workings of his heart.
"Ay," cried he, aloud, "the first Prince of the Church who for above a
century has dared them to defiance! _That_ is a proud thought, and well
may nerve the spirit that conceives it to courageous action."

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE MANOR-HOUSE OF CORRIG-O'NEAL.

While we leave, for a brief space, the Abbe D'Esmonde to pursue his
road, we turn once more to the peaceful scene wherein we found him.
Mayhap there be in this dalliance something of that fond regret, that
sorrowful lingering with which a traveller halts to look down upon a
view he may never see again! Yes, dear reader, we already feel that
the hour of our separation draws nigh, when we shall no more be
fellow-journeyers, and we would fain loiter on this pleasant spot, to
tarry even a few moments longer in your company.

Passing downwards beneath that graceful bridge, which with a rare
felicity seems to heighten, and not to impair, the effect of the scene,
the river glides along between the rich wooded hills of a handsome
demesne, and where, with the most consummate taste, every tint of
foliage and every character of verdure has been cultivated to heighten
the charm of the landscape. The spray-like larch, the wide-leaved
sycamore, the solemn pine, the silver-trunked birch, all blending
their various hues into one harmonious whole,--the very perfection of a
woodland picture. As if reluctant to leave so fair a scene, the stream
winds and turns in a hundred bendings--now forming little embayments
among the jutting rocks, and now, listlessly loitering, it dallies with
the gnarled trunks of some giant beech that bends into the flood.

Emerging from these embowering woods, the river enters a new and totally
different tract of country,--the hills, bare of trees, are higher,
almost mountainous in character, with outlines fantastic and rugged.
These, it is said, were once wooded too; they present, however, little
remains of forest, save here and there a low oak scrub. The sudden
change from the leafy groves, ringing with many a "wood note wild," to
the dreary silence of the dark region, is complete as you approach the
foot of a tall mountain, at whose base the river seems arrested, and
is in reality obliged by a sudden bend to seek another channel. This
is Corrig-O'Neal; and here, in a little amphitheatre, surrounded by
mountains of lesser size, stood the ancient manor of which mention has
been more than once made in these pages.

It is but a