Halligan furrowed his brow. "I suppose. Are you gonna play or not?"

Daley looked over at him. "Do you think they'll let me folks come? To the trial."

"I don't see how they can stop them. It's a free country."

"Free country," he snorted. "Would be nice to see 'em." He stroked his long beard in thought. "I haven't seen Michael in a while. Finola says the lad is gettin' big."

"He'll favor you. Just hope he's got your wife's brains. Now are you going to play cards or flap your bloody gob?" Halligan said.

Before bed that night, Daley got down on his knees, his rosary wrapped around his hand, and prayed. He had taken a piece of twine and tied knots in it, fashioning a crude rosary, which he called his paidrm. For a cross, he had tied at right angles two gray pieces of chicken bones left over from a meal. He would kneel on the cold stone floor, bow his head, and give thanks to the Lord. Thanks for His manifold gifts, both large and small--for the food he was about to eat, for his wife and little boy and for his dear mother who was ill. And he would pray for the arrival of the priest from Boston, a certain Father Cheverus.

"Join me, Jamy boy," he would say, inviting Halligan to pray with him.

But he never would. Halligan couldn't remember the last time he had prayed, really and truly prayed. That wasn't counting of course the odd bit of wishing and hoping and bargaining a fellow did from time to time, like during the fighting he'd done in the Uprising. And the last time he'd made confession or received the host was when he'd lived with the Franciscans all those years ago. Though he'd been raised Catholic, and even now, if asked, he supposed he'd call himself one, it was more an indication of what he wasn't--a bloody Proddy-dog--than anything he was, than anything he believed in. But as far as the particulars of Catholic belief, that was something else entirely. The not eating meat on Fridays, when most of the Irish he knew couldn't afford to eat it the other six days either. Or turning the other cheek or the horseshite about the meek inheriting the earth. The only earth the meek would inherit, he knew, would be six feet of it piled right on top of them--if they were lucky. If not, a pauper's grave. Or the priests, lording their power over you. Saying you couldn't do this or that, especially if it made you feel good, made you feel alive. Like drinking or gambling, or sleeping with a woman, when they were just jealous that they couldn't. To Halligan, there was just oneself. That's all you could count on. All in all, it wasn't such a bad life if you knew that.

"Watch over me wife and child, Lord," Daley said.

Then he got into bed, put his hands behind his head, and within moments he was snoring. Halligan closed his eyes, hungry for sleep. But it didn't come. Outside, the rain made a mournful sound against the prison walls, rustling like silk over a woman's thigh. He had to admit he envied Daley a little, his having a woman to write to, to think about, people who cared whether he lived or died. He supposed that was something to be thankful for. Then again, it had to be a burden, too. In some ways, it had to be harder this way--having loved ones you had to worry about, to think of them managing without you, if and when the time came. You hadn't just yourself to think about, to take care of, you had them, too. You had to think about how they would suffer at your suffering, how they would be afraid at your fear, so your own pain was increased many fold. He himself had no one to worry about, no one whose suffering he had to consider in the least. Just himself. And that had to be better, hadn't it?

As far as he knew, he had no kin in the world. He was what they called a merry begotten, a child of a woman who hadn't been married. He'd never known a father, and he had only a single memory of his mother--or at least a woman he took to be his mother. In it, he was a small boy, three or four years old, sitting on a dirt floor in a cottier's hovel in some back-of-beyond place in the west of Ireland. She was stirring something in a large scorched pot, an intoxicating smell he could still recall. His mother had long dark hair that glistened in the firelight and thin, pale arms, the skin smooth and white as that which forms on boiled milk. He couldn't remember her face or her voice, though for some reason he imagined she must have been pretty. That was all he had of her, this lone image in his mind, a thing polished smooth from handling. He never knew how she died or where she was buried. He wondered if she had loved the man who was his father, even whether or not she had loved her son. Sometimes he thought he missed her, but he knew that that was impossible. What he missed was just the idea of a mother, the notion that there was a warm, protective place to come back to, a safe harbor. Yet if being an orphan had taught him anything, it was this: that we were all, in one way or another, at one time or another, orphans. If not now, then later. We were born alone and we died alone, and in between a man's heart navigated by itself as best it could.

After his mother's passing, the world became an even harder place. He could vaguely recall a series of grim, smelly homes where he was always hungry and treated miserably. Someone grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, a harsh word, the back of a hand stinging against his mouth. He wound up somehow with the Franciscan brothers. The brothers were austere men, disciplined and stern; but in their own way not unkind. They wore rough habits and lived simple, pious lives of prayer and hard work and self-denial. Of all of them, he'd liked Brother Padraig best. He was a tough old bird, with a grizzled face and scaly hands like the claws of a rooster. But he took a special interest in the young Halligan. He used to take him fishing in Dingle Bay, in a small canvas-sided coracle that seemed too frail to keep out the cold Atlantic waters. At night he would tell the lad the names of the constellations and the history behind each one. "You see those seven stars, James," he would explain, "they were the daughters of Atlas, you see." He taught him a bit of Latin and some of the old language, before the British came: Ta ocras orm (I'm hungry), Ta tart orm (I'm thirsty), Deoch eile (another drink). He taught him things he would need to get by in the world, like how to shoe a horse or mend a harness, how to ride, how to plow a straight furrow, how to read and write and figure sums. Perhaps the most important and ultimately the most dangerous lesson he'd taught him, especially for a poor boy living in a country run by wealthy masters: self-respect. "Remember, Jamy," he had told him, "you're as good as any of them. Don't let 'em tell you any different."

