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CHAPTER XV.
THE LANDING AT CORK.
Then Paridell, in whom a kindly pride
Of gracious speech, and skill his words to frame
Abounded, being glad of so fit tide
Him to commend to them, thus spake, of all well eyed.
Cork was an asylum for civilization in the centre of a savage district. The cautious burghers, made wealthy by trade, and ever in fear of incursions from the surrounding septs, kept the strictest guard upon their city, as if they had a continual siege laid to it. They forbade all intercourse or intermarriage between those within and without the walls, till every citizen became linked together by some sort of kindred. It is true, that the country around was peopled to a great degree by English lords; but they were the degenerate English, as they were styled, who imitated the state and. independence of the native chiefs. Such was the earl of Desmond, of the family of the Geraldines, who ruled as a king over Munster, and with whom the Barrys, the De Courcys, the Barrets, and the Mac Carthys, Mac Swineys, and other native chiefs, were connected by marriage, or struggling with him for "chieferie" in the mutable chance of war.
There was no appearance of timidity in the frank and assured aspect of the unfriended adventurer, as, without entering the city, but merely passing through its suburbs, he proceeded to the cathedral church. It was twelve o'clock on the 24th of June, the feast of Saint John the Baptist; and high mass was celebrating. The duke of York entered the church—his soul was filled with pious gratitude for his escape from the dangers of the sea, and the craft of his enemies; and, as he knelt, he made a vow to his sainted patroness, the Virgin, to erect a church on the height which first met his eyes as he approached shore, and to endow a foundation of Franciscans—partly, because of all monkish orders they chiefly venerate her name, partly to atone for his involuntary crime in the death of Meiler Trangmar, who wore that habit. The appearance of this young, silken-suited,
