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in daily dread and danger of being expelled from the sheltering walls of their remote dwelling-place. Some timid souls among the community of the Friars Preachers regarded the trials which threatened them with almost womanly terror, but not of their number were the Prior and Brother Cyprian. In the frequent conferences respecting what must be done, if the soldiers of the Lord-Deputy should come to harry and drive them out, the subject of the treasure intrusted to Brother Cyprian, by him whose fate was all unknown to them, was often discussed.

'It must be hidden,' was the conclusion arrived at by the Prior; it must be removed from the cellar underneath the buttery where your hands and mine placed it, and concealed with what skill we have, and what precaution we can take. A statement of the nature, the destination, and the hidingplace of the treasure must be drawn up by you, my son, and kept constantly in the possession of one or other of us, so that the holder, in the hour of supreme danger, or that of death, may have it in his power to communicate the knowledge to another who, in his turn, can, if called upon to do so, fulfil your brother's intention.'

Time is passing, father, and I think the Queen's token will never come.'

'Even so, then, some provision must be made for the restoration or other disposition of this trea

sure.'

Then the Prior and Brother Cyprian studied the plan of the abbey, a quaint drawing which had been made nearly a century before, and they decided on the spot in which the treasure should be hidden. One night, in the cold, early spring, when all was silent in the abbey, and only the

dim red lamp, burning for ever in the sanctuary, intruded on the reign of night, the Prior came to Brother Cyprian's cell, and told him he was ready. Then the two softly descended to the cellar beneath the buttery, where the mail which Louis de Valmont had confided to their care was deposited. When the Prior had opened the heavy door and they stood within the small vaulted chamber, Brother Cyprian struck a light from flint and steel, and lighted a small lamp; and then they looked around them for a black streak upon the wall, which indicated the spot where the mail lay hidden under sturdy logs of firewood.

'It is here,' said Brother Cyprian, stooping to remove the logs, and disclosing to view the stained and torn surface of a leathern valise, which was, however, strongly lined with iron. 'I know not the precise nature nor the exact value of the contents, but Louis was rich, and he told me all his wealth was here, except, doubtless, an inconsiderable sum for his maintenance and charges on his fatal mission. I cannot give any detail, therefore, of the items of this treasure. Perhaps there is a list of them inside the mail.'

The Prior held the lamp, and Brother Cyprian carried the leathern valise with much difficulty for it was, though small, very heavy-through the passages and up the winding flight of stone steps which led to the open cloister adjoining the great doorway. At the top there was a massive door of black oak, sheeted with iron, and studded with heavy nails. This door was unbarred, and it opened noiselessly. The Prior and Brother Cyprian passed through it, and found themselves in the cloister, where some strag

gling rays of moonlight pierced the darkness, but gave only additionally weird effect to the gloom.

Brother Cyprian was the scribe of the community. Little writing was necessary in those days to the management of all human affairs outside diplomacy in comparison with the present demand for the litera scripta; but certain matters had to be transacted in writing, and Brother Cyprian's services were in tolerably constant demand. He had never passed so much of his time in the small room with bare white walls, and heavy oaken table, whither the lay brother had come to announce to him the memorable visit of Louis de Valmont, as immediately after the transfer of the treasure to a secure hidingplace. For many hours of many days, except in choir and refectory, the community saw nothing of Brother Cyprian; but he was understood to be engaged in business for the Prior, and none inquired farther. Meantime he wrote in the laborious, cumbrous, slow caligraphy of the time an accurate record of all that had occurred in relation to his brother, and to the trust of the treasure; and he recorded upon the document his belief that Louis de Valmont was dead. In this conviction, he added to the statement that he, being the only survivor of Louis, and his natural heir, bequeathed the gold and jewels contained in the indicated hiding-place to the dwellers in Kilferran Abbey for their use and absolute disposal. The bequest was to take effect when it should be necessary to make the fact of its existence known, owing to the death of Louis de Valmont being ascertained, his own death having taken place, and the treasure remaining unclaimed by the Queen of Scots, or any emissary of hers,

by the production of a token, agreed upon by himself and his brother, and to be imparted by him in the event of his death to a third person, who should be charged, under similar conditions, with the transmission of the secret to one individual, preferably the Prior of the community.

This task completed, Brother Cyprian committed the writings to the custody of the Prior, who placed them in safety, and all trace of the momentous occurrence which had disturbed his life awhile passed away.

