but I had to come to you all the same, just 
 as I had to come to you to-day. I say it was different, 
 because then I was on my own business ; but this time it 
 seemed to me that I was on yours. One good turn de- 
 serves another, as they say; and something was beating 
 in my head that I could help you, serve as a stay; so 
 I had to come. Where should I be now if it were not for 
 
 262
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 you? I can see you're thinking that it was only non- 
 sense that was running in my head, but you won't be 
 saying it was nonsense that brought me the night I came 
 like a madman roaring for drink. If there was a miracle 
 that night, why shouldn't there be a miracle to-night? 
 And if a miracle ever happened in the world, it hap- 
 pened that night, I'm thinking. Do you remember the 
 dark-gray clouds tearing across the sky, and we walk- 
 ing side by side, I trying to get away from you ? I was 
 that mad that I might have thrown you into the bog 
 hole if the craving had not passed from me. And it was 
 just lifted from me as one might take the cap off one's 
 head. You remember the prayer we said, leaning over 
 the bit of wall looking across the bog? There was no 
 lonesomeness that night coming home, Gogarty, though 
 a curlew might have felt a bit." 
 
 " A curlew ! " 
 
 " Well, there were curlews and plovers about, and 
 a starving ass picking grass between the road and the bog 
 hole. That night will be ever in my mind. Where would 
 I be now if it hadn't been that you kept on with me and 
 brought me back, cured? It wouldn't be a cassock that 
 would be on my back, but some old rag of a coat. There's 
 nothing in this world, Gogarty, more unlucky than a 
 suspended priest. I think I can see myself in the streets, 
 hanging about some public house, holding horses at- 
 tached to a cab-rank." 
 
 " Lord of Heaven, Moran ! what are you coming here 
 to talk to me in this way for? The night you're speak- 
 ing of was bad enough, but your memory of it is worse. 
 
 263
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Nothing of what you're saying would have happened; a 
 man like you would be always able to pick up a living." 
 
 " And where would I be picking up a living if it 
 weren't on a cab-rank, or you either ? " 
 
 " Well, 'tis melancholy enough you are this even- 
 ing." 
 
 " And all for nothing, for there you are, sitting in 
 your old chair. I see I've made a fool of myself." 
 
 " That don't matter. You see, if one didn't do what 
 one felt like doing, one would have remorse of con- 
 science forever after." 
 
 " I suppose so. It was very kind of you, Moran, to 
 come all this way." 
 
 " What is it but a step? Three miles " 
 
 " And a half." 
 
 Moved by a febrile impatience, which he could not 
 control, Father Oliver got up from his chair. 
 
 " Now, Moran, isn't it strange ? I wonder how it 
 was that you should have come to tell me that you were 
 going off to drink somewhere. You said you were going 
 to lie up in a public house and drink for days x , and yet 
 you didn't think of giving up the priesthood." 
 
 " What are you saying, Gogarty ? Don't you know 
 well enough I'd have been suspended ? Didn't I tell you 
 that drink had taken that power over me that, if roar- 
 ing hell were open, and I sitting on the brink of it and a 
 table beside me with whisky on it, I should fill myself a 
 glass?" 
 
 "And knowing you were going down to hell? " 
 
 " Yes, that night nothing would have stopped me. 
 264
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 But, talking of hell, I heard a good story yesterday. Pat 
 Carabine was telling his flock last Sunday of the tortures 
 of the damned, and having said all he could about devils 
 and pitchforks and caldrons, he came to a sudden pause 
 a blank look came into his face, and, looking round the 
 church and seeing the sunlight streaming through the 
 door, his thoughts went off at a tangent. ' Now, boys,' 
 he said, ' if this fine weather continues, I hope you'll be 
 all out in the bog next Tuesday bringing home my 
 turf.' " 
 
 Father Oliver laughed, but his laughter did not sat- 
 isfy Father Moran, and he told how on another occasion 
 Father Pat had finished his sermon on hell by telling his 
 parishioners that the devil was the landlord of hell. 
 " And I leave yourself to imagine the groaning that was 
 heard in the church that morning, for weren't they all 
 small tenants? . . . But I'm afraid my visit has upset 
 you, Gogarty." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 " You don't seem to enjoy a laugh like you used to." 
 
 " Well, I was thinking at that moment that I've heard 
 you say that, even though you gave way to drink, you 
 never had any doubts about the reality of the hell that 
 awaited you for your sins." 
 
 " That's the way it is, Gogarty, one believes, but one 
 doesn't act up to one's belief. Human nature is incon- 
 sistent. Nothing is queerer than human nature, and will 
 you be surprised if I tell you that I believe I was a 
 better priest when I was drinking than I am now that 
 I'm sober? I was saying that human nature is very 
 
 265
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 queer; and it used to seem queer to myself. I looked 
 upon drink as a sort of blackmail I paid to the devil so 
 that he might let me be a good priest in everything else. 
 That's the way it was with me, and there was more sense 
 in the idea than you'd be thinking, for when the drunken 
 fit was over I used to pray as I have never prayed since. 
 If there was not. a bit of wickedness in the world, there 
 would be no goodness. And as for faith, drink never 
 does any harm to one's faith whatsoever; there's only one 
 thing that takes a man's faith from him, and that is 
 woman. You remember the expulsions at Maynooth, and 
 you know what they were for. Well, that sin is a bad 
 one, but I don't think it affects a man's faith any more 
 than drink does. It is woman that kills the faith in men." 
 
 " I think you're right ; woman is the danger. The 
 Church dreads her. Woman is life." 
 
 " I don't quite understand you." 
 
 Catherine came into the room to lay the cloth, and 
 Father Oliver asked Father Moran to come out into the 
 garden. It was now nearing its prime. In a few days 
 more the carnations would be all in bloom, ^nd Father 
 Oliver reflected that very soon it would begin to look 
 neglected. In a year or two it would have drifted back 
 to the original wilderness, " to briar and weed," he said to 
 himself; and he began to think how he loved this tiny 
 plot of ground, with a wide path running down the center, 
 flower borders on each side, and a narrow path round 
 the garden beside the hedge. The potato ridges and the 
 runners and the cabbages came in the middle. Goose- 
 berry bushes and currant bushes grew thickly, there were 
 
 266
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 little apple trees here and there, and in one corner the 
 two large apple trees under which he sat and smoked his 
 pipe in the evenings. 
 
 " You're very snug here, smoking your pipe under 
 your apple trees." 
 
 " Yes, in a way; but I think I was happier where you 
 are." 
 
 " The past is always pleasant to look upon." 
 
 " You think so? " 
 
 The priests walked to the end of the garden, and, 
 leaning on the wicket, Father Moran said : 
 
 " We've had queer weather lately dull, heavy 
 weather. See how low the swallows are flying. When 
 I came up the drive, the gravel space in front of the 
 house was covered with them, the old birds feeding the 
 young ones." 
 
 " And you were noticing these things, and believing 
 that Providence had sent you here to bid me good-by." 
 
 " Isn't it when the nerves are on a stretch that we 
 notice little things that don't concern us at all ? " 
 
 " Yes, Moran ; you are right. I've never known you 
 as wise as you are j;his evening." 
 
 Catherine appeared in the kitchen door. She had 
 come to tell them their supper was ready. During the 
 meal the conversation turned on the roofing of the abbey 
 and the price of timber, and when the tablecloth had 
 been removed the conversation swayed between the price 
 of building materials and the archbishop's fears lest he 
 should meet a violent death, as it had been prophesied 
 if he allowed a roof to be put upon Kilronan. 
 
 267
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " You know I don't altogether blame him, and I don't 
 think anyone does at the bottom of his heart, for what 
 has been foretold, generally comes to pass sooner or 
 later." 
 
 " The archbishop is a good Catholic who believes in 
 everything the Church teaches in the Divinity of Our 
 Lord, the Immaculate Conception, and the Pope's indul- 
 gences. And why should he be disbelieving in that which 
 has been prophesied for generations about the abbot of 
 Kilronan?" 
 
 " Don't you believe in these things ? " 
 
 " Does anyone know exactly what he believes ? Does 
 the archbishop really believe every day of the year and 
 every hour of every day that the abbot of Kilronan will 
 be slain on the highroad when a De Stanton is again 
 abbot ? " Father Oliver was thinking of the slip of the 
 tongue he had been guilty of before supper, when he said 
 that the Church looks upon woman as the real danger, 
 because she is the life of the world. He shouldn't have 
 made that remark, for it might be remembered against 
 him, and he fell to thinking of something x to say that 
 would explain it away. 
 
 " Well, Moran, we've had a pleasant evening ; we've 
 talked a good deal, and you've said many pleasant things 
 and many wise ones. We've never had a talk that I 
 enjoyed more, and I shall not forget it easily." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 " Didn't you say that it isn't drink that destroys a 
 man's faith, but woman? And you said rightly, for 
 woman is life." 
 
 268
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " I was just about to ask you what you meant, when 
 Catherine came in and interrupted us." 
 
 " Love of woman means estrangement from the 
 Church, because you have to protect her and her 
 children." 
 
 " Yes, that is so; that's how it works out. Now, you 
 won't be thinking me a fool for having come to see you 
 this evening, Gogarty? One never knows when one's 
 impulses are true and when they're false. If I hadn't 
 come the night when the drink craving was upon me, I 
 shouldn't have been here now." 
 
 " You did quite right to come, Moran ; we've talked 
 of a great many things." 
 
 "I've never talked so plainly to anyone before; I 
 wonder what made me talk as I've been talking. We 
 never talked like this before, did we, Gogarty? And I 
 wouldn't have talked to another as I've talked to you. I 
 shall never forget what I owe to you." 
 
 " You said you were going to leave the parish." 
 
 " I don't think I thought of anything except to burn 
 myself up with drink. I wanted to forget, and I saw 
 myself walking ahead, day after day, drinking at every 
 public house." 
 
