e
boat they died in tells their fatal story, and points to the last home
which they share together.

But it is not from such a village tragedy as this; it is not from its
retired situation, its Arcadian peacefulness, its embowering trees and
hidden hermit-like beauties of natural scenery, that the vale of Mawgan
derives its peculiar interest. It possesses an additional attraction,
stronger than any of these, to fix our attention--it is the scene of a
romance which we may still study, of a mystery which is of our own time.
Even to this little hidden nook, even to this quiet bower of Nature's
building, that vigilant and indestructible Papal religion, which defies
alike hidden conspiracy and open persecution, has stretched its stealthy
and far-spreading influence. Even in this remote corner of the remote
west of England, among the homely cottages of a few Cornish peasants,
the imperial Christianity of Rome has set up its sanctuary in triumph--a
sanctuary not thrown open to dazzle and awe the beholder, but veiled in
deep mystery behind gates that only open, like the fatal gates of the
grave, to receive, but never to dismiss again to the world without.

It is this attribute of the vale of Mawgan which leads the stranger away
from the cool, clear stream, and the pleasant, shadowy recesses among
the trees, to an ancient building near the church, which he knows to
have been once an old English manorial hall--to be now a convent of
Carmelite nuns.

The House of Lanhearne, so it is named, comprises an ancient and a
modern portion; the first dating back before the time of the Conquest,
the second added probably not more than a century and a half ago. The
place formerly belonged to the old Cornish family of the Arundels; but
about the year 1700, their race became extinct, and the property passed
into the possession of the present Lord Arundel. However, although the
manor-house has changed masters, there is one peculiar circumstance
connected with it, which has remained unaltered down to the present
time--it has never had a Protestant owner.

Thus, whatever religious traditions are connected with it, are Roman
Catholic traditions. A secret recess remains in the wall of the old
house, where a priest was hidden from his pursuers, during the reign of
Elizabeth, for eighteen months; the place being only large enough to
allow a man to stand upright in it. The skull of another priest who was
burnt at the same period, is also preserved