WINNING A WAGER 203 



was quite intimate with two of their bishops; he commended 

 to me the prelates of this faith as gentlemen and excellent com- 

 pany. Moreover, Kentucky has always had a large colony of 

 English Catholics, some of them were near friends in my boy- 

 hood, and I have always felt what seems to be an instinctive, 

 affectionate reverence for nuns. From my earliest memory the 

 sight of them has ever awakened a movement of the spirit 

 which no religious ceremonies can bring about in me. There- 

 fore, the spectacle of this wreck of the Charlestown nunnery 

 helped to intensify my dislike of the Puritan motive. This was 

 in the days when the Know-Nothing party was strong when, 

 probably for the last time, our race was to be revisited by the 

 fanatical motives of the Tudor and Stuart period ; so that these 

 ruins served as an effective monument of an ancient iniquity. 

 They were doubtless kept there by the church authorities for 

 that purpose. 



In winning a wager with some of my fellow students, I had a 

 better view of these ruins, one that made a great impression on 

 my mind, for they were the first of such moss-grown walls I 

 ever saw. The place was well fenced in, and there were guards 

 and dogs by day and night to keep people away. Therefore, of 

 course, it was most desirable for a student to have a brick from 

 the old walls on his mantelpiece, and there were many midnight 

 raids to secure such trophies, mostly failures, for the watch 

 was good and the dogs insistent in their duties. I was asked to 

 join in one of these ventures, but declined. Being guyed at, I 

 wagered a dinner for the lot that I could go on a Sunday morn- 

 ing to the gate, and without asking leave of any one and with- 

 out any violence, proceed to the ruin and bring away a choice 

 brick. It was agreed, and a committee was sent to view the 

 proceedings. I found the guard with his dogs, got into palaver 

 with him; we walked together to the site of the burnt house; I 

 chose and pocketed my specimen; he accompanied me to the 

 gate, both of us having had an agreeable half-hour of frolic 

 together. He knew well the game I was playing, but being a 