 " And just because I saved you, you thought you 
 would come to save me? " 
 
 " There was something of that in it. Gad ! it's very 
 queer; there's no saying where things will begin and 
 end. Pass me the tobacco, will you ? " 
 
 Father Moran began to fill his pipe, and when he had 
 finished filling it, he said: 
 
 18 269
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " Now I must be going, and don't be trying to keep 
 me; I've stopped long enough. If I were sent for a 
 purpose " 
 
 " But you don't believe seriously, Moran, that you 
 were sent for a purpose ? " Moran didn't answer, and 
 his silence irritated Father Oliver, and, determined to 
 probe his curate's conscience, he said : " Aren't you 
 satisfied now that it was only an idea of your own ? You 
 thought to find me gone, and here I am sitting before 
 you." After waiting for some time for Moran to speak, 
 he said : " You haven't answered me." 
 
 "What should I be answering?" 
 
 " Do you still think you were sent for a purpose ? " 
 
 "Well, I do." 
 
 "You do?" 
 
 The priests stood looking at each other for a 
 while. 
 
 " Can't you give a reason ? " 
 
 " No ; I can give no reason. It's a feeling. I know 
 I haven't reason on my side. There you are before me." 
 
 " It's very queer." 
 
 He would have liked to have called back Moran. It 
 seemed a pity to let him go without having probed this 
 matter to the bottom. He hadn't asked him if he had 
 any idea in his mind about the future, as to what was 
 going to happen ; but it was too late now. " Why did 
 he come here disturbing me with his beliefs," he cried 
 out, " poisoning my will ? " for he had already begun to 
 fear that Moran's visit might come between him and his 
 project. The wind sighed a little louder, and Father 
 
 270
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Oliver said : " I wouldn't be minding his coming here 
 to warn me, though he did say that it wasn't of his own 
 will that he came, but something from the outside that 
 kept pushing him along the road I wouldn't be minding 
 all that if this wind hadn't risen. . . . The omen is a 
 double one." At that moment the wind shook the trees 
 about the house, and he fell to thinking that if he had 
 started to swim the lake that night he would be now 
 somewhere between Castle Island and the Joycetown 
 shore, in the deepest and windiest part of the lake. " And 
 pretty well tired I'd be at the time. If I'd started to-night 
 a corpse would be floating about by now." The wind 
 grew louder. Father Oliver imagined the waves slap- 
 ping in his face, and then he imagined them slapping 
 about the face of a corpse drifting toward the Joyce- 
 town shore. 
 
 271
 
 XVII 
 
 HE slept lightly that night, waking many times; 
 and, standing by his window, he watched the 
 trees shaking, and, going back to bed, he hoped 
 he would sleep. Sleep came quickly, but with dreams 
 not dreams of drowning men, but of books and news- 
 papers. He heard music in his dreams there was talk 
 of illegitimate children. As he dressed himself he criti- 
 cised his dreams as the incoherent babble of the different 
 events of the last two years. On the whole his dreams 
 were not discouraging. " If I had dreamed of drown- 
 ing men I might never have the courage to go. Even 
 so I should have gone. Anything were better than 
 to remain taking money from poor people, playing 
 the part of a hypocrite. Better, no doubt," he said, 
 " for there is always a question of courage, and man's 
 courage is precarious." And, anxious to see what the 
 lake was like, he went out after breakfast, telling Cath- 
 erine he could not look through her accounts that 
 morning. 
 
 " Boisterous enough," he said. " No swimmer would 
 be able to get across to-day nor to-night, even if the 
 wind drops in the afternoon." 
 
 The wind rose during the night, and next day he 
 could only see white waves, tossing trees, and clouds 
 
 272
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 tumbling over the mountains. As he sat alone in his 
 study staring at the lamp, the wind often awoke him from 
 his reverie, and one night he remembered suddenly that 
 it was no longer possible for him to cross the lake that 
 month, even if the wind should cease, for he required 
 not only a calm, but a moonlight night. And going out 
 of the house, he walked about the hilltop, about the old 
 thorn bush, his hands clasped behind his back. And he 
 stood watching the moon setting low down on the south- 
 western horizon. The lake where was it? Had he not 
 known that a lake was there he would hardly have been 
 able to discover one. All faint traces of one had dis- 
 appeared. Next night every shape was lost in blue 
 shadow, and he wondered if his desire to go had gone 
 with the lake. " The lake will return," he said, and next 
 night he was on the hillside waiting for the new moon. 
 And every night the lake emerged from the shadow, 
 growing clearer, till he could follow its every shore. 
 " In a few days I shall be swimming out there if this 
 weather lasts." The thought crossed his mind that if 
 the wind should rise again about the time of the full 
 moon he would not be able to cross that year, for 
 in September the water would be too cold for so long 
 a swim. "But it isn't likely," he said; "the weather 
 seems settled." 
 
 And the same close, blue weather that had prevailed 
 before the storm returned, the same diffused sunlight. 
 
 " There is nothing so depressing," the priest said, " as 
 seeing swallows flying a few feet from the ground." 
 
 It was about eight o'clock the day had begun to 
 273
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 droop in his garden that he walked up and down the 
 beds admiring his carnations. Every now and again the 
 swallows collected into groups of some six or seven, 
 and fled round the gables of his house shrieking. 
 "This is their dinner hour; the moths are about." He 
 wandered on, thinking Rose lacking; for she had never 
 appreciated that beautiful flower, Miss Shifner. But 
 her ear was finer than his; she found her delight in 
 music. 
 
 A thought broke through his memories. He had 
 forgotten to tell her he would write if he succeeded in 
 crossing the lake, and if he didn't write she would never 
 know whether he was living or dead. Perhaps it would 
 be better so. After hesitating a moment, the desire to 
 write to her took strong hold upon him, and he sought 
 an excuse for writing. If he didn't write she might 
 think that he remained in Garranard. She knew nothing 
 of Moran's visit, nor of the rising of the wind, nor of the 
 waning of the moon; and he must write to her about 
 these things, for if he were drowned she would think 
 that God had willed it. But if he believed in God's 
 intervention, he should stay in his parish and pray 
 that grace might be given to him. " God doesn't 
 bother Himself about such trifles as my staying or my 
 going," he muttered as he hastened toward his house, 
 overcome by an immense joy. For he was only really 
 happy when he was thinking of her, or doing some- 
 thing connected with her, and to tell her of the fa- 
 tality that seemed to pursue him would occupy an 
 evening. 
 
 274
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Rose Leicester. 
 
 "GARRANARD, BOHOLA, 
 
 "July 25, 19. 
 
 " You will be surprised to hear from me so soon again, 
 but I forgot to say in my last letter that, if I succeeded 
 in crossing the lake, I would write to you from New 
 York. And since then many things have happened, 
 strange and significant coincidences." 
 
 And when he had related the circumstance of Father 
 Moran's visit and the storm, he sought to excuse his 
 half-beliefs that these were part of God's providence sent 
 to warn him against leaving his parish. 
 
 " Only time can rid us of ideas that have been im- 
 planted in us in our youth, and that have grown up in 
 our flesh and in our mind. A sudden influence may 
 impel us to tear them up and cast them aside, but the 
 seed is in us always, and it grows again. ' One year's 
 seed, seven years' weed.' And behind imported Pales- 
 tinian supernature, if I may be permitted to drop into 
 Mr. Ellis's style, or what I imagine to be his style, there 
 is the home belief in fairies, spirits, and ghosts, and the 
 reading of omens. Who among us does not remember 
 the old nurse who told him stories of magic and witch- 
 craft ? Nor can it be denied that things happen that seem 
 in contradiction to all we know of Nature's laws. More- 
 over, these unusual occurrences have a knack of hap- 
 
 275
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 pening to men at the moment of their setting out on 
 some irrevocable enterprise. 
 
 " You who are so sympathetic will understand how 
 my will has been affected by Father Moran's visit. Had 
 you heard him tell how he had been propelled, as it were, 
 out of his house toward me, you, too, would believe that 
 he were a messenger. He stopped on his threshold to try 
 to find a reason for coming to see me; he couldn't find 
 any, and he walked on, feeling that something had hap- 
 pened. He must have thought himself a fool when he 
 found me sitting here in the thick flesh. But what he 
 said did not seem nonsense to me; it seemed like some 
 immortal wisdom come from another world. . . . Re- 
 member that I was on the point of going. Nor is this 
 all. If nothing else had happened, I might have looked 
 upon Father Moran's visit as a coincidence. But why 
 should the wind rise ? So far as I can make out, it began 
 to rise between eleven and twelve, at the very time I 
 should have been swimming between Castle Island and 
 the Joycetown shore. I know that belief in signs and 
 omens and prognostics can be laughed at; nothing is 
 more ridiculous than the belief that man's fate is gov- 
 erned by the flight of birds, yet men have believed in bird 
 augury from the beginning of the world. 
 
 " I wrote to you about a curlew (I can still see it in 
 the air, its beautifully shapen body and wings, its long 
 beak, and its trailing legs; it staggered a little in its 
 flight when the shot had been fired, but it had strength 
 enough to reach Castle Island ; it then toppled over, fall- 
 ing dead on the shore) ; and I ask you if it is wonderful 
 
 276
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 that I should have been impressed? Such a thing was 
 never heard of before a wild bird with its legs tied 
 together ! 
 
 " At first I believed that this bird had been sent to 
 warn me from going, but it was that bird that put the 
 idea into my head how I might escape from the parish 
 without giving scandal. Life is so strange that one 
 doesn't know what to think. Of what use are signs and 
 omens if the interpretation is always obscure? They 
 merely wring the will out of us; and well we may ask, 
 Who would care for his life if he knew he was going to 
 lose it on the morrow? And what mother would love 
 her children if she were certain they would fall into evil 
 ways, or if she believed the soothsayers who told her 
 that her children would oppose her ideas? She might 
 love them independent of their opposition, but how could 
 she love them if she knew they were only born to do 
 wrong? Volumes have been written on the subject of 
 predestination and free will, and the truth is that it is as 
 impossible to believe in one as in the other. Neverthe- 
 less, prognostications have a knack of coming true, and 
 if I am drowned crossing the lake you will be convinced 
 of the truth of omens. Perhaps I should not write 
 you these things, but the truth is, I cannot help myself ; 
 there is no power of resistance in me. I do not know if 
 I am well or ill ; my brain is on fire, and I go on thinking 
 and thinking, trying to arrive at some rational belief, but 
 never succeeding. Sometimes I think of myself as a fly 
 on a window pane, crawling and buzzing, and crawling 
 and buzzing again, and so on and so on. . . . 
 
