us heed it. Who has so good a
right to say so as I?"

"Bless you, my darling boy! But, Herbert, such things must be
heeded--more or less, you know: but you may tell your mother this,
and perhaps it may comfort her. I have made up my mind to go to
London and to see Prendergast; I will explain the whole of this thing
to him, and as he bids me so will I act."

This was thought to be satisfactory to a certain extent both by the
mother and son. They would have been better pleased had he opened
his heart to them and told them everything; but that it was clear he
could not bring himself to do. This Mr. Prendergast they had heard
was a good man; and in his present state it was better that he should
seek counsel of any man than allow his sorrow to feed upon himself
alone.

CHAPTER X.

THE RECTOR OF DRUMBARROW AND HIS WIFE.

Herbert Fitzgerald, in speaking of the Rev. Aeneas Townsend to Lady
Clara Desmond, had said that in his opinion the reverend gentleman
was a good man, but a bad clergyman. But there were not a few in the
county Cork who would have said just the reverse, and declared him
to be a bad man, but a good clergyman. There were others, indeed,
who knew him well, who would have declared him to be perfect in both
respects, and others again who thought him in both respects to be
very bad. Amidst these great diversities of opinion I will venture on
none of my own, but will attempt to describe him.

In Ireland stanch Protestantism consists too much in a hatred of
Papistry--in that rather than in a hatred of those errors against
which we Protestants are supposed to protest. Hence the cross--which
should, I presume, be the emblem of salvation to us all--creates a
feeling of dismay and often of disgust instead of love and reverence;
and the very name of a saint savours in Irish Protestant ears of
idolatry, although Irish Protestants on every Sunday profess to
believe in a communion of such. These are the feelings rather than
the opinions of the most Protestant of Irish Protestants, and it
is intelligible that they should have been produced by the close
vicinity of Roman Catholic worship in the minds of men who are
energetic and excitable, but not always discreet or argumentative.

One of such was Mr. Townsend, and few men carried their Protestant
fervour further than he did. A cross was to him what a red cloth is
supposed to be to a bull; and so averse was he to the intercession
of saints, that he always re