Excerpt from The Hidden Sin: A Novel Saint Patrick built his first Christian church there on the site of the present cathedral. They show the hermitage in which he lived and died, a low hut in the church-yard overgrown with ivy, and the old people have fine tales about a college which stood hard by, and students flock ing to it from France and Spain, when learning was every where scarce but in Ireland. I sup pose they were partly true, like most fine stories. There was nothing of the kind in my time, nor for hundreds of years before it; but Armagh was a bishop's see, the chief town of one of the Ulster counties, foremost in the linen trade, and on the coach road between Dublin and Belfast. It had a good market for corn and flax, linen cloth and yarn. The country round was all gentlemen's seats and comfortable farms. There were hand-looms and spinning-wheels going in every house; there were bleach greens beside every stream, with webs spread out and whiten ing in the summer sun, and there was a deal of safe, steady business done in the town. Small and old as it was, some people made their for tunes there. We did not expect such great gatherings as they do in England, but we had our rich men, and La Touche was counted one of them. I have heard my father say that his father came from Dublin, and set up the first bank that ever was known in Armagh, the year the new style came in.

Was the family French said his listener. What a hard metallic tone his voice had; how low, and yet how clear it was!

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