The brothers also taught him things he came to feel had no use at all: the Latin of the Mass, the names of the saints and the martyrs, how to make a good confession, above all, how a piece of bread could be changed into the body of Christ. They would tell the young boy about God's love. How He so loved us He let His only son die on the cross for our salvation. Yet Halligan wondered what sort of father would let his own flesh and blood die. And if God really loved us as much as the brothers and the priests and everyone made out, why would He let innocent children starve during the yellow famine? Or permit landlords to throw whole families into the cold? Or allow the English to live on the sweat and toil and backs of the poor? Or let a mother die so her only child became an orphan? What sort of loving God would do that?

The brothers used to tell them the tale of Piaras Feiritear, the heroic Catholic rebel during Cromwell's brutal campaign in Ireland. In every pub and small shebeen, in every hedgerow school and open-air chapel, they spoke with pride and with awe of the man who had defied the Protestant invaders. How the English had hunted him down like a dog, finally cornering him in a cave on the remote Blasket Isles, though not before he had managed to kill no less than fifty of the depised English. The story went that they brought Feiritear to a hill west of Killarney to hang him. But a priest, disguised as a commoner, had slipped by the guards to give the condemned man the last sacrament and God's blessing. The noose was placed about his neck, and Feiritear seemingly dropped to his death. But the rope broke. They tried a second time, and again the rope broke. " 'Twas a miracle, James!" Brother Padraig had told him. According to the old man, and to most Irish, the breaking of the rope that was to hang Feiritear signified that God was on the side of the Irish. "Did they let him go?" the young Halligan had naively asked. "No, lad," replied Brother Padraig, "they finally got a strong enough rope."

Such stories only convinced Halligan that there was only one conclusion a person of reasonable mind could make: that there wasn't a god. Or if there was, He must have been an Englishman, for He sure as hell didn't lend an ear to an Irishman. When he told this to Brother Padraig, as he had once, the old man placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. "James," he said. "Be a hard and lonely life if you don't have Him there."

The truth was, Halligan didn't mind being alone in the world, dependent only upon himself, answering only to himself. In fact, he actually preferred his own company, quiet nights looking up at the stars, days spent alone staring off at the sea. There was in his heart a strain of wanderlust. Even as a boy, he was curious about what lay just beyond the next hill. At night as he lay in bed in the long room with the other orphans, he wondered what the rest of Ireland looked like, what the rest of the world looked like. Sometimes, tending sheep from a hill overlooking the Atlantic, he, would stare for hours out at the blue-green water. He'd heard talk of Amerikay, a magical place where a man could stand on his own two feet and be the equal of anyone. Someday he swore he'd go there. Yes, he would. Eventually this natural restlessness proved too strong. He was just thirteen when, in the middle of the night, he packed his few possessions in a blanket, lifted a couple shilling from the collection box, and took to the open road. He would miss Brother Padraig and a few of the others, but he needed to be moving on. He'd been moving on ever since.

He traveled all over Ireland and some of England, too, sleeping under the stars or in someone's stables, never staying long in one place. He worked when there was work to be had, he stole when he had no other choice. One time he hadn't eaten for two days, and he stole an apple from a vendor's stall; he ran like the clappers while two men chased after him. Caught, he managed to give one a good kick in the bollocks but the other got hold of him, and they ended up beating him within an inch of his life. He learned that his existence wasn't worth the price of an apple. Another time, he gave away his last farthing to a starving woman and child he came across in a fetid alley in Macroom. Later, when he himself was hungry, he considered it a foolish gesture and vowed never to do it again.

He remembered one time, he must have been fifteen. It was winter and bitter cold, with the gray rains flogging the countryside like an English cat-o'-nine tails. It was in the Burren somewhere, that rock-scarred, blasted, godforsaken place, so desolate and unforgiving even the Irish themselves pitied those whose fortunes cast them there. Half-starved, his privities almost froze clean off, he was seated around a meager peat fire, eating what was left of a rabbit he'd managed to catch, when this scrawny yellow tomcat wandered in. The thing was skin and bones, half of its fur having fallen out. It meowed pathetically looking for food, and came up to Halligan. He felt sorry for the thing and stroked its back. He'd never had a real pet of his own before. The creature wound itself between his legs, looking up at him imploringly. "You're worse off than me, ain't you boyo?" Halligan said. He gave the thing a few scraps of rabbit. They became friends. It stayed with him for several days, until Halligan's hunger grew overpowering. He would always feel a twinge of regret when he thought of the cat, but only a twinge.

Yes, he'd done things he wasn't proud of, things that shamed or humbled or reduced him in some measure, but most of what he did, if given the opportunity a second time, he'd have done again. That, he came to believe, was morality, the real difference between right and wrong: what you'd have done over if given the chance had to be right, and what you wouldn't, had to be wrong. It was that simple. All the rest of it, the heaven and hell, the going to this church or that or none at all, why, it was just so much rot.

