CHAPTER XXXIX. FROM GRAVE TO GAY. "For lo, the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come." THE SONG OF SOLOMON, ii, 11, 12. "Is this the noble nature Whom passion could not shake-whose solid virtue Could neither graze nor pierce?" "He is much changed." Lud." Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain ?" SHAKESPEARE. SPRING passed away, and the grass, which had been There's not a beam that lights the mountain, There's not a wind that stirs the fountain, There's not a hue that paints the rose, There's not a leaf around us lying, But in its use or beauty shows True love to us and love undying!" Summer came, and Lanigan pursued his walks, tasting his tonic, taraxicum, one minute; sipping from wild honeysuckles the next-illustrating the advantage of bitters in this life, as tending to impart additional pleasure to the sweets with which they contrast. Thus he made these simple practices serve both mind and body. Dr. Lanigan need not trust to flowers to find food for thought. The ground which he trod once lived. Rich and racy historic annals were redolent for miles round. Within easy access lay Castleknock, where, four hundred years before Christ, a battle was fought by King Conmael; and in the second century another, when Coohal, grasping for the crown of Leinster, with the King of Munster for an ally, was opposed by Goll and Conn of the Hundred Battles; but a dash from the bright spear of Goll laid Coohal low, and his remains were buried beneath the vast tumulus, Knockmaroon Hill. Hither, as St. Evin records, St. Patrick made a special mission to convert the native Irish; and throughout a subsequent period we find the fortress of Castleknock sometimes held by Christian soldiers, at other times by the Danes; until, after many exciting vicissitudes and bloody strugglesduring which it was successively occupied by Nial, Monarch of Ireland, King Roderick O'Connor, Hugh Tyrrell, and even Bruce, the hero of Bannockburnthe fortress was at last reduced by the Cromwellian General, Monk (afterwards Duke of Albemarle), with his smashing siege train, who hung from its battlements the guards that had so valiantly defended them. But Owen Roe O'Neill enjoyed the rich revenge of retaking the castle, and proclaiming from its pinnacle the Cromwellian defeat. Within those walls the patriot prelate, St. Laurence O'Toole, had previously nerved Roderic O'Connor by his voice and blessing; and from Finglas, along the line to Castleknock, was fought the bloody battle which terminated in the success of the Norman arms. Nor were the old castles of the vicinage destitute of the more tender elements of romance. The beautiful Eibhleen, daughter of O'Byrne, Chieftain of Wicklow, was carried off by Roger Tyrrell, whose lustful life carried terror through counties round, and locked up in the turret of Castleknock. Hearing footsteps at night on the stone stairs outside, she opened a vein in her neck by means of a brooch, and bled to death. Of this second Rebecca, who preferred death to dishonour, one of the Vincentian fathers for some time resident at Castleknock writes: "It was long a popular belief that at the hour of midnight a female figure robed in white might be seen, moving slowly round the castle. Her suicide, though wholly unjustifiable, was believed to have been palliated by ignorance, and in making the rounds of the castle she was supposed to have been completing her purgatory." Later we find Lord Fingal's aunt, Lady de Lacywhose husband had gone forth in the van of the Catholic army-defending the same castle, with 50 men, against Ormond's 4,000 foot and 500 horse; and by her valour and tacties causing 400 of the besiegers to fall. And when at last the ammunition failed, she broke up the arms which the fort contained, buried her jewels and robes, and after telling her little garrison that no quarter could be expected, she rushed forth at their head, cutting through the enemy's lines, until, overwhelmed by superior numbers, she was left alone alive a prisoner in Ormond's hands. And did not Mullaghiddart graveyard, as its gloomy length lay stretched beside the weeping waters of the Tolka, claim a passing tear? Ware had already searched it for Beling's tomb, who, like Lanigan, had written under the name of "Irenæus." Here too, with many other priests, lay Clarke, the great convertpreacher of St. Mary's, where Lanigan celebrated his weekly Mass. Clarke's sermon's Lanigan had heard with profit, and he now preserved the fruit long after the tree had died. Dr. Lanigan, not unpleasantly fatigued, nightly retired to rest in the bed provided for him in the asylum; paternally patted the head of an ingenuouslooking boy as he passed-no doubt the subsequently famous William Henry Mathew-dreamt of love and war, saints, sinners, and sieges; and rose betimes. braced for a fresh start through fields and flowers; exploring old castles, and deciphering tomb-stones. If, perchance, his lips felt parched, or the weakness of disease temporarily shackled his pace, he found a vivifying elixir in the holy wells which dot the district. He sauntered onwards still through paths and fields fertilized by floods of patriot blood.* He thought of the fatal famine time when Scotch and Irish Celts stood, shoulder to shoulder, near Finglaswood, and, in joining to expel the English invaders, mingled their blood in the chalice of national woe. A bold act of Bruce was the capture of Castleknock; but Dublin withstood his siege, and the hero of Ban *It is recorded by Mr. Prendergast, in his very valuable "Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland," that after the rebellion of 1641, 3,000 acres were confiscated in the barony of Castleknock alone. All the respectable families in the neighbourhood may be said to have ranged themselves on the patriot side, including the Luttrels, afterwards noted for their anti-Catholic virus and terrorism. In our works, "The Sham Squire" and "Ireland Before the Union," we furnished many startling details of Simon Luttrell, Lord Carhampton. As a postscript we may now add, that until the 18th century the Luttrels professed the Roman Catholic faith; and the old list of the dead, preserved in the Catholic chapel of Blanchardstown, records, by desire, the names of the family, in order that prayers may be offered for their eternal repose. nockburn returned to Scotland, where more legitimate duties called his claymore forth. This was the first and only occasion when Scottish bonnets and Irish helmets marched in embattled array, to the mingled music of pibroch and harp. One day about this time, when our poor Doctor's equanimity seemed brightest, the cerebral dome gave painful indications of falling in, and crushing for ever in one dread chaos the elements of joy and care. But the rafters had merely cracked as yet, and the roof paused in its descent. Summer glided over, as the winter had done; and the flowers drooped and died, like the tranquilly expiring life of the good old priest. Supported on one side by fair Religion, and on the other by strong Philosophy, he sought to baffle the too frequent recurrence of the horrible thought, that every hour he was sinking more deeply and darkly into that black impenetrable night which the joyous light of day was destined never to terminate. A philosophic poet has mused, "The body may decay-but by the might Of the soul's flame, Mind will not lose its light." But poor Lanigan's struggle against his fate was vain; he was succumbing by slow yet sure gradations. It is told of an eminent thinker, that when conscious of approaching death, he suffered dreadful terror from the fear that, possibly, God would not spare his mind unto the end. But the spiritualized old priest, while he felt himself becoming more and more childish day by day, derived consolation from meditating on the words of the Man of Sorrows: "Unless you become like little children, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven."* The insidious progress of the *Several of the details illustrative of Dr. Lanigan's life at Finglas were derived from the late Rev. Redmond O'Hanlon whilst the fatal disease which soon after laid him low had already grasped his once stalwart frame; and if we caught contagiously the tone of the dying priest, the infection is hardly to be regretted. |