e; for I
remained in England only till after the funeral in Westminster
Abbey--which was very poorly done--eight days later; and I left on the
Sunday morning, for Dover, after being present first, for a remembrance,
at the first mass celebrated publicly in England, with open doors, in
the presence of the Sovereign, since over a hundred and thirty years. I
had audience with King James on the night before, when I went to take my
leave of him; and he renewed to me the offer of the Viscounty, of which
I think Mr. Chiffinch had spoken to him. But I refused it as courteously
as I could, telling him that I was for Rome and the cloister.

All the rest, however, is known by others better than by myself; and the
events that followed. His Majesty shewed himself as he had always
been--courageous, obstinate, well-intentioned and entirely without
understanding. He was profuse in his promises of religious equality; but
slow to observe them. He shewed ruthlessness where he should have shewn
tenderness, and tenderness where he should have shewn ruthlessness. So,
once more, all our labours went for nothing; and William came in; and
the Catholic cause vanished clean out of England until it shall please
God to bring it back again.

So here I sit near sixty years old, a monk of the Order of Saint Benet,
in my cell at St. Paul's-Without-the-Walls. I have been Novice Master
three times; but I shall never be more than that; for governmental
affairs and I have said farewell to one another a long while ago. It was
through my telling of my adventures to my Novices at recreation-time
that the writing of them down came about; for my Lord Abbot heard of
them, and put me under obedience to write them down. He did this when he
heard one of my Novices name me to another as Father Viscount! I have
written them, then, down all in full, leaving nothing out except the
French affairs on which I was put under oath by His Majesty never to
reveal anything: I have left out not even the tale of my Cousin Dolly;
for I hold that in such a love as was ours there is nothing that a monk
need be ashamed of. I will venture even further than that, and will say
that I am a better monk than I should have been without it; and as one
last piece of rashness I will say that amongst "those good things which
God hath prepared for them that love Him" in that world which is beyond
this (if I ever come at it by His Grace), will be, I think, the look on
my Cousin Dolly's face when