Sometimes, seeing as he knew his way around horses, he'd find employment as a groom for some wealthy landlord. He preferred the company of horses to that of people anyway. They had a quiet dignity, an air about them that most humans lacked. He loved the smell of them, the feel of their coats as he brushed them, the deep snuffling sounds they made at night when he slept nearby in the stables. And they knew his smell and touch as well, and his soft voice beside their ear. When they were frightened during a storm, he would whisper to them, "Hush, darling, I'm right here now."

Other times, when nothing better presented itself, he worked as a spalpeen, a common laborer, cutting turf or digging potatoes, paid a shilling a day plus meals, a place to rest his head at night, as well as the occasional scullery maid or cottier's daughter he could talk into meeting him out in the barn. He was never lacking in that department. He was a good-looking lad with that cocksure smile of his, those broad shoulders and strong arms. He liked to drink and play cards and have his fun.

When he was seventeen, he was employed as a groom for a Mr. Fitzgibbons, a well-to-do gentleman in Enniscorthy. There was already talk of trouble brewing, especially up north in Ulster, of the poor rising up against their masters. Halligan had had his share of harsh masters, those who regarded Catholics as little more than beasts of burden. And like most Irish, he'd had the occasional run-in with some loudmouth Proddy or had heard the stories of people driven from their houses by the Peep o' Day boys, the Protestant secret group known for raiding Catholic houses at dawn. But he mostly kept to himself, didn't bother anyone who didn't bother him first. If things turned bad, he would move on. He looked after himself and didn't stick his nose in where it didn't belong. His employer, Master Fitzy, as the help called him, was a decent enough skin, benevolent, generous, fair to his tenants and those who worked for him. Occasionally he would even let Halligan borrow one of the books from his grand library. His son, on the other hand, was an arrogant and haughty youth, hot tempered, prone to sudden tantrums if he didn't get his way. Behind his back he was referred to as the "squireen" or "half-sir." He was about Halligan's own age, a pale, effete-looking young man with long blond hair which he powdered heavily. He always smelled sweet, like a bawdy house. As Halligan saddled his horse for him, he had to avoid looking the young man in the eye so as not to show him his contempt for the stinking little podgreen.

One day, the half-sir was in a terrible rage because an expensive bridle turned up missing from the tack room. His suspicions fell for some reason upon a small boy who polished the masters' boots. They were in the yard of the demesne, and the half-sir had taken to whipping the boy with his riding crop.

"I'll teach you, you thieving Irish bastard," the man cried, beating the boy savagely. The boy stood there crying, protesting his innocence. He looked at Halligan, as if he might help him.

"There's no call for that," said Halligan."

"What did you say?" the half-sir exclaimed, turning on him.

"I said there wasn't any call to do that to the lad, sir."

"You'll keep your nose out of this, if you don't want a few good ones yourself."

Halligan would have liked simply to keep his nose out of it. After all, it wasn't his business. But somehow he couldn't. Not with the boy staring imploringly at him. And he had never forgotten what Brother Padraig had told him, about his being as good as any man. He smiled contemptuously at the young master and said, "And I suppose you'd be the fellow to try it?" Halligan had spoken loud enough that some of the help could hear his words. Incensed, the half-sir turned on Halligan and whipped him across the shoulder with his riding crop, as if he were nothing more than a dog or a mule. Instinctively, Halligan grabbed the man by his beaver-trimmed lapels and pummeled him. He probably would have killed him, too, had they not pulled him off. Later, when he came before the sessions, the judge asked him if he was connected to any of the agitators then becoming prevalent in the country, one of those United Irishmen come down from the North to cause trouble. Halligan said no, he was just defending himself, as any man would. The judge was unimpressed. He sentenced him to two years at hard labor and told him he ought to consider himself lucky not to receive transportation to New South Wales.

He got out of prison in 1798, just before open rebellion broke out in the North and soon spread to Wexford. Now his hatred of the British burned within him, fanned by his time in jail. He joined with the United Irishmen, became one of the insurgent croppies, as they were called.

They were finally going to take back their country; they were finally going to expel their centuries-old oppressors, send them packing just as the Americans had done, and the French to their aristocrats. He had never felt part of anything larger than himself before. But now, for a short time anyway, he was part of a cause he was willing to fight and die for. Though the Uprising only lasted a few months that spring and summer, it was a glorious time to be Irish. Their morale was high. The French, it was said, were to land an army to support them. The Irish fought admirably at the battles of New Ross and Arklow, most wielding only a pitchfork or a pike, bravely throwing themselves against the might of the British guns. He saw priests fight and die side by side with their parishioners, and he gained a new respect for those who did.

Then came Vinegar Hill and the inevitable end. The superior English forces routed them, scattered them like chickens before their cavalry and their cannons. Along with many of his comrades, he managed to escape through Needham's Gap and went into hiding in the mountains. Yet when he'd heard their captured leaders were to be hanged on Wexford Bridge, he and a few others slipped back into town to be there out of respect. Their hats pulled low over their faces, they stood among the vast crowd to witness Father Roche, Bagenal Harvey, John Kelly, and the others hanged up on the bridge. The sight of them dying miserably sickened him.

