the rector of our college once said that he was
firmly of opinion that every individual member was either rogue or fool.
I was born at Madrid, of pure, _oime_, Fraser blood. My parents at an
early age took me to ---, where they shortly died, not, however, before
they had placed me in the service of a cardinal with whom I continued
some years, and who, when he had no further occasion for me, sent me to
the college, in the left-hand cloister of which, as you enter, rest the
bones of Sir John D. . .; there, in studying logic and humane letters, I
lost whatever of humanity I had retained when discarded by the cardinal.
Let me not, however, forget two points--I am a Fraser, it is true, but
not a Flannagan; I may bear the vilest name of Britain, but not of
Ireland; I was bred up at the English house, and there is at --- a house
for the education of bog-trotters; I was not bred up at that; beneath the
lowest gulf, there is one yet lower; whatever my blood may be, it is at
least not Irish; whatever my education may have been, I was not bred at
the Irish seminary--on those accounts I am thankful--yes, _per dio_! I
am thankful. After some years at college--but why should I tell you my
history, you know it already perfectly well, probably much better than
myself. I am now a missionary priest labouring in heretic England, like
Parsons and Garnet of old, save and except that, unlike them, I run no
danger, for the times are changed. As I told you before, I shall cleave
to Rome--I must; _no hay remedio_, as they say at Madrid, and I will do
my best to further her holy plans--he! he!--but I confess I begin to
doubt of their being successful here--you put me out; old Fraser, of
Lovat! I have heard my father talk of him; he had a gold-headed cane,
with which he once knocked my grandfather down--he was an astute one,
but, as you say, mistaken, particularly in himself. I have read his life
by Arbuthnot, it is in the library of our college. Farewell! I shall
come no more to this dingle--to come would be of no utility; I shall go
and labour elsewhere, though . . . how you came to know my name is a fact
quite inexplicable--farewell! to you both."

He then arose; and without further salutation departed from the dingle,
in which I never saw him again. "How, in the name of wonder, came you to
know that man's name?" said Belle, after he had been gone some time.

"I, Belle? I knew nothing of the fellow's name, I assure you."

"But you