Vague rumours of the discovery of conspiracies for the overthrow of Elizabeth, for the placing of Mary Stuart upon the English throne, and even for the rescue of the Queen of Scots without any defined ulterior purpose, had come to Kilferran; but no tongue syllabled De Valmont's name, and no incident in the various stories which were in circulation seemed to the Prior or to Brother Cyprian to have any reference to Louis, either under his own or under an assumed name. Neither had tidings been received of the ship, and the inquiries made by the Prior now received desponding answers. Brother Cyprian entertained no further hope, and not long after he fell sick. He did manful battle with illness for long, with the declining strength, the waning energy, the dullness and supineness of mind and body which were daily making havoc with him: he filled his place in choir, in pulpit, in the sanctuary, in refectory. His eloquence was not the less burning that he had the strength to use it but seldom; he gained hearts within and without the community which he had not previously touched. So convinced was Brother Cyprian,

over whom the strange enlightening influence of approaching death rapidly assumed power, that his brother no longer lived, that he requested the Prior to permit the celebration of a solemn requiem for him, which was granted.

With the sword of persecution hanging over their heads, the monks of Kilferran assembled for the function of the requiem. Their homely chapel was hung, their uncostly altar was draped in black, and never had the strains of the 'De Profundis' risen with a more piercing and mournful wail to heaven from out those venerable walls. The voice of Brother Cyprian was heard among the singers, with a melody and an agony of supplication in its tones in which many pretended later to have discerned warning and farewell. From that day his stall in the choir, his place in the refectory knew him no more, and it became noised abroad before long, in the little world which surrounded the Abbey, that Brother Cyprian was dying. The slow, insidious diseases of later times, products for the most part of our enervating civilisation, were much less known in other days, when all the conditions and habitudes of life were simpler and hardier. Men died of fevers, of plague, of the 'black death.' They lived in general a shorter time than the people of this epoch in the world's history live, and were counted aged men when our contemporaries are reckoned in the middle term of life. There were unusual and mysterious symptoms about this mortal sickness of Brother Cyprian,-long trances of seeming unconsciousness, in which no sound of any human voice could so reach him as to arouse recognition, and when yet his face wore a smile as though evoked by some voice or presence unseen by the watchers by his bed, patient, unskilful men,

with only goodwill to bring to their task. Muttered sounds of pleading, of dread, of remonstrance, for the most part inarticulate, but awfully expressive, broke the stillness of night, and chilled the hearts of the hearers. They had little experience of minds diseased, and Brother Cyprian was not to be suspected of a burdened conscience, a troubled soul. And yet in these ramblings of the mind, freeing itself from the fragile, fading body, there was disturbance, agitation; wild vagaries of memory distracted the dying man; names which belonged to another country, to a phase of history out of which the world had passed, came frequently from his lips. There was much coming and going to and from Kilferran Abbey now, and troubled consultations between the Prior and the monks and the strangers who brought them confirmation and warning of their evil days near at hand. But amid all this, undisturbed by the pressing trouble and danger, occupied by quite other thoughts, dragged back, by the mysterious power which rules the spirits of the dying, to the life which he had so long ago renounced, Brother Cyprian lay on his deathbed.

Late one night, when the whole community had long retired to their cells save only the watchers, one of them came to the Prior and told him that the monk desired to see him. The Prior instantly complied with the summons, and entering the cell found Cyprian awake, quite sensible and calm, but with a look in his dark, worn, feeble face which can never be mistaken by any one who has seen it once-the look which tells that immortality is very near. The monk's thin transparent hands were stretched out before him and clasped, and his eyes were closed; but they opened

as the Prior approached, and all the trouble, the restlessness, the vague anguish which had been in them of late, was gone.

'You sent for me, my son,' said the Prior, advancing to the side of the rude pallet on which the dying man lay.

'Yes, father; I want to speak with you alone. My time is very short now. Let the community

pray for me, and do you hear my last confession.'

For some weeks no such clear and coherent words had come from Brother Cyprian's lips.

And now,' said the dying man, when his confession was ended, and silence had prevailed for a little while, 'I will tell you how it is that I know this is the end, that my last night on earth is passing on to the morning.'

Tell me, my son,' said the Prior, whose habitual composure was severely taxed, for he loved the dutiful and zealous monk with more than the perfunctory affection supposed to be inherent in a 'superior,' and who had just listened to a strange and melancholy history. You are not suffering, and I am not leech enough to read the subtle signs of approaching dissolution. I must summon our brother infirmarian.'

'Not yet, not yet, for a little while. This, father, is how I know the truth. It was not quite midnight when I awoke from a refreshing sleep and found my brother Louis standing beside me.'