After that, he wandered slowly westward, avoiding the militia and the British soldiers, sticking to the back roads. He crossed a countryside of devastation: razed churches, destroyed homes and slaughtered livestock, starving families wandering the roads, their possessions in a small donkey cart or borne upon their backs. Hanged croppies, their bodies rotting in the breeze. On every tree, wanted posters showing the sketches of rebels. He'd heard how the loyalist yeomen would torture people, even women and children, using the pitchcap to get information on other rebels. How Father John Murphy had been caught and hanged, his body mutilated. Those were hard times indeed. He thought of leaving Ireland altogether, that it was no longer a place where a man could live. Maybe slipping away to America as soon as he'd saved up the passage fare.

He drifted from place to place, surviving as best he could. Working a few months here, a few there. Never staying long in any one spot, always worried that someone would recognize him, turn him in as a croppy to get the reward. Making just enough to get by, and sometimes not even that. He reached Dingle in the hard winter of '02. There in the market he had gathered with a shabby-looking group of other men looking for work, waiting to be chosen by farmers or stewards who needed help. Besides a raw potato a widow woman had given him for some work around her place, he'd not eaten a thing in three days. As it turned out, the steward from a large estate approached him and asked, "Know anything about horses, do ye?" Halligan nodded. The steward was an old man with moist yellow eyes and large teeth stained brown from tobacco.

"You'll do odd jobs around the place, as Mr. Maguire or meself sees fit. Pays a half shilling a day plus meals and a glass of whiskey."

"I got a shilling the last place I worked."

"Times is tough. Take it or leave it."

His hunger made the decision for him. He followed the man and they climbed into a two-wheeled trap, the back of which was loaded with supplies, and rode west out of town. The old man must have read his thoughts, for he reached into a burlap bag in the back of the wagon and handed Halligan a dirt-covered onion to eat. "I'm Morrissey. I pretty much run things up at the Maguire place. What's your name, lad?"

Though it was almost four years since the Uprising, still you never knew. Informants were everywhere. They'd hand over their own mother to the British to save their necks. "O'Shea," he replied at last, remembering the name on a sign in town: O'Shea, Harness Maker.

"You're not one o' them troublemakers they had over in the east, are you?" the old man asked.

"No," he said.

"You're a Catholic though?"

Funny how they always knew. He didn't wear any outward signs, no cross or rosary, and he hadn't practiced the faith since running away from the Franciscans. But still somehow it showed through. As if it were an odor he carried with him, as if the smell of incense from his days with the brothers had become ingrained in his flesh.

"In a manner of speaking," Halligan replied.

The old man frowned. "Jaysus. Tis like being in a manner of speaking with child. You either are or you ain't, lad."

"Does it matter?"

"Not to me, it don't. Long's you're not one of those rabble-rousers," he said, giving him a look. "Do your work, O'Shea, and keep your mouth shut, you'll do just fine."

After that they rode in silence, though the old man hummed occasionally. The day was cold and damp, with a thin crust of ice along the roadside. The ground cracked as the wagon's wheels rolled over it. Soon they were climbing up what the old man told him was the Mam Clasach road, the steep mountain road that led to the Maguire farm. It wasn't as large an estate as some of those he'd worked on back east, but it was big enough. Mr. Maguire, he was told, was a well-to-do landlord, known throughout Dingle. His farm was made up of high meadows and broad fields and undulating pasture land, separated by hedges and neat stone walls. Fat, black cattle grazed in one field, sheep in another. In the valley below, a grove of pine and willow and white oak grew along the banks of a fast-moving stream which churned and boiled as it cut down through the hills toward the sea. To the west was a sheer wall of sea cliffs--Slea Head, he learned they were called. And above them, framed against a gray sky, rose two peaks, the larger of which was dusted from a recent snowfall.

"What do they call the mountain?" Halligan asked, making conversation.

"Mount Eagle," the old man replied.

They passed through an ornate iron gate, over which a sign said Devonshire Park, and into the demesne proper. They headed up a long stone drive lined with tall Lombardy poplars, toward the Big House. The grounds were well tended, with manicured lawns and shrubs, neat flower gardens, a pond before the great oak front door. They rode around behind the house and into a muddy courtyard where pigs and chickens moved freely about scratching for food. A pair of collies began to bark at them. To the right of the cui a' tf, the back door used by the help, a hugely obese woman was washing clothes in a large kettle on a fire. She stirred the clothes with a peggy's leg stick, her face swollen and pink from the steam. She eyed the newcomer suspiciously.

"I already fed the help," she cried out to Morrissey.

"Shut yer mouth, woman," he said. "You can wash yourself there," the old man said to him, pointing at a pump near a water trough. "There's a room off the tack room where you can put your things. Are you hungry, lad?"

He nodded. "Who's she?"

The old man smiled for the first time. "That be Dora. She's in charge of the kitchen. Don't pay her no mind."

Halligan stepped down from the trap and took his bearings. He could see right off that Devonshire Park was a well-run operation. Everything neat and well-ordered, not fancy or ostentatious, but functional. Stables, outbuildings, a barn, smokehouse, cold cellar, a structure that looked like it housed a blacksmith's forge. Situated halfway up the slope of the mountain, the demesne had lovely views east toward the bay and Dingle town, the Slieve Mountains turning a pale, blurry purple. He gazed up at the Big House. It was a large Georgian-style structure, with a slate roof, ornate cornices and entablatures, half a dozen chimneys all spewing smoke. Over the first-story windows hung the heavy iron grating many of the landlords had put up since the Uprising.