 277
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " You are one of those who seem to have been born 
 without much interest in religion or fear of the here- 
 after, and in a way I am like you, but with a difference : 
 I acquiesced in early childhood, and accepted traditional 
 beliefs, and tried to find happiness in the familiar rather 
 than in the unknown. Whether I should have found the 
 familiar sufficient if I hadn't met you I shall never know. 
 I've thought a good deal on this subject, and it has come 
 to seem to me that we are too much in the habit of think- 
 ing of the intellect and the flesh as separate things, 
 whereas they are but one thing. I could write a great 
 deal on this subject, but I stop, as it were, on the 
 threshold of my thought, for this is no time for philo- 
 sophical writing. I am all a-tremble, and though my brain 
 is working quickly, my thoughts are not mature and 
 deliberate. My brain reminds me at times of the skies 
 that followed Father Moran's visit skies restlessly flow- 
 ing, always different and always the same. These last 
 days are merciless days, and I have to write to you in 
 order to get some respite from purposeless thinking. 
 Sometimes I stop in my walk to ask myself who I am and 
 what I am, and where I am going. Will you be shocked 
 to hear that, when I awoke and heard the wind howling, 
 I nearly got out of bed to pray to God, to thank Him for 
 having sent Moran to warn me from crossing the lake? 
 I think I did say a prayer, thanking Him for His mercy. 
 Then I felt that I should pray to Him for grace that I 
 might remain at home and be a good priest always, but 
 that prayer I couldn't formulate, and I suffered a great 
 deal. I know that such vacillations between belief and 
 
 278
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 unbelief are neither profitable nor admirabk ; I know that 
 to pray to God to thank Him for having saved me from 
 death while in mortal sin, and yet to find myself unable 
 to pray to Him to do His will, is illogical, and I confess 
 that my fear is now lest old beliefs will claim me before 
 the time comes. A poor, weak, tried mortal man am I, 
 but being what I am I cannot be different. I am calm 
 enough now, and it seems as if my sufferings were at an 
 end ; but to-morrow some new fear will rise up like mist, 
 and I shall be enveloped. What an awful thing it would 
 be if I should find myself without will on the fifteenth, 
 or the sixteenth, or the seventeenth of August! If the 
 wind should rise again, and the lake be windy while the 
 moon is full, my chance for leaving here this summer 
 will be at an end. The water will be too cold in Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 " And now you know all, and if you don't get a letter 
 from New York, understand that what appears in the 
 newspaper is true that I was drowned while bathing. 
 I needn't apologize for this long letter; you will under- 
 stand that the writing of it has taken me out of myself, 
 and that is a great gain. There is no one else to whom 
 I can write, and it pleases me to know this. I am sorry 
 for my sisters in the convent ; they will believe me dead. 
 I have a brother in America, the one who sent the har- 
 monium that you used to play on so beautifully. He will 
 believe in my death, unless we meet in America, and that 
 is not likely. I look forward to writing to you from 
 New York. 
 
 " OLIVER GOGARTY." 
 279
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Two evenings were passed pleasantly on the composi- 
 tion and the copying of this letter, and, not daring to 
 intrust it to the postboy, he took it himself to Bohola; 
 and he measured the time carefully, so as to get there a 
 few minutes before the postmistress sealed up the bag. 
 He delayed in the office till she had sealed it, and re- 
 turned home, following the letter in imagination to 
 Dublin, across the Channel to Ethelstone Manor ; he cal- 
 culated its arrival, the servant in charge who would 
 redirect it. His thoughts were at ramble, and they fol- 
 lowed the steamer down the coast of Asia Minor. It 
 would lie in the post office at Jerusalem or some frontier 
 town, or maybe a dragoman attached to some Turkish 
 caravansary would take charge of it, and it might reach 
 Rose by caravan. She might read it in the waste. Or 
 maybe it would have been better if he had written " Not 
 to be forwarded " on the envelope. But the servant at 
 Ethelstone Manor would know what to do, and he re- 
 turned home smiling, unable to believe in himself or in 
 anything else, so extraordinary did it seem to him that 
 he should be writing to Rose Leicester, who was going 
 in search of the Christian river, while he was planning 
 a journey westward. 
 
 A few days more, and the day of departure was almost 
 at hand; but it seemed a very long time coming. And 
 what he needed was a material occupation; he spent 
 hours in his garden watering and weeding, and at gaze 
 in front of a bed of fiery cross. Was its scarlet not finer 
 than Lady Hindlip? Lady Hindlip, like fiery cross, is 
 
 280
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 scentless, and not so hardy. No white carnation compares 
 with Shiela; but her calyx often bursts, and he con- 
 sidered the claims of an old pink-flaked clove carnation, 
 striped like a French brocade. But it straggled a little 
 in growth, and he decided that for hardness he must give 
 the verdict to Raby Castle. True that everyone grows 
 Raby Castle, but no carnation is so hardy or flowers so 
 freely. As he stood admiring her great trusses of bloom 
 among the tea roses, he remembered suddenly that it 
 was his love of flowers that had brought him to Garra- 
 nard. If he hadn't come to this parish he wouldn't have 
 known her. And if he hadn't known her, he wouldn't 
 have been himself. He owed his life to these flowers. 
 
 His brain would not cease thinking; his bodily life 
 seemed to have dissipated, and he seemed to himself like 
 a pure mentality. He seemed to tremble in his very 
 entrails, and, glad to interest himself in the business of 
 the parish, he listened with greater attention than he had 
 ever listened before to the complaints that were brought 
 to him to the man who had failed to give up a piece 
 of land that he had promised to include in his daughter's 
 fortune, and to Patsy Murphy, who had come to tell him 
 that his house had been broken into while he was away 
 in Tinnick. The old man had spent the winter in Tinnick 
 with some relations, for the house that the colonel had 
 given him permission to build at the edge of the lake 
 had proved too cold for a winter residence. 
 
 Patsy seemed to have grown older since the autumn ; 
 he seemed like a doll out of which the sawdust was run- 
 ning, a poor shaking thing a large head afloat on a 
 
 281
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 weak neck. Tresses of white hair hung on his shoulders, 
 and his watery eyes were red and restless like a ferret's. 
 He opened his mouth, and there were two teeth on either 
 side like tusks. Gray stubble covered his face, and he 
 wore a brown suit, the trousers retained about his pot- 
 belly all that remained of his body by a scarf. There 
 was some limp linen and a red muffler about his throat. 
 He spoke of his age he was ninety-five and the priest 
 said he was a fine-looking, hearty man for his years. 
 There wasn't a doubt but he'd pass the hundred. Patsy 
 was inclined to believe he would go to one hundred and 
 one ; for he had been told in a vision he would go as far 
 as that. 
 
 " You see, living in the house alone the brain empties 
 and the vision comes." 
 
 That was how he explained his belief as he flopped 
 along by the priest's side, his head shaking and his 
 tongue going, telling tales of all kinds, half-remembered 
 things : how the Gormleys and the Actons had driven the 
 colonel out of the country, and dispersed all his family 
 with their goings-on. That was why they didn't want 
 him he knew too much about them. And he told a 
 strange story how they had frightened the colonel's 
 mother by tying a horsehair to the knocker of the hall 
 door, and at the end of the horsehair a tame hare. 
 Whenever the hare moved a rapping was heard at the 
 front door. But nobody could discover the horsehair, 
 and the rapping was attributed to a family ghost. 
 
 He seemed to have forgotten his sword, and was now 
 inclined to talk of his fists, and he stopped the priest 
 
 282
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 in the middle of the road to tell a long tale how once, in 
 Liverpool, some one had spoken against the colonel, and, 
 holding up his clinched fist, he said that no. one ever 
 escaped alive from the fist of Patsy Murphy. 
 
 It was. a trial to listen to him, for one could not help 
 thinking that to become like him it was only necessary 
 to live as long as he. And it was difficult to get rid of 
 the old fellow. He followed the priest as far as the vil- 
 lage, and would have followed him farther if Mrs. 
 Egan were not standing there waiting for Father Oliver 
 a delicate-featured woman with a thin aquiline nose, 
 who was still good-looking, though her age was apparent. 
 She was forty-five, or perhaps fifty, and she held her 
 daughter's baby in her coarse peasant hands. Since the 
 birth of the child a dispute had been raging between the 
 two mothers-in-law; the whole village was talking, and 
 wondering what was going to happen next. 
 
 Mrs. Egan's daughter had married a soldier, a Protes- 
 tant, some two years ago, a man called Rean. Father 
 Oliver had always found him a straightforward fellow, 
 who, although he would not give up his own religion, 
 never tried to interfere with his wife's; he always said 
 that if Mary liked she could bring up her children Catho- 
 lics. But hitherto they had not been blessed with chil- 
 dren, and Mary had been jeered at more than once, the 
 people saying that her barrenness was a punishment sent 
 by God. At last a child had been given them, and all 
 would have gone well if Rean's mother had not come to 
 Garranard for her daughter-in-law's confinement. Being 
 a black Protestant, she wouldn't hear of the child being 
 
 283
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 brought up a Catholic or even baptized in a Catholic 
 church. And the child was now a week old. Rean was 
 fairly distracted, for neither his own mother nor his 
 mother-in-law would give way ; each was trying to outdo 
 the other. Mrs. Rean watched Mrs. Egan, and Mrs. 
 Egan watched Mrs. Rean, and the poor mother lay all 
 day with the baby at her breast, listening to the two of 
 them quarreling. 
 