The Prior started up with an exclamation, and a conviction that delirium had again seized upon the sufferer. But Brother Cyprian caught his robe in his feeble hand, and assured him that he was not raving, entreating him to sit still and hear him. There was no disturbance in his face, no hurry or incoherence in his voice, and the

Prior, inexplicably constrained, obeyed him.

'There, opposite to where you are sitting, I saw him. He was dressed as he was when he left us that morning which, until yesterday, seemed so long ago, and now might be yesterday for its nearness to me. The shining courage was gone from his face, but there was a light in it such as I have never seen, and yet seem to know. He stood just there and gazed at me, and I spoke to him, not with my lips, but as spirit speaks to spirit, and so he answered me, not in words of this world's language. I told him that I was not afraid, that I knew he had been released long since, and now knew that he had come to tell me my time was at hand. And the spirit of my brother said to my spirit that it was so; and, father, listen, listen that you may be very sure,'-the monk raised himself slowly, and lifted one hand in solemn asseveration,- My brother bent over me, nearer and nearer, and I was not afraid. His hand was hidden in his breast, until he was leaning quite close to me; but then he withdrew it, and touched my lips with something which it held.'

'My God! with what?' said the Prior, in a hoarse whisper.

A faint smile dawned on Brother Cyprian's face, as he fell gently back, and his outstretched hand dropped at his side

'WITH THE QUEEN'S TOKEN.'

The grass had not covered the new-made grave in the monks' burial-ground at Kilferran when the worst that the community had feared befell them-the destruction of their home, and their dispersion. This was the time of which the Annals of the Four Masters tell, when Sir Henry Sydney, Lord Justice of Ireland, marched with a great force against the

people of Munster, after the peace and league which they had ratified. The direction which he took was through the south-west of Leinster, and he did not halt until he entered the territory of Hy Maccaille in Munster, and having constructed a strong camp of active forces at Baile-na-Martra, and remained for a week besieging the town, the Momonicans threatened every day of that week to give battle to the Lord Justice and his force, which, however, they did not put into execution. The town was at length taken by the Lord Justice, and he garrisoned it on behalf of the Queen, and then proceeded onward to Cork, and remained some time, when several of the insurgents, adherents of James, Earl of Desmond, came to seek protection and pardon. Then the Lord Justice went thence to Limerick, and destroyed portions of the towns of Munster between Cork and Limerick. . . . The Lord Justice returned to Dublin at the end of that harvest, after he had victoriously brought the country under subjection; and no Viceroy of Ireland, with such a force as he commanded, ever performed so prosperous an expedition as he did on that occasion.'

It was this expedition against the Desmonds which furnished the occasion for the suppression of Kilferran Abbey and the taking possession of it for the use of the English authorities. The transaction was of the simplest, according to the record of it, the misery and suffering it created no more than ordinary at that time, and in many lands.

The decree went forth thus (the date is 1569):-'The meetest places for President to lie in is as followeth: To have a house in the town of Ballycashel, and to have all the country of Pubbelbrean to be lotted unto him for his pro

VOL. XXV.-NO. CL.

visions. The meetest house there is St. Dominic's Abbey of Kilferran, which is the Earl of Desmond's lands. Also to have the Grey Friars of Adare for his dwelling-house, and to have in farm from the Queen's Majesty all the abbey tithes and glebe lands belonging to the same town, the house being called the Grey Friars and the White Friars.'

So, Sir Henry Sidney, in the plenitude of his power, and with all the triumphs of his conquest, came to Kilferran, and took possession in the name of the Queen's Majesty, and his troopers harried the monks and drove them away, they making but passive resistance and little plaint, but the people looking on terrified, and with anger subdued by fear in their. hearts. The graves where the brethren lay-happily released before these evil days-were trampled under foot by the soldiery; the chapel was stripped of its ornaments, which were not very valuable, but which when melted down kept the troopers in drink for some time. When the rough division of the spoil was made among the men by an umpire of their own choosing, there was loud and angry dispute concerning the cumbrous brazen lectern, which had been in the chapel for many scores of years, and which was valuable, not only for its weight in beaten and chased metal, but also for the eyes of the eagle in whose form it was wrought, which were of rubies. The fame of this lectern had reached the ears of the Lord Justice's soldiers, and they resented its disappearance as a wrong done to them, in their claims as licensed spoliators. But none could gain or give tidings of the goodly wrought metal eagle, with spread wings and fretted throat, behind whose noble, stern 2 M

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