Despite the cold, he took off his shirt and began to wash himself. He hadn't bathed in a long while. The water was brutal, stinging like nettles against the skin. But no water was ever so refreshing. His skin turned pink as he scrubbed the filth from his body. The fat woman Dora stared at him, frowning. As he happened to look up, there in one of the third-story windows, he caught sight of a figure. A young girl. She was staring down at him. She had olive-colored skin, and black hair that fell to her shoulders. She wore something white about her shoulders, making her skin appear all the darker. She continued to look down at him for another moment or two. So he gave her his best smile. With this she stepped back from the window, perhaps embarrassed that she was trading glances with a hired hand, maybe offended that he would have the audacity to smile at her in such a way. Still, when he cast a sideways glance up at the window a few moments later, there she was again, peering down at him. Well, now, he thought.

Morrissey came hobbling out from the kitchen and gave him a madder of buttermilk, a boiled pratie with a bit of salt, some brown bread. "Who's the dark-haired lass?" Halligan asked.

"That'd be Mistress Bridie. Mr. Maguire's daughter," the man explained. "And you'd best keep your eyes to yourself, lad, if ye know what's good for you."

"Oh, I know what's good for me," he said, smiling at the old man. That night, trying to sleep in the stables, he would play that image of her in the window, over and over in his mind. That was how it started.

Chapter Three.

The rain had let up a little, now falling in a soft gray drizzle like ashes from a fire. Except for the occasional coach or solitary rider, the streets were deserted and silent, the rain seeming to absorb any sound. Cheverus felt the need to walk, to be alone with his thoughts. He was still conscious of the weakness in his legs and the throbbing in his temples, but the strong drink the Daleys had given him had revived him a little. He experienced an odd but welcomed surge of energy.

He thought again of Finola Daley: the gaunt face, the large, restive eyes, that ample mouth so full of sadness. That piercing look she had given him as she said, I'll pray for you, Father Was it that obvious, his need for prayers? Did the secrets of his heart show so plainly on his face? It came to him then, what it was she made him think of. On a trip to Rome once, he had visited the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. In the niche before the altar, he'd seen Bernini's great work, the statue of St. Theresa in her ecstasy. He remembered the saint's beautiful, tortured face, the gaunt features, the full lips parted in agony and rapture as the angel of divine love struck her in the side with its arrow. He could recall standing there gazing on the statue for the longest time, a sublime feeling swelling in his chest at how the saint had been transformed by her suffering. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. That's what Finola Daley's face reminded him of, Bernini's lovely saint.

He had wandered, as he often did, into the Beacon Hill section of the city, an area of impressive mansions and stately homes overlooking the Common to the south. Here lived the rich and powerful of Boston, those stodgy conservative Federalists, wealthy merchants and sea captains, lawyers and doctors and statesmen. Men like Harrison Gray Otis and Thomas Amory, Gardiner Greene and Dr. Joy. The neighborhood's opulence and grandeur stood in stark contrast to the penury and filth and brutishness he had just left behind at the Daleys.

And yet, it was here where he felt closest to home, closest to the life he had known back in France. Passing by in the street, he might catch a few exquisite notes of a harpsichord playing Handel. Or through a window he might glimpse a book-lined study or a room that glowed with delicate and beautiful things--Louis Quatorze furnishings, Chinese vases, tapestries from Turkey. Though Cheverus's family had not been wealthy, they had been comfortable, and the young Jean had been raised amid culture and education and refinement. His parents had seen to it that their six children had been instilled with an appreciation for beauty, for things of the mind and heart and soul. There were outings to the opera and to the theater, to museums and galleries, even the occasional trip up to Paris, a hundred and fifty miles away.

He regretted not so much the hardships he had to endure in this new land. Not the poverty nor the privations of the most basic of needs. Not the discomforts brought on by the brutal New England winters. Not even the long and dangerous journeys he had to make into the wilderness of the north, where he went each summer to minister to the Indians of Maine, his cher sauvages. No, all of that he had expected, even welcomed with a missionary's zeal, when he had accepted Father Matignon's request to join him here. What he missed simply was the grace of his former life, the proximity to elegance and beauty that his native country had offered. The sublime feeling that stole over him while kneeling in the vast solemnity of some medieval cathedral, with its stained glass and centuries-old paintings and frescoes. The pleasant strolls he used to make along the public promenade of the Royal Palace. Seeing a play by Corneille or a painting in the Louvre. Here in America, everything was rough and coarse, unfinished, unpolished. He missed his beloved France, and no more so than now.

As he walked along the Common, his thoughts returned to the Daleys. The sight of the two women had affected him deeply. But what, ultimately, could he do for them? He was their priest, not their lawyer. Besides, publicly supporting the accused murderers in such a notorious case could prove troublesome for the Church. And personally, Cheverus didn't relish having to go before Mr. Sullivan to supplicate on their behalf. He disliked the attorney general, an arrogant and difficult man. Yet what else could he have done? He couldn't very well have refused Rose Daley's request, could he? They were his parishioners, his flock. Who would speak for them if not he? Please, Father. Help us.