 " She's gone behind the hedge for a minute, your 
 reverence, so I whipped the child out of me daughter's 
 bed; and if your reverence would only hurry up we could 
 have the poor cratur baptized in the Holy Faith. Only 
 there's no time to be lost; she do be watchin' every stir, 
 your reverence." 
 
 "Very well, Mrs. Egan; I'll be waiting for you up 
 at the chapel." 
 
 " A strange rusticity of mind," he said to himself as 
 he wended his way along the village street. Nor at the 
 chapel gate could he help laughing, for he couldn't help 
 thinking how Mrs. Rean the elder would rage when the 
 child was brought back to her a Catholic. So this was 
 going to be his last priestly act, the baptism of the child, 
 the saving of the child to the Holy Faith. He told Mike 
 to get the things ready, and turned into the sacristy to 
 put on his surplice. 
 
 The familiar presses gave out a pleasant odor, and the 
 vestments which he might never wear again interested 
 him, and he stood seemingly lost in thought. " But I 
 mustn't keep the child waiting," he said, waking up sud- 
 denly; and coming out of the sacristy, he found twenty 
 
 284
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 villagers collected round the font. They had come up 
 from the cottages to see the child baptized in the holy 
 religion. 
 
 "Where's the child, Mrs. Egan?" 
 
 The group began talking suddenly, trying to make 
 plain to him what had happened. 
 
 " Now, if you all talk together, I shall never under- 
 stand." 
 
 "Will you leave off pushing me?" said one. 
 
 " Wasn't it I that saw Patsy ? Will your reverence 
 listen to me? " said Mrs. Egan. " It was just as I was 
 telling your reverence, if they'd be letting me alone. 
 Your reverence had only just turned in the chapel gate 
 when Mrs. Rean ran from behind the hedge, and, getting 
 in front of me who was going to the chapel with the baby 
 in me arms, she said: 'Now, I'll be damned if I'll have 
 that child christened a Catholic'; and didn't she snatch 
 the child and run away, taking a short cut across the 
 fields to the minister's ? " 
 
 " Patsy Kivel has gone after her, and he'll catch up 
 on her, surely, and, she with six ditches forninst her." 
 
 " If he doesn't itself, maybe the minister isn't there, 
 and then she'll be bet." 
 
 " All I'm hopin' is that the poor child won't come to 
 any harm between them; but isn't she a fearful, terrible 
 woman, and may the curse of the Son of God be on her 
 for stealin' away a poor child the like of that! " 
 
 " I'd cut the livers out of the likes of them." 
 
 " Now, will you mind what you're sayin', and the 
 priest listenin' to you? " 
 
 19 285
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " Your reverence, will the child be always a Protes- 
 tant ? Hasn't the holy water of the Church more power 
 in it than the water they have? Don't they only throw 
 it at the child?" 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Egan " 
 
 " Ah, your reverence, you're going to say that I 
 shouldn't have given the child to her, and I wouldn't if 
 I hadn't trod on a stone and fallen against the wall, and 
 got afeard the child might be hurt." 
 
 " Well, well," said Father Oliver, " you see there's no 
 child " 
 
 " But you'll be waitin' a minute for the sake of the 
 poor child, your reverence ? Patsy will be comin' back in 
 a minute." 
 
 On that Mrs. Egan went to the chapel door and 
 stood there, so that she might catch the first glimpse 
 of him as he came across the fields. And it was about 
 ten minutes after, when the priest and his parishion- 
 ers were talking of other things, that Mrs. Egan be- 
 gan to wave her arm, crying out that some one should 
 hurry. 
 
 " Will you make haste, and his reverence waitin' here 
 this half-hour to baptize the innocent child! He'll be 
 here in less than a minute now, your reverence. Will you 
 have patience, and the poor child will be safe?" 
 
 The child was snatched from Patsy, and so violently 
 that the infant began to cry, and Mrs. Egan didn't know 
 if it was a hurt it had received, for the panting Patsy was 
 unable to answer her. 
 
 " The child's all right," he blurted out at last. " She 
 286
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 said I might take it and welcome, now it was a Protes- 
 tant." 
 
 " Ah, sure, you great thickhead of a boy! weren't you 
 quick enough for her? " 
 
 " Now, what are you talkin' about? Hadn't she half 
 a mile start of me, and the minister at the door just as 
 I was gettin' over the last bit of a wall ! " 
 
 " And didn't you go in after them? " 
 
 " What would I be doin', goin' into a Protestant 
 church?" 
 
 Patsy's sense of his responsibility was discussed vio- 
 lently until Father Oliver said : 
 
 " Now, I can't be waiting any longer. Do you want 
 me to baptize the child or not ? " 
 
 " It would be safer, wouldn't it? " said Mrs. Egan. 
 
 " It would," said Father Oliver ; " the parson mightn't 
 have said the words while he was pouring the water." 
 
 And, going toward the font with the child, Father 
 Oliver took a cup of water, but, having regard for the 
 child's cries, he was a little sparing with it. 
 
 " Now, don't be sparin' with the water, your rever- 
 ence, and don't be mindin' its noise; it's twicest the quan- 
 tity of holy water it'll be wanting, and it half an hour a 
 Protestant." 
 
 It was at that moment Mrs. Rean appeared in the 
 doorway, and Patsy Kivel, who didn't care to enter the 
 Protestant church, rushed to put her out of his. 
 
 " You can do what you like now with the child; it's 
 a Protestant, for all your tricks." 
 
 " Go along, you old heretic bitch ! " 
 287
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " Now, Patsy, will you behave yourself when you're 
 standing in the church of God ! Be leaving the woman 
 alone," said Father Oliver; but before he got to the door 
 to separate the two, Mrs. Rean was running down the 
 chapel yard followed by the crowd of disputants, and he 
 heard the quarrel growing fainter in the village street. 
 
 Rose-colored clouds had just begun to appear midway 
 in the pale sky a beautiful sky, all gray and rose and 
 all this babble about baptism seemed strangely incon- 
 gruous. " And to think that men are still seeking scrolls 
 in Turk'estan to prove " The sentence did not finish 
 itself in his mind; a ray of western light falling across the 
 altar steps in the stillness of the church awakened a 
 remembrance in him of the music that Rose's hands 
 drew from the harmonium, and, leaning against the com- 
 munion rails, he allowed the music to absorb him. He 
 could hear it so distinctly in his mind that he refrained 
 from going up into the gallery and playing it, for in his 
 playing he would perceive how much he had forgotten, 
 how imperfect was his memory. It were better to lose 
 himself in the emotion of the memory of the music; it 
 was in his blood, and he could see her hands playing it, 
 and the music was colored with the memory of her hair 
 and her eyes. His teeth clinched a little as if in pain, 
 and then he feared the enchantment would soon pass 
 away ; but the music preserved it longer than he had ex- 
 pected, and it might have lasted still longer if he had 
 not become aware that some one was standing in the 
 doorway. 
 
 The feeling had suddenly come over him that he was 
 288
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 not alone; it had been borne in upon him he knew not 
 how, neither by sight nor sound through some excep- 
 tional sense. Turning toward the sunlit doorway, he saw 
 a poor man standing there, not daring to disturb the 
 priest, thinking, no doubt, that he was engaged in prayer. 
 The poor man was Pat Kearney. So the priest was a 
 little overcome, for that Pat Kearney should come to 
 him at such a time was portentous. " It certainly is 
 strange, coincidence after coincidence," he said; and he 
 stood looking at Pat as if he didn't know him, till the 
 poor man was frightened and began to wonder, for no 
 one had ever looked at him with such interest, not even 
 the neighbor whom he had asked to marry him three 
 weeks ago. And this Pat Kearney, a short, thickset 
 man, sinking into years, began to wonder what new mis- 
 fortune had tracked him down. His teeth were worn and 
 yellow as Indian meal, and his rough, ill-shaven cheeks 
 and pale eyes reminded the priest of the country in which 
 Pat lived, and of the four acres of land at the end of the 
 boreen that Pat had been digging these many years. 
 
 He had come to ask Father Oliver if he would marry 
 him for a pound, but, as Father Oliver didn't answer him, 
 he fell to thinking that it was his clothes that the priest 
 was admiring, " for hadn't his reverence given him the 
 clothes himself? And if it weren't for the self-same 
 clothes he wouldn't have the pound in his pocket to give 
 the priest to marry him." 
 
 " It was yourself, your reverence " 
 
 " Yes, I remember very well." 
 
 Pat had come to tell him that there was work to be 
 289
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 had in Tinnick, but he didn't dare to show himself in 
 Tinnick, not having any clothes to wear. He had stood 
 humbly before the priest in a pair of corduroy trousers 
 that hardly covered his nakedness. 
 
 And it was as Father Oliver stood examining and 
 pitying his parishioner's poverty it had occurred to him 
 that, if he were to buy two suits of clothes in Tinnick and 
 give one to Pat Kearney, he might wrap the other one 
 in a bundle, and place it on the rocks on the Joycetown 
 side. It was not likely that the shopman in Tinnick would 
 remember, after three months, that he had sold two suits 
 to the priest ; but should he remember this, the explana- 
 tion would be that he had bought them for Pat Kearney. 
 Now, looking at this poor man who had come to ask him 
 if he would marry him for a pound, the priest was lost 
 in wonder. 
 
 " So you're going to be married, Pat ? " 
 
 And Pat, who hadn't spoken to anyone since the 
 woman whose potatoes he had been digging had said 
 she'd as soon marry him as another, began to chatter, 
 and to ramble in his chatter. There was so much to tell 
 that he did not know how to tell it. There was his rent 
 and the woman's holding, for now they would have nine 
 acres of land, money would be required to stock it, and 
 he did not know if the bank would lend him the money. 
 Perhaps the priest would help him to get it. 
 
 " But why did you come to me to marry you? 
 Aren't you two miles nearer to Father Moran than you 
 are to me?" 
 
