Toal, or led, each in turn, in a decade. The Rosary of the Five Joyful Mysteries it was that Toal recited. He needed neither light nor book, for he had all the Rosaries by heart, and he worded the Mysteries in an impressive manner, pouring into them the fulness of a pious heart. A belated curlew called cheerily from afar, and the faintest little wavelets lapped the shingly shore, as Toal proceeded, and an occasional murmur was wafted to us over the water from the Holy Island. The volume of our own voices, when we murmurously responded, filled the air, so that it seemed as if a multitude prayed upon the moor. Such joyous bliss, too, filled our souls as if we waited outside the gate, on the eve of our entrance into Paradise.

At the conclusion of the Rosary, Toal asked for one Pater-and-Ave for the benefit of all the pilgrims now on the island, and for all that had ever been on it, and for all to come henceforth, that God might give them the reward they sought; one Pater-and-Ave for God to look with favor on our own little pilgrimage, and grant us His grace to make it a stepping-stone to Eternal bliss; and a Pater-and-Ave (which was meant for Billy, and which Toal never overlooked at the end of his household prayers) for all wise, prudent, and discreet apprentices and subordinates who do their masters' will, and have their masters' welfarity ever and always at heart: and more solemnly than any other present did Billy Brogan respond to this.

When the prayers were ended, another fire was made, for sociability's sake only, and we squatted around it listening to stories. Toal and Pat and Billy drew upon their store of the old, old folktales; and the Master charmed us with an account of the wonderful siege of Troy, elevated us with the story of Socrates, and melted us with the pathetic narrative of Æneas. Finally, Ellen Burns led in a hymn, which, waking the deep stillness of midnight, sounded startlingly along the lake, and sent up from their beds three moorfowl that circled overhead till the last stave died away, and then wandered off to seek security further from the strange company. When the hymn was finished the softest knowe was chosen and given to Ellen and Nuala; Billy and I took to ourselves another choice knowe, and the Master, Toal, and Pat chose likewise as best they could; and all stretched their tired limbs to woo repose, with the wavelets crooning the faintest fairy lullaby in our ears.

Brisk and fresh, we were afoot while yet the sun was very low and the shadows very long next morning; and being seen from the island by the pilgrims who, after the night's watching and praying, were coming out of prison, a boat soon put off for us and brought us to the island in good time to hear the first Mass of the day.

The island was so small that clear over it lengthwise I could cast a picked pebble. Yet on it were several hundred penitents. Two chapels and several houses for lodging the pilgrims stood along the water's edge; the Station Beds were grouped in the rocky centre.

The

Very soon after Mass, making the Stations began. All the penitents went bareheaded and barefooted; and the gravel and sharp stones tried the feet and knees of many severely. whole surface of the little island was thickly dotted with devotees-one by St. Bridget's Cross, standing with arms extended, and solemn face looking upward, in act of renouncing with solemn voice the World, the Flesh, and the Devil; some standing in the laving waters of the lake praying toward the East; many kneeling on the shingles by the water's edge supplicating God with intense speech, and some hundreds telling their beads as they walked and ran the rounds of the rocky beds or knelt on the pebbles among them-the atmosphere of the whole island filled with the great, stirring, thrilling, Heaven-ascending murmur of pleading prayer which ceases not ever, day or night, from June's first morning till August's Day of Our Lady. The scene and the sound certainly stirred and thrilled me to my soul's centre; and when I looked afar at the great wild wastes of moor that stretched far and far on every side, and the girdle of frowning hills beyond, which seemed effectually to shut off from the world the Loch of the Holy Island, and then gazed upon the scene immediately around me, where every soul openly communed with a present God, I in my unsophisticated, pure state of mind found the spiritual within me utterly and completely, for the time being, overmaster and annihilate the sensual. I trod on thin air through spirit-land, and I experienced the taste of that exultant joy which disembodied souls must know.

Though some walked the Stations singly, the penitents generally went in bands, led by a devout old man or woman, who, having done the pilgrimage often, was fitted to guide and direct the others through the multiplicity of prayers and intricacies of the Stations without hesitation or mistake.

Toal, by prerogative, led our little band. With beads in hand we began by visiting the altar of St. Patrick's Chapel, from which we trooped to St. Patrick's Cross, without, and to St. Bridget's Cross, kneeling before each and offering a short prayer. In turn, each stood with back to this Cross, and arms outstretched, and thrice cried aloud our renouncement of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil; after which we made the circuit of St. Patrick's Chapel seven times, responding to the decade which Toal led in each round. St. Bridget's Bed, St. Brendan's Bed, St. Catharine's, and St. Colmcille's, we next visited in turn, making the outside circuit of each three times, the inside circuit three times, kneeling at the entrance to each Bed, kneeling again at the Cross in the centre, and responding (always aloud) to three Paters-and-Aves, and chorusing the Creed for each circuit, both without and within, and for each kneeling. And at the large Penitential Bed, which includes two smaller, we doubled the several exercises. Next, Toal hobblingly led the way over the pebbles to the loch, in the waters of which we stood, looking eastward, while we chanted further prayers, and again repeated these, kneeling by the water's edge. A prayer at St. Patrick's Cross, and prayers in St. Patrick's Chapel, concluded one Station.

We were now glad enough to rest us and ease our aching feet upon one lonely green knowe in the little island. Here many others were resting, too. It was a delight to observe, as I did, that within the Holy Island all social barriers were levelled. A titled lady conversed in sisterly intimacy with a ragged-coated poor fellow who, though he had never in his life been beyond the rough mountains of Donegal, discoursed to her freely and with as little sense of shyness as if he spoke to Bride in the windy cabin at home.

An American Bishop, a white-haired old countrywoman in homespun skirt, and a wealthy Australian made a trio in an interesting discussion