Just then a carriage approached, its calash raised to protect its two finely dressed occupants, a man and a woman of obvious means. As it went by, Cheverus heard the woman's laughter, a light, airy sound that clutched at his heart. Something about it made him think of his mother's laugh. Twice in the space of a few hours' time he'd thought of her. Why, he wondered. Why did her memory cause him such anguish now, so many years after her death? In the past few weeks, he recalled her often and with such vividness, such tenderness, that a great and shapeless melancholy descended upon his spirit. Sometimes when he thought of her, he found tears inexplicably rolling down his cheeks, the pain he felt at her absence as fierce and raw and unmitigated as it had been when he was a boy.

Of her six children, Jean had been her special one, her petit chou. Perhaps because he was her first born, or because he was so small and frail and prone to illness. Or because he had such an inquisitive mind, a heart receptive to beauty. More likely it was because, from an early age, he shared her own deep faith. It had been due in large measure to Mme. Cheverus that her son chose to enter the priesthood and devote his life to God. He could recall accompanying her to Mass, where they would kneel side by side in prayer, the silver cross dangling from her slender neck, her piety gathering as moisture in her pretty, sepia-colored eyes. Or sitting under a willow tree along the banks of the Mayenne River, his maman reading to him from a book on the lives of the French Jesuits in the new world, those heroic black robes. He would listen with rapt attention to the stories of men like the blessed martyrs Jean de Brefeuf and Issac Jogues, their remarkable lives of courage and faith, their glorious martyrdoms, their bravery and stoicism and abiding faith as they faced, what was to the young boy, unimaginable tortures. He pictured himself someday ascending to heaven, a martyr to his faith, a devoted servant of God. Once, his mother had turned to him with an expression of joy tinged with sadness, and said, "Someday, Jean, you too will perform a great deed in His service." What great deed, he would always wonder. He was so small and frail and timid, and the world so large and terrifying-- what great deed could he possibly do in His service? And yet, he never forgot her prophecy.

He recalled the last time he'd seen his mother alive. With his papa, he was about to board the coach that would take him to the seminary in Paris. He was twelve, a small, pale, sickly child with faltering eyes. A boy still afraid of the dark. "You will be very brave for me now, won't you, Jean?" He nodded uncertainly. Madame Cheverus removed the cross from around her neck and placed it over his own. "I want you to have this," she had said to him. "But Maman," he had told her, fighting back his tears, "I do not want to leave you." "You will never leave me, my love. I will always be there. Always." She fell sick of a fever and died while he was away at school.

Except for the cross, he had nothing of hers. Not even her likeness, a small pendant with her portrait, something which would help him conjure her face. One of his last official acts before the Jacobins stripped him of his clerical authority was a Mass said for her soul, in the grand cathedral in Mayenne. The whole town had turned out to pay their respects to Madame Cheverus, even those who had sided with the Jacobin clergy. Before he'd been forced to flee France, he used to visit her grave. He would kneel beside her stone, talking to her, recalling the sweetness of her voice. How near she had seemed at those moments, as if he could reach out and touch her face. And how far away she seemed now. How far away they all seemed--his father, the rest of his family. He felt suddenly so alone, so isolated here in this distant land.

He knew the reason, of course. Why lately he thought of her, his former life--it had to do with the letters that sat unanswered in his desk drawer. One was from the vicar of his former diocese, Reverend Dumourier, entreating him to return home to assume his old duties. The vicar spoke of how much his former parishioners needed him. How much his country, his Church, his God needed him. Of course, it is not the same Church you left, his colleague had written. That is gone forever, I fear. But things have improved under the Emperor. It is high time that you came back and helped us to rebuild what was destroyed. Even more compelling was the letter from his father. Monsieur Cheverus's words tugged at his heartstrings like leaden weights. My Dear Son, Vincent Cheverus had written, I am an old man and have not many more years left. My fondest wish is to see you again before I am called to join your mother. If a Father's love has any influence over you, please heed my request and come home at once. The letters had rekindled his thoughts of home, and of the past.

Yet they had sat unanswered in his drawer for weeks. As much as he would like to board the next ship bound for France, it was hardly that simple. In the ten years he'd been in Boston, he had formed loyalties here as well. Friendships. Responsibilities. Undertakings half finished or just begun. How could he leave his people here, his surly, distant Irish? Or the school he planned on starting? Or what of his beloved Indians in the north? Surely they needed him. Above, all, what of his dear friend and mentor, Father Matignon? How could he abandon him? After all the man had done for him. After he had nursed his spirit back to health following the terrible malaise he'd suffered because of the Revolution back home. After all the struggles they'd been through together trying to establish the Church in the face of such antagonism. He tried to tell himself that, if he did go, it would not be an act of betrayal, that he was merely following the dictates of conscience and the needs of the Church. Hadn't his superior himself given him his blessing? "Follow your heart, Jean," Father Matignon had said. He had even written to Bishop Carroll, in Baltimore, asking for advice. "Dear Sir, My mind is perplexed with doubts, my heart full of trouble and anxieties." Yet the bishop had left it up to him, saying he would pray to God to assist him in arriving at the right decision.