 Pat hesitated, not liking to say that he would be hard 
 290
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 set to get round Father Moran. So he began to talk of the 
 Egans and the Reans. For hadn't he heard, as he came 
 up the street, that Mrs. Rean had stolen the child from 
 Mrs. Egan, and had had it baptized by the minister? 
 And he hoped to obtain the priest's sympathy by saying: 
 
 " What a terrible thing it was that the police should 
 allow a black Protestant to steal a Catholic child, and its 
 mother a Catholic and all her people before her! " 
 
 " When Mrs. Rean snatched the child, it hadn't been 
 baptized, and was neither a Catholic nor a Protestant," 
 the priest said maliciously. 
 
 Pat Kearney, whose theological knowledge did not 
 extend very far, remained silent, and the priest was glad 
 of his silence, for he was thinking that in a few minutes 
 he would catch sight of the square whitewashed school- 
 house on the hillside by the pine wood. The day being 
 Saturday the school was empty. He had thought he 
 would like to see again the place where he and Rose had 
 stood talking together; but a long field lay between the 
 road past the schoolhouse and the road past the priest's 
 house, and what would it avail him to see the empty 
 room? He looked, instead, for the hawthorn bush by 
 which he and Rose had lingered, and it was a sad pleasure 
 to think how she had gone up the road after bidding him 
 good-by. 
 
 But Pat Kearney had begun to talk again of how he 
 could get an advance from the bank. 
 
 " I can back no bill for you, Pat, but I'll give you a 
 letter to Father Moran telling him that you can't afford 
 to pay more than a pound." 
 
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 Rose's letters were in the drawer of his writing 
 table ; he unlocked it, and put the packet into his pocket, 
 and when he had scribbled a little note to Father Moran, 
 he said: 
 
 " Now take this and be off with you ; I've other busi- 
 ness to attend to besides you; " and he called to Catherine 
 for his towels. 
 
 " Now, is it out bathing you're going, your reverence? 
 You won't be swimming out to Castle Island, and forget- 
 ting that you have confessions at seven? " 
 
 " I shall be back in time," he answered testily. 
 
 Halfway down the hillside his steps slackened, and he 
 began to regret his irritation; for he would never see 
 Catherine again. ... It was a pity he had answered her 
 testily. But he couldn't go back; he must think where 
 he could hide himself. And he must find a safe hiding. 
 Moran might call. Catherine might send Moran after 
 him, saying his reverence had gone down to bathe, or any 
 parishioner, however unwarranted his errand, might try 
 to seek him out. " And all errands will be unwarranted 
 to-day," he said as he hurried along the shore, thinking 
 of the different paths round the rocks and through the 
 blackthorn bushes. 
 
 His mind was on the big wood ; there he could dodge 
 anyone following him, for while his pursuer would be 
 going round one way he would be coming back the other. 
 But it would be lonely in the big wood ; and as he hurried 
 down the old cart track he thought how he might while 
 away an hour among the ferns in the little spare fields 
 at the end of the plantation, watching the sunset, for 
 
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 hours would have to pass before the moon rose, and the 
 time would pass slowly under the melancholy hazel 
 thickets into which the sun had not looked for thousands 
 of years. A wood had always been there. The Welshmen 
 had felled trees in it to build rafts and boats to reach 
 their island castles. Bears and wolves had been slain 
 in it, and thinking how it was still a refuge for foxes, 
 marten cats, and badgers, how infested it was with hawks, 
 he made his way along the shore through the rough fields. 
 He ran a little, and after waiting awhile ran on again. 
 On reaching the edge of the wood he hid himself behind 
 a bush, and did not dare to move, lest there might be 
 some one about. It was not till he made sure there was 
 no one that he stooped under the blackthorns, and fol- 
 lowed a trail, thinking the animal, probably a badger, 
 had its den under the old stones; and to pass the time 
 he sought for a den, but could find none. 
 
 A small bird, a wren, was picking among the moss; 
 every now and then it fluttered a little way, stopped, and 
 picked again. " Now, what instinct guided its search for 
 worms?" he asked,"and getting up he followed the bird, 
 but it escaped into a thicket. There were only hazel stems 
 in the interspace he had chosen to hide himself in, but 
 there were thickets nearly all about it, and it took some 
 time to find a path through these. After a time one was 
 found, and its many windings followed. By noticing 
 everything he would pass the time, and make himself 
 secure against being surprised. 
 
 The path soon came to an end, and he walked round 
 to the other side of the wood, to see if the bushes were 
 
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 THE LAKE 
 
 thick enough to prevent anyone from coming upon him 
 suddenly from that side ; and when all investigations were 
 finished there was really very little to investigate he 
 came back, thinking of what his future life would be. He 
 had proposed to spend his long vigil thinking of Rose, 
 but he could only think of himself, and he dreaded per- 
 sonal meditation, feeling that if he did not restrain his 
 thoughts within the circle of present circumstance, if 
 he did not fix them on external things, his courage or 
 should he say his will? would desert him. For, when 
 all was said and done, it did not require much courage to 
 swim across a lake, especially if one were a good swim- 
 mer, and he was an excellent one. It required far more 
 courage to leave the parish. But to swim across the 
 lake was a leave-taking; he couldn't return home in a 
 frieze coat and a pair of corduroy trousers. Catherine's 
 face when she saw him! But of what use thinking of 
 these things? He was going; everything was settled. 
 If he could only restrain his thoughts they were as wild 
 as bees. 
 
 Standing by a hazel stem, his hand upon a bough, 
 he fell to thinking what his life would be, and very soon 
 becoming implicated in a dream, he lost consciousness 
 of time and place, and was borne away as by a current; 
 he floated down his future life, seeing his garret room 
 more clearly than he had ever seen it his bed, his 
 washhand-stand, and the little table on which he did his 
 writing. No doubt most of it would be done in the office, 
 but some of it would be done at home ; and at nightfall he 
 would descend from his garret like a bat from the eaves. 
 
 294
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Journalists flutter like bats about newspaper offices. 
 The bats haunt the same eaves, but the journalist drifts 
 from city to city, from county to county, busying himself 
 with ideas that were not his yesterday, and will not be 
 his to-morrow. An interview with a statesman is fol- 
 lowed by a review of a book, and the day after he may 
 be thousands of miles away, describing a great flood or a 
 railway accident. The journalist throws himself down to 
 rest in an inn. He has no time to make friends, and he 
 lives in no place long enough to know it intimately ; pass- 
 ing acquaintance and exterior aspects of things are his 
 share of the world. And it was in quest of such vagrancy 
 of ideas and affections the idealism of the tramp that 
 he was going. 
 
 At that moment a sudden sound in the wood startled 
 him from his reverie, and he peered, a scared expression 
 on his face, certain that the noise he had heard was Father 
 Moran's footstep. It was but a hare lolloping through 
 the undenvood, and wondering at the disappointment he 
 felt, he asked if he were disappointed that Moran had not 
 come again to stop jiim. He didn't think he was, only 
 the course of his life had been so long dependent on a 
 single act of will that a hope had begun in his mind 
 that some outward event might decide his fate for him. 
 Last month he was full of courage, his nerves were like 
 iron ; to-day he was a poor vacillating creature, walking 
 in a hazel wood, uncertain lest delay had taken the savor 
 out of his adventure, his attention distracted by the 
 sounds of the wood, by the snapping of a dry twig, by 
 a leaf falling through the branches. 
 
 295
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 " Time is passing," he said, " and I must decide 
 whether I go to America to write newspaper articles, or 
 stay at home to say Mass a simple matter, surely." 
 
 The ordinary newspaper article he thought he could 
 do as well as another in fact, he knew he could. But 
 could he hope that in time his mind would widen and 
 deepen, and that he might be able to write something 
 worth writing, something that might win her admiration ? 
 Perhaps when he had shed all his opinions. Many had 
 gone already, more would follow, and one day he would 
 be as free as she was. She had been a great intellectual 
 stimulus, and soon he began to wonder how it was that 
 all the paraphernalia of religion interested him no longer, 
 how he seemed to have suddenly outgrown the things 
 belonging to the ages of faith, and the subtle question, 
 if passion were essential to the growth of the mind, arose. 
 For it seemed to him that his mind had grown, though he 
 had not read the Scriptures, and he doubted if the read- 
 ing of the Scriptures would have taught him as much as 
 Rose's beauty. " After all," he said, " woman's beauty 
 is more important to the world than a scroll." He had 
 begun to love and to put his trust in what was natural, 
 spontaneous in structure, and might succeed in New 
 Yorjc better than he expected. But he would not like 
 to think that it was hope of literary success that tempted 
 him from Garranard. He would like to think that in 
 leaving his poor people he was serving their best in- 
 terests, and this was surely the case. For hadn't he 
 begun to feel that what they needed was a really efficient 
 priest, one who would look after their temporal interests? 
 
 296
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 In Ireland the priest is a temporal as well as a spiritual 
 need. Who else would take an interest in this forlorn 
 Garranard and its people, the reeds and rushes of ex- 
 istence? 
 
 He had striven to get the Government to build a 
 bridge, but had lost patience; he had wearied of the task. 
 Certain priests he knew would not have wearied of it; 
 they would have gone on heckling the Government and 
 the different boards until the building of the bridge could 
 no longer be resisted. His failure to get this bridge was 
 typical, and it proved beyond doubt that he was right in 
 thinking he had no aptitude for the temporal direction of 
 his parish. 
 
 But a curate had once lived in Bridget Clery's cot- 
 tage who had served his people excellently well, had in- 
 trigued successfully, and forced the Government to build 
 houses and advance money for drainage and other useful 
 works. And this curate had served his people in many 
 capacities as scrivener, land valuer, surveyor, and en- 
 gineer. It was not till he came to Garranard that he 
 seemed to get out of touch with practical affairs, and 
 he began to wonder if it was the comfortable house he 
 lived in, if it were the wine he drank, the cigars he 
 smoked, that had produced this degeneracy, if it were de- 
 generacy. Or was it that he had worn out a certain side 
 of his nature in Bridget Clery's cottage? It might well 
 be that. Many a man has mistaken a passing tendency 
 for a vocation. We all write poetry in the beginning of 
 our lives; but most of us leave off writing poetry after 
 some years, unless the instinct is a very deep one or one 
 
 297
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 is a fool. It might well be that his philanthropic in- 
 stincts were exhausted ; and it might well be that this was 
 not the case, for one never gets at the root of one's nature. 
 
