Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

were mistaken, however, and ", s they
I : nraa
BfU
; on n ;, Sinning
'
morning, ami (he blue waters of (lie Allaulic
eath the rising BUD, ami th-.i win*:;
dill's looked whiter still, and tho very 11. iw.
to spring more gladly from the turf, as if r:\joieiiu; in I ;
f the Summer tide, it was Sunday morning, ami (lion-
Bauds cauie, tliro;i:;iii'4- down from tho mountains, and thoii-
Bacds came flocking up from the valleys ;
< cry cabin gave its
quota of inhabitants, men aiid women and children, infants
even in their mothers' arms, to swell tho living tide which
pun red towards the newly-erected church upon
happy young hearts were among them, and happy old ones too,
I dare say, for the bishop was to be there that morning, and
to give, in the sacrament of Confirmation, the strength so
needed for the storm of persecution which just then had begun
to sweep over the land. Some few there might perhaps even
be, who came to receive the rite, after having wept and done
t!;c dills : and
penance over former vacillations from the faith ; but the holy
chrism would be also poured over brows from whence sin hail
not yet dashed the innocent dews of their baptism, for, in those
uncertainty and tribulation, children, almost infants
by their age, were often admitted to confirmation, either that
they might not die without it, or that they might derive from
it the courage they were often called upon to exert, even in
their tenderest years. The church was, therefore, crowded.
Within it there was peace, and love, and hope, and prayer !
without it ! but I must not anticipate. Enough, that inform-
ation had been given of the bishop, the Mass, and the holy
rite and ; suddenly, in one of the pauses of the service, a sound,
the well-known tramp of soldiery, was he .rd. People began
to listen in breathless silence the bishop ceased to speak the
boll was rung no longer, and still the sounds without grew
louder the tramp, tramp, tramp, more distinct upon the turf.
At length it seemed almost under the walls, and then it ceased,
and the shrill notes of a bugle rang through the air. Some one
looked forth from the window !
Mother
of Go.l ! the Cromwel-
luns were upon them ! They were unarmed, therefore they
did not think to fight, neither did they seek to fly. They knew
their doom too well. There was no hope for them beyond tho
church s >
; they barricaded the doors, and crowded round the
neither rebels nor wild beasts they were simply Papists. '
Pri-
son would have been too easy, and such a d ath too speedy.
There was a better vengeance in the heads and hearts of Crom-
well's band of ruffians. Higher than door or window they
piled up wood and hay, and straw, and every combustible
thing they could lay their hands on, and with a wild shout of
triumph, set the whole of it in a blaze. The red lijht upon
the windows soon told the fell deed to those within. At first
they sat gazing upon one another, like men stupefied by ter-
ror, Mid then, as if moved by one simultaneous impulse, they
all knelt down at the feet of their bishop; men and women
imploring absolution, children, so lately full of childish joy,
now screaming and struggling, and clinging to his feet. Goodold
man ! he wept over them and blest them; bul tears might
not quench that funeral pile !
The windows soon melted away
in the heat, and then the red fire poured rapidly in, flying like
a living creature along the walls, taking the rafters of the ceil-
ing, licking up everything it found that might give its fury
food, until the soldiery without no longer seemed so terrible
as the circling flames within, and half mad witii heat, and
,
flight.
and terror, the miserable victims sought escape
And now a terrible scene ensued, as it has been
by
dei
by one w ho shared in its i
barbarities; u retches rcorched
ned. the semblance of human
and blackened, beyond
raving in their madness, the
mighty crowd swaying hither and thither in its various eil'oits
rushed to the gateway (the doors had lout;
':i burned to
cinders), iuid others clambered up to tho
windows to cast themselves down, an
ito the pitiless flame s at the point of tho yet more piti-
V, lance. At length the shout and the M
heard no more, and silence fell on the multitude tho silence,
of despair; aial then the bishop ro:-:e: ho had hitherto remained
"f the ultur, and over the dead and tho
dying the f:ilhful shepherd looked, They knew him in tho
midst of their agony and fear; they knew him, and gin
his intention, bowed down their heads to receive his absolu-
tion. They were spoken those words which gave them hopes
of tho peace in heaven they had never known on earth; and
then the bishop once more lifted up his arms to impart his
filial benediction, arid in this attitude, and while yet the words
were quivering on his lips, he fell down dead before them.
In an instant afterwards, the whole of the building gave way
with a terrible crash, and all was over.
"This is the tradition of the country; it is but one tale
amid a thousand others, and it has been repeated, even in
these our days of enlightened civilization. Not twenty miles
from these very ruins, and not three months from the hour in
which you have listened to this story, three Catholic chapels
have been burned to the ground, by men who write themselves
worthy descendants of Cromwell's ruthless soldiers. And now,
dear Agn.'se, see you not how our forefathers were forced to
worship God in secret and in lonely places, and can you wonder
if we, their children, have often neither hearts nor means
left to do otherwise than they did ? "
"Dear Grace,' said "
Agnese. I could almost fancy I was
listening to a tale of the old Christian martyrs."
" The martyrs of the old Christian times were better off
than we. They suffered for their faith, and their very foes denied
them not their crown, Verily! Verily! ours have 1> on
wi. or in their generation. They have robbed us of the glory
of our martyrdom, to clothe us in its shame. True, they
persecute us as Papists, but then it is as rebels that they
us. It was so in England also. They did not put a man to
torture and to death for being a Catholic, but only for refus-
ing an oath which no Catholic could in conscience take."
" And yet, at Oranmore Castle, I have heard them talk so
altar, where mercy alone might be found for them. Now mark
you, Agnese, if these men were rebels, the soldiers might have
broken open the doors, dispersed the people, or taken them to
prison ; or if they were wild beasts, they might have fired in at
the window, and, packed and cabined as often as if we were the persecutor?, and they the persecuted,"
replied Agnese.
"
Yes, poor, injured lambs !" said Grace, laughing through
her
"
tears. They preach h'berty of conscience, and then show
they were, ten rounds
of shot would have sent them to their doom. But th'ey were
us fire and faggot when we dare to take it ; yet I ought not to
grumble at these laws, for they made a Catholic of iny grandfather."
" I should have thought they would have kept him Pro-
testant."
"They did not, however. He was travelling for the first
time through the north, for he had been educated in England,
and he came suddenly upon a vast assemblage of people hear-
ing Mass in an open field, every man bare-headed and upon
his knees, although the mud was deep beneath, and the. rain
descending in torrents from above. He went home and became
a Catholic, for he said there could be no true religion
upon e.irth, if tho faith which produced such fruits were false."
"
I do not wonder," said Agnese. "Oh, that I also might
be present at suc^i a scene !"
" Dear Agnese ! I have told you why, just now, we fear t >
meet in public. There is yet another reason. The priest, the
only one now left in this immediate district, has most unjustly
become suspected as a rebel and a, favorer of rebellion, and informations
to tl.is respect have been lodged against him."
" But ho is not he cannot be a rebel !" cried Aguese.
"Far from it. He holds rebellion in abhorrence, as a foul
offence against the laws both of God and man ; and it is mainly
i> his influence that the people about here have been
kept from joining in the wild cry of vengeance, which, north
and south, and east and west, is sweeping through the land.
>ws this, and therefore he has rejected many an opportunity
of escape which has offered itself, to foreign shores.
r,