The Project Gutenberg eBook, Up in Ardmuirland, by Michael Barrett

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Title: Up in Ardmuirland

Author: Michael Barrett

Release Date: January 4, 2006 [eBook #17453]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UP IN ARDMUIRLAND***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

UP IN ARDMUIRLAND

by

REV. MICHAEL BARRETT, O.S.B.

New York Cincinnati Chicago
Benziger Brothers
Publishers of Benziger's Magazine
1912
Copyright, 1912, by Benziger Brothers

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. PERSONAL
II. MEMORIES
III. ARCHIE
IV. GOLDEN DREAMS
V. "DOMINIE DICK"
VI. BILDY
VII. SMUGGLERS
VIII. PHENOMENA
IX. SPRING'S RETURN
X. A RUSTIC PASTOR
XI. A SPRIG OF SHAMROCK
XII. PENNY

UP IN ARDMUIRLAND

I

PERSONAL

Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of the ocean
Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and sunshine.
(_Longfellow--"Miles Standish"_)

Val and I, being twins, have always been looked upon as inseparables.
True, we have been often forced apart during life's course; yet,
somehow, we have always managed to drift back again into the old
companionship which Nature seems to have intended in bringing us into
the world together.

Boyhood and youth, as long as school life lasted, slipped by with never
a parting. The crux came when we were old enough to choose our
respective paths in life. It appeared that Val, although he had never
before breathed a word to me--whatever he may have done to Dad--had
thoroughly determined to be a priest if he could. I had never felt the
ghost of a vocation in that direction, so here came the parting of the
ways. Val went to college, and I was left inconsolable.

But I was not allowed to nurse my griefs; plans had been made in my
regard also, it appeared.

"Ted," said Dad quite abruptly one day, "you'll have to go to Bonn.
That'll be the best place for you, since Oxford is out of the question.
You've got to take my place some day, and you mustn't grow up an
absolute dunce. Atfield" (an old school-chum of his) "is well pleased
with the plac