During his noviciate he had two kinds of trials to endure, besides those mentioned already. Father Constantine was remarkable for his meekness and charity; but he put on extra severity for Father Ignatius. His companions tried to show him some marks of distinction, and would offer to relieve him from works that were humiliating, or likely to be galling to one of his standing. The latter trial he complained of, and he was troubled at the other because some of of the religious complained of the novice-master's severity towards him. He had some more mortifications of the kind he playfully told us a few chapters back, as affecting Father Dominic in Oscott. He was troubled with chilblains, and was obliged, in consequence, to wear shoes and stockings for a great part of his noviciate. This he looked upon as a great grievance, inasmuch as he could not live like the others. When at last the chilblains got well, and he was allowed to put on the sandals, he felt overjoyed, and even writes a letter to congratulate himself on his happiness. He writes two or three letters, in which he notes his astonishment at the Irish being so negligent in England, who had been so regular at home. He says, they all send {360} for the priest, and show great signs of repentance when dying; but, out of a number he attended, only one returned to the Church after recovery. "Still," he says, "it would be long till one of them would answer as the English pensioner is reported to have done on his death-bed. The minister talked much about Heaven and its happiness, but the patient coolly replied, 'It's all very well, sir; but old England and King George for me!'" His noviciate glides quietly on to its end; and except his ordinary work of attending to a mission in Stone besides his home duties, nothing occurs to break the monotony. At length, on the 6th of January, 1848, Father Ignatius and Father Dominic remain up after matins. We are told in the Journal, that the novice made his confession and had a long conference with his director, in preparation for the great event of his profession. Father Dominic was going off that day, but the conveyance disappointed him, he was obliged to wait till the next. That evening Father Ignatius is once more in the midst of a moving ceremony: on his knees, with his hands placed in Father Dominic's he pronounces his irrevocable consecration by the vows of his religious profession.[Footnote 10] The badges are affixed to his breast, the sacrifice is completed--and well and worthily was it carried out. It is easier to imagine than to describe the joy of the two holy friends, so long united in the bonds of heavenly charity, as they spoke that day about their first acquaintance, and wondered at the dispositions of Providence, which now made them more than brothers. [Footnote 10: The profession on death-bed is conditional, so that if a novice recovers, after thus pronouncing his vows, he has to go on as if they had not been made.] {361}