 The only thing he was sure of was that he had changed 
 a great deal, and, he thought, for the better. He seemed 
 to himself a much more real person than he was a year 
 ago, being now in full possession of his soul, and surely 
 the possession of one's soul is a great reality. By the 
 soul he meant a special way of feeling and seeing. But 
 the soul is more than that it is a light; and this inner 
 light, faint at first, had not been blown out. If he had 
 blown it out, as many priests had done, he would not have 
 experienced any qualms of conscience. The other priests 
 in the diocese experienced none when they drove erring 
 women out of their parishes, and the reason of this was 
 that they followed a light from without, deliberately 
 shutting out the light of the soul. 
 
 The question interested him, and he pondered it a 
 long while, finding himself at last forced to conclude that 
 there is no moral law except one's own conscience, and 
 that the moral obligation of every man is to separate the 
 personal conscience from the impersonal conscience. By 
 the impersonal conscience he meant the opinions of 
 others, traditional beliefs, and the rest; and thinking of 
 these things he wandered round the Druid stones, and 
 when his thoughts returned to Rose's special case he 
 seemed to understand that if any other priest had acted 
 as he had acted he would have acted rightly, for in driv- 
 ing a sinful woman out of the parish he would be giving 
 expression to the moral law as he understood it and as 
 
 298
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 Garranard understood it. This primitive code of morals 
 was all Garranard could understand in its present civiliza- 
 tion, and any code is better than no code. Of course, 
 if the priest were a transgressor himself he could not ad- 
 minister the law. Happily, that was a circumstance that 
 did not arise often. So it was said ; but what did he know 
 of the souls of the priests with whom he dined, smoked 
 pipes, and played cards? And he stopped, surprised, for 
 it had never occurred to him that all a man knows only 
 of his fellow is whether he be clean or dirty, short or tall, 
 thin or stout. " Even the soul of Moran is obscure to 
 me," he said " obscure as this wood; " and at that mo- 
 ment the mystery of the wood seemed to deepen, and he 
 stood for a long while looking through the twilight of 
 the hazels. 
 
 Very likely many of the priests he knew had been 
 tempted by women; some had resisted temptation, and 
 some had sinned and repented. There might be a priest 
 who had sinned and lived for years in sin ; even so if he 
 didn't leave his parish, if he didn't become an apostate 
 priest, faith would return to him in the end. But the 
 apostate priest is anathema in the eyes of the Church; 
 the doctrine always has been that a sin matters little if 
 the sinner repent. Father Oliver suddenly saw himself 
 years hence, still in Garranard, administering the sacra- 
 ments, and faith returning like an incoming tide, covering 
 the weedy shore, lapping round the high rock of doubt. 
 If he desired faith, all he had to do was to go on saying 
 Mass, hearing confessions, baptizing the young, burying 
 the old, and in twenty years maybe it would take thirty 
 
 299
 
 when his hair was white and his skin shriveled, he 
 would be again a good priest, beloved by his parishioners, 
 and carried in the fullness of time by them to the green 
 churchyard where Father Peter lay near the green pines. 
 Only the other day, coming home from his after- 
 noon's walk, he had stopped to admire his house. The 
 long shadow of its familiar trees had awakened an ex- 
 traordinary love in him, and when he had crossed the 
 threshold and sat down in his armchair, his love for his 
 house had surprised him, and he sat like one enchanted 
 by his own fireside, lost in admiration of the old 
 mahogany bookcase with the inlaid panels, that he had 
 bought at an auction. How somber and quaint it had 
 looked, furnished with his books that he had had bound 
 in Dublin, and what pleasure it always was to him to see 
 a ray lighting up the parchment bindings ! He had hung 
 some engravings on his walls, and these had become very 
 dear to him; and there were some spoons that he had 
 bought at an auction some time agoold, worn Georgian 
 spoons and his hands had become accustomed to them; 
 and there was an old tea service, with flowers painted 
 inside the cups, and his eyes had become accustomed to 
 these flowers. He was leaving these things, and he didn't 
 know exactly why he was leaving them. If he were going 
 away to join Rose in America he could understand his 
 going. But he would never see her again at least, it 
 was not probable that he would. He was not following 
 her, but an idea, an abstraction, an opinion ; he was sepa- 
 rating himself, and forever, from his native land and his 
 past life, and his quest was, alas! not her, but He 
 
 300
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 was following what? Life? Yes; but what is life? Do 
 we find life in adventure or by our own fireside? For 
 all he knew he might be flying from the very thing he 
 thought he was following. 
 
 Then his thoughts zigzagged, and, almost unaware 
 of his thought, he compared life to a flower to a flower 
 that yields up its perfume only after long cultivation and 
 then to a wine that gains its fragrance only after it has 
 been lying in the same cellar for many years, and he 
 started up convinced that he must return home at once. 
 But he had not taken many steps before he stopped: 
 
 " No, no, I cannot stay here year after year! I can- 
 not stay here till I die, seeing that lake. ... I couldn't 
 bear it. I am going. It matters little to me whether life 
 is to be found at home or abroad, in adventure or in 
 habits and customs. One thing matters do I stay 
 or go?" 
 
 He turned into the woods and walked aimlessly, try- 
 ing to escape from his thoughts, and to do so he ad- 
 mired the pattern of the leaves and the flight of the 
 birds, and he pondered over the old stones that probably 
 were once Druid altars. But these expedients were only 
 partially successful, and he came back an hour after, 
 walking slowly through the hazel stems, thinking that 
 the law of change is the law of life. Drawing back the 
 lower branches, he stood at the edge of the wood watch- 
 ing the cormorants coming down the glittering lake to 
 their roost. With a flutter of wings they perched on the 
 old castle, and his mind continued to formulate argu- 
 ments, and the last always seemed the best. 
 20 301
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 At half-past seven he was thinking that life is gained 
 by escaping from the past rather than by trying to retain 
 it; he had begun to feel more and more sure that tradi- 
 tion is but dead flesh which we must cut off if we would 
 live. ... But just at this spot, an hour ago, he had 
 acquiesced in the belief that if a priest continued to ad- 
 minister the sacraments faith would return to him; and 
 no doubt the sacraments would bring about some sort 
 of religious stupor, but not that sensible, passionate 
 faith which he had once possessed, and which he remem- 
 bered had not met the approval of the authorities at 
 Maynooth. He had said that in flying from the monotony 
 of tradition he would find only another monotony, and a 
 worse one that of adventure; and no doubt the jour- 
 nalist's life is made up of fugitive interests. But every 
 man has, or should have, an intimate life as well as an 
 external life; and in losing interest in religion he had 
 lost the intimate life which the priesthood had once given 
 him. The Mass had become a mere Latin formula, and 
 the vestments and the chalice, the Host itself> a sort of 
 fetichism that is to say, a symbolism from which life 
 had departed, the shells retaining hardly a murmur of 
 the ancient ecstasy. It was therefore indispensable that 
 he should go in quest of what? Not of adventure. He 
 preferred to think that his quest was the personal life 
 that intimate exaltation that comes to him who has 
 striven to be himself, and nothing but himself. The life 
 he was going to might lead him even to a new faith. 
 Religious forms arise and die. The Catholic Church had 
 very likely come to the end of its thread; the spool 
 
 302
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 seemed pretty well emptied. He sat down so that he 
 might think better what the new faith might be. What 
 would be its first principle ? he asked himself. Not find- 
 ing any answer to this question, he began to think of his 
 life in America. He would begin as a mere recorder of 
 passing events. But why should he assume that he would 
 not rise higher? And if he remained to the end of his 
 day a humble reporter, he would still have the supreme 
 satisfaction of knowing that he had not resigned himself 
 body and soul to the life of the pool, to a froglike 
 acquiescence in the stagnant pool. 
 
 His hand still held back the hazel branch, but there 
 seemed to have been a long interval, during which no 
 single thought had crossed his mind at least, none that 
 he could remember. No doubt his tired mind had fallen 
 into lethargy, from which a sudden fear had roughly 
 awakened him. What if some countryman, seeking his 
 goats among the rocks, had happened upon the bundle 
 and taken it home! And at once he imagined himself 
 climbing up the rocks naked. Pat Kearney's cabin was 
 close by, but Pat had no clothes except those on his 
 back, and would have to go round the lake to Gar- 
 ranard; and the priest thought how he would sit naked 
 in Kearney's cottage hour after hour. 
 
 " If anyone comes to the cabin I shall have to hold 
 the door to. There is a comic side to every adven- 
 ture," he said, " and a more absurd one it would be 
 difficult to imagine." 
 
 The day had begun in a ridiculous adventure the 
 303
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 baptism of the poor child, baptized first a Protestant, 
 then a Catholic. And he laughed a little, and then he 
 sighed. 
 
 " Is the whole thing a fairy tale, a piece of midsummer 
 madness, I wonder? No matter, I can't stay here, so 
 why should I trouble to discover a reason for my going ? 
 In America I shall be living a life in agreement with 
 God's instincts. My quest is life." 
 
 And, remembering some words in her last letter, his 
 heart cried out that his love must bring her back to 
 him eventually, though Ellis were to take her to the end 
 of the earth. He was carried quickly beyond the light 
 of common sense into a dim, happy world where all 
 things came and went or were transformed in obedience 
 to his unexpressed will. Whether the sun were curtained 
 by leafage or by silken folds he did not know only this : 
 that she was coming toward him, borne lightly as a ball 
 of thistledown. He perceived the color of her hair and 
 eyes and hands and of the pale dress she wore; but her 
 presence seemed revealed to him through the exaltation 
 of some sense latent or nonexistent in him in his waking 
 moods. His delight was of the understanding, for they 
 neither touched hands nor spoke. A little surprise rose 
 to the surface of his rapture surprise at the fact that 
 he experienced no pang of jealousy. She had said that 
 true love could not exist without jealousy ! But was she 
 right in this? It seemed to him that we begin to love 
 when we cease to judge. If she were different she 
 wouldn't be herself, and it was herself he loved the 
 mystery of her sunny, singing nature. There is no 
 
 304
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 judgment where there is perfect sympathy, and he un- 
 derstood that it would be as vain for him to lament that 
 her eyebrows were fair as to lament or reprove her 
 conduct. 
 
