er a faltering voice, "I was not prepared for this; you
have frequently surprised me by your knowledge of things which I should
never have expected any person of your appearance to be acquainted with,
but that you should be aware of my name is a circumstance utterly
incomprehensible to me. I had imagined that no person in England was
acquainted with it; indeed, I don't see how any person should be, I have
revealed it to no one, not being particularly proud of it. Yes, I
acknowledge that my name is Fraser, and that I am of the blood of that
family or clan, of which 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
for 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 ---; 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 bogtrotters; 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