Of course, he wouldn't even be in this predicament if not for that misbegotten beast sired by the devil himself: the French Revolution. He cursed it, blindly, dumbly, the way one might curse an illness or a rock one had struck one's toe against. If not for it, he'd still be at his old parish in Mayenne, presiding over a quiet ministry filled with prayer and contemplation, morning matins and evening vespers, confession and Mass, baptism and marriage, with time for reading and study, for pleasant dinners with his family on a Sunday, tranquil walks in the park, trips to the theater and the museum. Playing chess with his father. Visiting his mother's grave. Yes, that's what his life would have amounted to had things worked out differently, a modest and quite unremarkable existence. Despite his mother's prediction, he was not someone to have lived a bold life; he was not cut out for martyrdom or sainthood, for suffering agonies or experiencing visions or miracles. He had wished merely to serve his Lord, quietly, loyally, within his own modest abilities. God knew of what he was capable and would not have demanded from him more than he could give. But the Revolution had denied that peaceful life to him, had cast him adrift in a boiling sea of uncertainty and chaos. And like a castaway, he had landed on these distant shores, but always maintained an eye toward the sea, as if waiting for the ship that might carry him home again.

Lately, too, his thoughts had turned more and more to those final dark days before he fled France, that period which later they would aptly call the Terror. The letters asking for his return had conjured not only tender and loving memories of his childhood and his family, but bleak and painful ones as well. The mere thought of returning to such scenes of terror had unleashed memories he'd certainly not forgotten--could never forget--but which he'd managed to lock away for years. Now they were set free again to terrorize him. Now he'd begun to recall those days once more. More than recall, relive them--for they had the feel not of static images in the mind but of life being lived all over again. He relived the chaos and fear that it was to be under the Jacobins' capricious and bloody rule. Relived the daily rumors of them rounding up nobles and aristocrats, and finally even the king himself. Relived the terror of the mass arrests of clergymen. Relived the growing violence which spread throughout the city like a conflagration, consuming everything in its path. Relived the dread of walking the streets with his head covered so as not to draw the attention of the savage sansculottes roaming Paris in bands, carrying pikes and axes. Relived the rabble crying out, "Calotin" whenever they saw a priest. Relived the smell of pine-pitch torches and the terrible whooshing sound of the guillotine's blade as it fell on another neck in the Place de la Revolution, or the heavy clank of the wheels of carts filled with corpses bound for mass graves. Yes. Oh, God, yes, he had begun to relive all that again.

And worst of all, he relived his own private shame, the disgrace of his secret renunciation, a perfidy known to none save God. For in his heart, even after all the years since then, he had not fully been able to exorcise the demons that resided there, that accused him of treachery for betraying his Church, his fellow clergy, most of all, his Lord. It didn't matter that he was just one man, that he could do little against the inexorable march of events. That he had tried, in his own humble ways, to confront the Jacobins, first by refusing to sign the loyalty oath, then by carrying on with his pastoral duties right up until he was arrested and thrown into prison. It didn't matter that so many other priests had fled with him. Or that, of those who had remained and weren't butchered, most had so compromised themselves and their faith as to be worthless servants of the Church. No, that didn't matter at all. He had run. He had scurried away in the night like a rat into a Paris sewer. Worst of all, he had denied God to save his own pathetic existence. During the four years he'd spent in exile in England, Cheverus had prayed endlessly, fiercely, begging His forgiveness. With tears streaming down his face, he would pray until his knees bled. He would fast for days sometimes, until he became faint from hunger. He would scourge himself until his back was raw. He would make pilgrimages to holy shrines. He even considered returning to France, though his family warned it was tantamount to a death sentence. He asked God over and over to absolve him, to acquit him of his secret act of betrayal.

So when he'd received the letter from Father Matignon inviting him to come and help establish the Catholic mission in Boston, he had taken it as God's will. A sign he was being given another chance. He thought he could finally put those dark times behind him once and for all and make a new start in a new land. After all, other French PSmigrPSs had done it, begun new lives dedicated to God's glory elsewhere, far from home. Come, Jean, God seemed to be saying after his painful years of exile in England, a period when He seemed to have turned a deaf ear to him. You are forgiven. Maybe coming to America was what He had intended for him all along. Maybe there, he would finally accomplish that great deed in His name. His superior's letter spoke bluntly of the many hardships and difficulties and sacrifices he could expect in the New World. Yet these only made him hunger to go all the more. On board ship, he pictured converting savages and saving souls from damnation. He even imagined being chosen for a martyr's death in the wilderness, like those saintly black robes of old he used to read about. He pictured the Indians burning him at the stake while he recited the 23rd Psalm, and thanked God for this second chance to show his faith. If He wished that, then His will be done--and this time he would not fail Him.

Of course, the new mission would not ask for his martyrdom. The Indians he ministered to turned out to be friendly converts already; the work he found difficult and ceaseless, but hardly cause for sainthood. Once, it was true, while traveling in Maine his canoe overturned, and he nearly drowned. And several times during the yellow fever epidemics that struck Boston every few years, he had gone into the homes of those afflicted to comfort them. But he had not been asked to sacrifice his life. Nothing nearly so dramatic. Still, as the years passed, God seemed pleased with him, with his work here, seemed to accept this as his penance. And if Cheverus never quite forgave himself, he had at least managed to bury the shame so deep in his heart he hardly felt it, or at least not often and not with the same urgency. Like a wound it had scarred over: the touch of it didn't hurt, though it recalled an earlier pain.