 Continuing the same train of thought, he remem- 
 bered that, though she was young to-day, she would 
 pass ^nto middle, maybe old, age; that the day would 
 come when her hair would be less bright, her figure 
 would lose its willowness; but these changes would not 
 lessen his love for her. Should he not welcome change ? 
 Thinking that perhaps fruit time is better than blossom 
 time, he foresaw a deeper love awaiting hint, and a ten- 
 derness that to-day he could not feel he would enjoy in 
 years to come. Nor could habit blunt his perceptions 
 or intimacy unravel the mystery of her sunny nature. So 
 the bourne could never be reached ; for when everything 
 had been said, something would remain unspoken. The 
 two rhythms out of which the music of life is made, 
 intimacy and adventure, would meet, would merge, and 
 become one; and she, who was to-day an adventure, 
 would become in the end the home of his affections. 
 
 A great bird swooped out of the branches above 
 him, startling him, and he cried out: "An owl only 
 an owl ! " The wood was quiet and dark, and in fear 
 he groped his way to the old stones; for one thing still 
 remained to be done before he left he must burn her 
 letters. 
 
 And he burnt them one by one, shielding the flame 
 with his hand lest it should attract some passer-by. 
 When the last was burnt he feared no longer ; his won- 
 
 305
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 der was why he had hesitated, why his mind had been 
 torn by doubt. At the back of his mind he had always 
 known he was going. Had he not written saying he 
 was going, and wasn't that enough? And he thought 
 for a moment of what her opinion of him would be if 
 he stayed in Garranard. In a cowardly moment he had 
 hoped that something would happen to save him from 
 the ultimate decision, and now he was glad that he had 
 overcome doubt without the extraneous help of the 
 memory of the promise he had made her. 
 
 A yellow disk appeared, cutting the flat sky sharply, 
 and he laid his priest's clothes in the middle of a patch 
 of white sand where they could be easily seen. He 
 placed the Roman collar upon the top, and, stepping 
 from stone to stone, he stood on the last one as on a 
 pedestal, tall and gray in the moonlight buttocks hard 
 as a faun's, and dimpled like a faun's when he draws 
 himself up before plunging after a nymph. 
 
 When he emerged he was among the reeds, shaking 
 the water from his face and hair. The night was so 
 warm that it was like swimming in a bath, and when 
 he had swum a quarter of a mile he turned over on 
 his back to see the moon shining. Then he turned over 
 to see how near he was to the island. " Too near," he 
 thought, for he had started before his time. But he 
 might delay a little on the island, and he walked up 
 the shore, his blood in happy circulation, his flesh and 
 brain a-tingle, a little captivated by the vigor of his mus- 
 cles, and ready and anxious to plunge into the water 
 on the other side, to tire himself if he could, in the
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 mile and a half of gray lake that lay between him and 
 shore. 
 
 There were lights in every cottage window ; the vil- 
 lagers would be about the roads for an hour or more, 
 and it would be well to delay on the island, and he chose 
 a high rock to sit upon. His hand ran the water off 
 his long thighs, and then off his long, thin arms, and 
 he watched the laggard moon rising slowly in the dusky 
 night, like a duck from the marshes. Supporting him- 
 self with one arm, he let himself down the rock and 
 dabbled his foot in the water, and the splashing of the 
 water reminded him of little Philip Rean, who had been 
 baptized twice that morning notwithstanding his loud 
 protest. Now one of his baptizers had been baptized, 
 and by emersion he had experienced great benefit from 
 the sacrament, and in a few minutes he would plunge 
 again into the beneficent flood. The night was so still and 
 warm that it was happiness to be naked, and he thought 
 he could sit for hours on that rock without feeling cold, 
 watching the red moon rolling up through the trees round 
 Tinnick ; and when the moon turned from red to gold he 
 wondered how it was that the mere brightening of the 
 moon could put such joy into a man's heart. 
 
 Derrinrush was the nearest shore, and far away in 
 the wood he heard a fox bark. " On the trail of some 
 rabbit," he thought, and again he admired the great gold 
 moon rising heavily through the dusky sky, and the lake 
 formless and spectral beneath. 
 
 Catherine no doubt bad begun to feel agitated; she 
 would be walking about at midnight, too scared to go 
 
 307
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 to sleep. He was sorry for her; perhaps she would be 
 the only one who would prefer to hear he was in 
 America and doing well than at the bottom of the lake. 
 Eliza would regret in a way, as much as her adminis- 
 tration of the convent would allow her; Mary would 
 pray for him so would Eliza, for the matter of that; 
 and their prayers would come easily, thinking him dead. 
 Poor women! if only for their peace of mind he would 
 undertake the second half of the crossing. 
 
 A long mile of water lay between him and Joyce- 
 town, but there was a courage he had never felt before 
 in his heart, and a strength he had never felt before in 
 his limbs. Once he stood up in the water, sorry that the 
 crossing was not longer. " Perhaps I shall have had 
 enough of it before I get there ; " and he turned on his 
 side and swam half a mile before changing his stroke. 
 He changed it and got on his back because he was be- 
 ginning to feel cold and tired, and soon after he began 
 to think that it would be about as much as he could do to 
 reach the shore. A little later he was swimming frog 
 fashion, and it was a disappointment to see that the 
 shore was still a long way off. For now he was like 
 one paralyzed, but he struggled on. At last the water 
 shallowed ; he had come to the end of his strength, and 
 as he clambered up the rocks he said : " Another hun- 
 dred yards would have done for me." He was so cold 
 that he could not think, and sought his clothes vaguely, 
 sitting down to rest from time to time. He didn't know 
 for certain if he would find them, and if he didn't he 
 must die of cold. So the rough shirt was very wel- 
 
 308
 
 THE LAKE 
 
 come when he found it, and so were the woolen socks. 
 As soon as he was dressed he thought that he felt nearly 
 strong enough to climb up the rocks, but he was not as 
 strong as he thought, and it took him a long time to 
 get to the top. But at the top the sward was pleasant 
 it was the sward of the terrace of the old house; and 
 lying at length, fearful lest sleep might overtake him, 
 he looked across the lake. " A queer dusky night," he 
 said, " with hardly a star, and that great moon pouring 
 silver down the lake." He could hear the lake's warble, 
 " singing," he said, " in the dim silence, and the lake 
 shadowy and distant as my past life." 
 
 In another twenty minutes he was sufficiently rested 
 to undertake the walk to Tinnick, and getting to his 
 feet, he buckled the strap tighter about his waist. 
 
 " I shall never see that lake again, but I shall never 
 forget it," he said, as he plodded along the road a little 
 dazed, hardly aware of the fields and the trees and the 
 gable ends of the houses that he knew so well. 
 
 As he dozed in the train, in a corner of an empty 
 carriage, the spectral light of the lake awoke him, and 
 when he arrived at Cork it seemed to him that he was 
 being engulfed in the deep pool by the Joycetown shore. 
 On the deck of the steamer he heard the lake's warble 
 above the violence of the waves. " There is a lake in 
 every man's heart," he said, clinging to a wet rope; he 
 added, " And every man must ungird his loins for the 
 crossing." 
 
 THE END 
 
 (1)
 
 WHERE LOVE CONQUERS. 
 
 The Reckoning. 
 
 By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. 
 
 The author's intention is to treat, in a series of four or five 
 romances, that part of the war for independence which particularly 
 affected the great landed families of northern New York, the 
 Johnsons, represented by Sir William, Sir John, Guy Johnson, and 
 Colonel Claus; the notorious Butlers, father and son, the Schuylers, 
 Van Rensselaers, and others. 
 
 The first romance of the series, Cardigan, was followed by the 
 second, The Maid-at-Arms. The third, in order, is not completed. 
 The fourth is the present volume. 
 
 As Cardigan pretended to portray life on the baronial estate of 
 Sir William Johnson, the first uneasiness concerning the coming 
 trouble, the first discordant note struck in the harmonious councils 
 of the Long House, so, in The Maid-at-Arms, which followed in 
 order, the author attempted to paint a patroon family disturbed by 
 the approaching rumble of battle. That romance dealt with the 
 first serious split in the Iroquois Confederacy ; it showed the Long 
 House shattered though not fallen ; the demoralization and final 
 flight of the great landed families who remained loyal to the British 
 Crown ; and it struck the key-note to the future attitude of the 
 Iroquois toward the patriots of the frontier revenge for their 
 losses at the battle of Oriskany and ended with the march of the 
 militia and continental troops on Saratoga. 
 
 The third romance, as yet incomplete and unpublished, deals 
 with the war-path and those who followed it led by the landed 
 gentry of Tryon County; and ends with the first solid blow de- 
 livered at the Long House, and the terrible punishment of the 
 Great Confederacy. 
 
 The present romance, the fourth in chronological order, pickf 
 up the thread at that point. 
 
 The author is not conscious of having taken any liberties with 
 history in preparing a framework of facts for a mantle of romance. 
 
 ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. 
 NEW YORK, May 26, 1904. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. NEW YORK.
 
 WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. 
 
 IOLE 
 
 Colored inlay on the cover, decorative borders, head- 
 pieces, thumb-nail sketches, and tail-pieces. Frontispiece 
 and three full-page illustrations. i2mo. Ornamental 
 Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 Does anybody remember the opera of The Inca, and that heart-breaking 
 episode where the Court Undertaker, in a morbid desire to increase his pro- 
 fessional skill, deliberately accomplishes the destruction of his middle-aged 
 relatives in order to inter them for the sake of practice ? 
 
 If I recollect, his dismal confession runs something like this : 
 
 " It was in bleak November 
 When I slew them, I remember, 
 As I caught them unawares 
 Drinking tea in rocking-chairs." 
 
 And so he talked them to death, the subject being "What Really Is Art?" 
 Afterward he was sorry 
 
 " The squeak of a door, 
 
 The creak of a floor, 
 My horrors and fears enhance ; 
 
 And I wake with a scream 
 
 As I hear in my dream 
 The shrieks of my maiden aunts ! " 
 
 Now it is a very dreadful thing to suggest that those highly respectable 
 pseudo-spinsters, the Sister Arts, supposedly cozily immune in their polyga- 
 mous chastity ( for every suitor for favor is popularly expected to be wedded to 
 his particular art) I repeat, it is very dreadful to suggest that these impeccable 
 old ladies are in danger of being talked to death. 
 
 But the talkers are talking and Art Nouveau rockers are rocking, and the 
 trousers of the prophet are patched with stained glass, and it is a day of dinki- 
 ness and of thumbs. 
 
 Let us find comfort in the ancient proverb : " Art talked to death shall rise 
 again." Let us also recollect that "Dinky is as dinky does;" that "All u 
 not Shaw that Bernards ; " that " Better Yeates than Clever ; " that words are 
 so inexpensive that there is no moral crime in robbing Henry to pay James. 
 
 Firmly believing all this, abjuring all atom-pickers, slab furniture, and 
 woodchuck literature save only the immortal verse : 
 
 " And there the wooden-chuck doth tread ; 
 
 While from the oak trees' tops 
 The red, red squirrel on the head 
 The frequent acorn drops." 
 
 Abjuring, as I say, dinkiness in all its forms, we may still hope that those 
 cleanly and respectable spinsters, the Sister Arts, will continue throughout the 
 ages, rocking and drinking tea unterrified by the million-tongued clamor in 
 the back yard and below stairs, where thumb and forefinger continue the 
 question demanded by intellectual exhaustion : 
 
 " L'arr 1 Kesker say 1'arr ? " 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.
 
 "A beautiful romance of the days of Robert Burns," 
 
 Nancy Stair. 
 
 A Novel. By ELINOR MACARTNEY LANE, author 
 of " Mills of God." Illustrated. I2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " With very much the grace and charm of Robert Louis 
 Stevenson, the author of * The Life of Nancy Stair ' com- 
 bines unusual gifts of narrative, characterization, color, and 
 humor. She has also delicacy, dramatic quality, and that 
 rare gift historic imagination. 
 
 " * The Life of Nancy Stair ' is interesting from the first 
 sentence to the last ; the characters are vital and are, also, 
 most entertaining company; the denouement unexpected 
 and picturesque and cleverly led up to from one of the 
 earliest chapters; the story moves swiftly and without a 
 hitch. Robert Burns is neither idealized nor caricatured ; 
 Sandy, Jock, Pitcairn, Danvers Carmichael, and the Duke 
 of Borthewicke are admirably relieved against each other, 
 and Nancy herself as irresistible as she is natural. To be 
 sure, she is a wonderful child, but then she manages to 
 make you believe she was a real one. Indeed, reality and 
 naturalness are two of the charms of a story that both 
 reaches the heart and engages the mind, and which can 
 scarcely fail to make for itself a large audience. A great 
 deal of delightful talk and interesting incidents are used for 
 the development of the story. Whoever reads it will advise 
 everybody he knows to read it ; and those who do not care 
 for its literary quality cannot escape the interest of a love- 
 story full of incident and atmosphere." 
 
 44 Powerfully and attractively written." Pittsburg Pott* 
 
 " A story best described with the word ' charming.' ** 
 
 Washington Pest, 
 
 y. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 LOVE, HONOR, AND BEAUTY. 
 
 The House of Hawley. 
 
 By ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE. 121110. Orna- 
 mental Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 Sweet is the adjective that most properly applies to this 
 entrancing novel. It is a pure, lovely story of a grand old 
 man, a beautiful young girl, and her noble young lover. 
 The dainty descriptions of the heroine and her friends are 
 so crisp and vivid that the reader is awe-stricken at the 
 writer's grasp of the beautiful in life. The scene is laid in 
 southern Illinois, and that locality will henceforward have 
 a definite place in fiction. 
 
 " ' Egypt,' better known to geographers as a region of southern Illi- 
 nois, is seven hours' ride from Chicago by train, but a century apart in 
 customs and atmosphere. Mr. Peake has found in it a new setting for 
 the old theme of true love never running smooth, and has added to the 
 leisurely charm of the story by dose character drawing of the unusual 
 types in this eddy of American life." Booklovers, Philadelphia. 
 
 "'The House of Hawley,' by Elmore Elliott Peake is one of the 
 1 homiest ' stories we have met in a long while. . . . Instead of calling 
 so often for the great American novel, perhaps we should give more 
 attention to the many good American novels, of which 'The House of 
 Hawley ' is one, containing faithful and interesting portrayal of life in 
 some one of the many and diversified sections of the country." 
 
 New York Globe. 
 
 " ' The House of Hawley ' is a fresh, readable story by Elmore Elliott 
 Peake, the theme of which is laid in the ' Egypt ' of southern Illinois. 
 The tide fits better than usual, and the characters depicted are real 
 people. There is not a single stick of dead timber among the various 
 men and women." Chicago Record- Her aid, 
 
 "If you have ever lived in southern Illinois or the Missouri and 
 Kentucky neighborhoods on the opposite banks of the Mississippi and 
 Ohio rivers, you may make a pleasant holiday trip there through the 
 pages of this book. The word pictures are as faithfully rendered as if 
 done by the lens of a kodak." Minneapolis Times. 
 
 " There is not a dull page in the whole book. It is well worth 
 reading." St. Louis Star. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 THE MASTERPIECE OF A MASTER MIND. 
 
 The Prodigal Son. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. i2mo, Ornamental Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The Prodigal Son " follows the lines of the Bible para- 
 ble in the principal incidents, but in certain important 
 particulars it departs from them. In a most convincing 
 way, and with rare beauty, the story shows that Christ's 
 parable is a picture of heavenly mercy, and not of human 
 justice, and if it were used as an example of conduct among 
 men it would destroy all social conditions and disturb ac- 
 cepted laws of justice. The book is full of movement and 
 incident, and must appeal to the public by its dramatic 
 story alone. The Prodigal Son at the close of the book 
 has learned this great lesson, and the meaning of the parable 
 is revealed to him. Neither success nor fame can ever wipe 
 out the evil of the past. It is not from the unalterable laws 
 of nature and life that forgiveness can be hoped for. 
 
 " Since ' The Manxman ' Hall Caine has written nothing so moving 
 in its elements of pathos and tragedy, so plainly marked with the power 
 to search the human heart and reveal its secret springs of strength and 
 weakness, its passion and strife, so sincere and satisfying as ' The Prodi' 
 gal Son.' " New York Times. 
 
 " It is done with supreme self-confidence, and the result is a work 
 of genius." New York Evening Pott. 
 
 " ' The Prodigal Son ' will hold the reader's attention from cover to 
 cover." Philadelphia Record. 
 
 " This is one of Hall Caine's best novelsone that a large portion 
 of the fiction-reading public will thoroughly enjoy." 
 
 Chicago Record-Herald, 
 
 " It is a notable piece of fiction." Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 ' In ' The Prodigal Son" Hall Caine has produced his greatest work." 
 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 " Mr. Caine has achieved a work of extraordinary merit, a fiction a* 
 finely conceived, as deftly constructed, as some of the best work of out 
 living novelists." London Daily Mail. 
 
 " ' The Prodigal Son ' is indeed a notable novel ; and a work that 
 may certainly rank with the best of recent fiction. . . ." 
 
 Westminster CmtttU. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 WIT, SPARKLING, SCINTILLATING WIT, 
 IS.-THE ESSENCE OF 
 
 Kate of Kate Hall, 
 
 By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER, 
 
 whose reputation was made by her first book, 
 " Concerning Isabel Carnaby," and enhanced by her 
 last success, " Place and Power." 
 
 " In ' Kate of Kate Hall,' by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, the ques- 
 tion of imminent concern is the marriage of super-dainty, peppery* 
 tempered Lady Katherine Clare, whose wealthy godmother, erstwhile 
 deceased, has left her a vast fortune, on condition that she shall be 
 wedded within six calendar months from date of the testator's death. 
 
 "An easy matter, it would seem, for bonny Kate, notwithstanding 
 her aptness at sharp repartee, is a morsel fit for the gods. 
 
 " The accepted suitor appears in due time ; but comes to grief at the 
 last moment in a quarrel with Lady Kate over a kiss bestowed by her 
 upon her godmother's former man of affairs and secretary. This inci- 
 dent she haughtily refuses to explain. Moreover, she shatters the bond 
 of engagement, although but three weeks remain of the fatal six months. 
 She would rather break stones on the road all day and sleep in a 
 pauper's grave all night, than marry a man who, while professing to love 
 her, would listen to mean and malicious gossips picked up by tell-tales 
 in the servants' hall. 
 
 " So the great estate is likely to be lost to Kate and her debt-ridden 
 father, Lord Claverley. How it is conserved at last, and gloomy appre- 
 hension chased away by dazzling visions of material splendor that is 
 the author's well-kept secret, not to be shared here with a careless and 
 indolent public." Philadelphia North American. 
 
 " The long-standing reproach that women are seldom [humorists 
 seems in a fair way of passing out of existence. Several contemporary 
 feminine writers have at least sufficient sense of humor to produce char- 
 acters as deliciously humorous as delightful. Of such order is the 
 Countess Claverley, made whimsically real and lovable in the recent 
 book by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler and A. L. Felkin, Kate of Kate 
 Hall.' "Chicago Record- Her aid. 
 
 " ' Kate of Kate Hall ' is a novel in which Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler 
 displays her brilliant abilities at their best. The story is well constructed, 
 the plot develops beautifully, the incidents are varied and brisk, and the 
 dialogue is deliciously clever." Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
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