Now all the doubt and self-recrimination returned with a vengeance. At night, he would stare into the opaque darkness above his bed, that leaden weight upon his heart, the cool silence of God's condemnation blowing over him like a dry, parching wind. Or during the day sometimes, this odd feeling would steal over him and he would be seized as if by an apoplectic fit. He might be saying Mass, and his hands would begin to tremble; he'd lose his place, stumbling over the Latin he'd said ten thousand times before. Or while walking the streets of Boston, he might catch the raw stench from a butcher's shop, and he would suddenly be back there, smelling the rank odor of blood that had hung in the air like a pestilence as he'd passed those slaughtered in the street before the abbey at St. Germain des Pres, where the September Massacres had actually begun. His heart would beat faster, his throat constricting so that he could hardly breathe. And it was then that he might hear the voice, the guttural, disembodied voice he knew so well: Vous etes I'un d'eux, n'est-cepas? You are one of them, are you not?

His dreams were similarly affected, populated by scenes from those early days of the Terror. In some, he watched from a window as carts filled with the condemned, women and children, passed before him, bound for the guillotine. Those about to die cried out for help, but, of course, no one came to their aid. In others, he found himself being pursued by a faceless mob, running madly through the streets of Paris, his legs moving slower and slower until finally they were unable to move at all. One dream though was worse than the others: the dream of the white-walled garden. Oddly, in it nothing happened. No violence. No bloodshed. In this dream, he saw the beautiful courtyard garden, the one that had been attached to Convent of the Carmes, where so many of his fellow priests had been imprisoned and later lost their lives. The high, whitewashed walls enclosing a bucolic scene of flowers and shrubbery and fruit trees, a small orangery planted by the Carmelite nuns. The late summer's drowsy air, the light reflecting off the walls, the grounds shimmering and wavering in the languid afternoon. He could even hear the buzz of the bees going from flower to flower, the soft rustling of the wind among the treetops. Sometimes in the dream the garden was empty and still. Other times the imprisoned clergy were at their devotions, kneeling in prayer, rosaries or breviaries in their hands. It was a quiet and peaceful image, like a Watteau painting. Still it filled him with a formless dread, a terror that rose from his belly and pushed up into his throat like a muffled scream. Because, of course, of what he sensed would happen, of what, even in the dream, he knew would happen, the inevitability of it more frightening somehow than its actual appearance. He would wake from it, his nightclothes bathed in sweat, that terrible weight on his chest so that he could hardly breathe. Sometimes in the darkness, he would hear that voice near his ear, the guttural peasant voice, the shaggy head always haloed in light but which left the face obscure, indefinable as a foul mist.

You are one of them, are you not?

He heard it now, as he walked along in the rain. It always seemed to lunge upon him whenever his mind had wandered into this dark abyss of the past. He tried to ignore it. Sometimes he could put it from his thoughts by a sheer act of will. Hadn't he managed that all these years? It is over, he would tell himself. Just a thing of the past.

Nonetheless, it came again: You are one of them?

Without realizing it, he'd begun to walk faster. His heart began to rap within his breast. He turned and headed east, across the Common, his pace quickening. It was then that he thought he heard something behind him. At first it was barely audible. But then it came again, louder. Yes, he was sure of it now. A sound like footsteps behind him. He turned to look over his shoulder. He saw nothing, though. Only darkness.

You are one of them?

He broke into an awkward trot, his cloak catching about his legs. The ground was soft from the rain, and he slipped in the mud, nearly falling. His head pounded, his chest burned with a jagged blue fire. Several times he found himself glancing back over his shoulder. He continued to run, the voice coming to him again and again, each time more insistent: You are one of them? He hurried across Park Street, slipped down an alley behind the Park Street Church, and rushed on into the Old Granary burial grounds, a shortcut back to the rectory. It was then that he heard another voice, this one quite real. "Who goes there?" Turning, he saw the familiar lantern of the one-armed night watchman, an old man named Lemuel. Cheverus often passed him on his nightly walks about the city.

"Oh, it's only you, Father," the man said, as he drew near. Holding his lantern aloft, he inspected the priest's face closely. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Cheverus said. "Nothing is wrong."

"What are you doing here at this hour?"

"I was just returning from making a visit to someone who is ill."

The man stared suspiciously at him for another second or two before saying, "Well, good night to you," and continued on his rounds.

When he was out of sight, Cheverus glanced around the unfamiliar cemetery. The Old Granary was a Protestant cemetery. Catholics didn't have their own, having to be buried at Copp's Hill in the North End or in the city's Central Burying Ground, reserved for, as the city's selectmen said, "foreigners, Roman Catholics and Freemasons." He knelt on the soft wet ground and bowed his head in prayer: O Lord. Thou has sent Your servant here to this land to do Your work. I beseech Thee, do not abandon me in the wilderness. Help me to see Thy light. To know Thy will He was surrounded by silence, vast and featureless as a sea becalmed after a storm. Instead of the voice of God though, he heard once more that of the faceless sanscubtte, guttural, jagged as a rusty blade: You are one of themy are you not?

It was nearly midnight when he finally reached the rectory. He was wet and cold, shivering, his shoes soaked through. From his capote, water dripped onto the floor in the entryway. Father Matignon came in from the parlor where a fire blazed.

"Where have you been, Jean?" cried the older priest, taking the cape from Cheverus's shoulders. "I was beginning to worry."

"Out walking."

"Mon Dieu! In such weather! You'll catch your death."

"I thought I'd walk a bit."