"Mirabiles elationes maris;Mirabilis in altis Dominus!"
"Mirabiles elationes maris;Mirabilis in altis Dominus!"
"Not very many 'upliftings' to-day," I replied. "You see our great friend at a disadvantage. But you know she has moods: and you will like her."
"Like her!" he replied. "It is not liking. It is worship. Some kind of Pantheism which I cannot explain. Nowhere are the loneliness and grandeur of God so manifested. Mind, I don't quite sympathize with that comparison of St. Augustine's where he detects a resemblance between yon spectra of purple and green and the plumage of a dove. What has a dove to do with such magnificence and grandeur? It was an anti-climax, a bathos, of which St. Augustine is seldom guilty. 'And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' There's the sublime!"
"It is desolate," said I. "Not even a seamew or a gull."
"Quite so," he replied. "It is limitless and unconditioned. There is its grandeur. If that sea were ploughed by navies, or disfigured by the hideous black hulks of men-of-war, it would lose its magnificence. It would become a poor limited thing, with pygmies sporting on its bosom. It is now unlimited, free, unconditioned, as space. It is the infinite and the eternal in it that appeals to us. When we were children, the infinite lay beyond the next mountain, because it was the unknown. We grew up and we got knowledge; and knowledge destroyed our dreams, and left us only the commonplace. It is the unknown and unlimited that still appeals to us,—thesomethingbehind the dawn, and beyond the sunset, and far away athwart the black line of that horizon, that isforever calling, calling, and beckoning to us to go thither. Now, there is something in that sombre glory that speaks to you and me. It will disappear immediately; and we will feel sad. What is it? Voiceless echoes of light from the light that streams from the Lamb?"
"I hope," I said demurely, for I began to fear this young enthusiast, "that you don't preach in that tone to the people!"
"Oh dear, no," he said, with a little laugh, "but you must forgive my nonsense. You gave me such a shock of surprise."
"But," he said, after a pause, "how happy your life must have been here! I always felt in Manchester that I was living at the bottom of a black chimney, in smoke and noise and fetor, material and spiritual. Here, you have your holy people, and the silence and quiet of God. How happy you must have been!"
"What would you think if we returned," I said. "It's almost our dinner hour."
It was not so late, however, but that I was able to take a ten minutes' stroll through the village, and bid "good day" to some of my parishioners.
I suppose there was a note of interrogation hidden away somewhere under my greeting, for I was told in different tones and degrees of enthusiasm:—
"Yerra, your reverence, he's a nate man."
"Yerra, we never saw his likes before."
"He spakes almost as plain and common as yourself."
"They say, your reverence, that he's the son of a jook."
Some old cronies, who retained a lingering gratitude for Father Laverty's snuff, diluted their enthusiasm a little.
"He is, indeed, a rale nice man. But God be with poor Father Tom wherever he is. Sure 't was he was kind to the poor."
There was a deputation of young men waiting at my house. I have been pestered from deputations and speeches since the Land League. A shaggy giant stepped forward and said:—
"We have preshumed, your reverence, to call upon you to ascertain whether you'd be agreeable to our what I may call unanimous intinsion of asking the new cojutor to be prisident of the Gaelic association of Kilronan, called the 'Holy Terrors.'"
I said I was agreeable to anything they wished: and Father Letheby became president of the "Holy Terrors."
After dinner something put me into better humor. I suppose it was the mountain mutton, for there's nothing like it in Ireland,—mutton raised on limestone land, where the grass is as tender to the lips of the sheep, as the sheep to the lips of men. I thought I had an excellent opportunity of eliciting my curate's proficiency in his classics. With a certain amount of timidity, for you never know when you are treading on a volcano with these young men, I drew the subject around. I have a way of talking enigmatically, which never fails, however, to reveal my meaning. And after a few clever passes, I said, demurely, drawing out my faded and yellow translation, made nearly thirty years ago:—
"I was once interested in other things. Here is a little weak translation I once made of a piece of Greek poetry, with which you are quite familiar. Ah me! I had great notions at the time, ideas of corresponding with classical journals, and perhaps, sooner or later, of editing a classic myself. ButCui bono?paralyzed everything. That fatalCui bono?that is the motto and watchword of every thinking and unthinking man in Ireland. However, now that you have come, perhaps—who knows? What do you think of this?"
I read solemnly:—
"I have argued and asked in my sorrowWhat shall please me? what manner of life?At home am I burdened with cares that borrowTheir color from a world of strife.The fields are burdened with toil,The seas are sown with the dead,With never a hand of a priest to assoilA soul that in sin hath fled.I have gold: I dread the danger by night;I have none: I repine and fret;I have children: they darken the pale sunlight;I have none: I'm in nature's debt.The young lack wisdom; the old lack life;I have brains; but I shake at the knees;Alas! who could covet a scene of strife?Give me peace in this life's surcease!"
"I have argued and asked in my sorrowWhat shall please me? what manner of life?At home am I burdened with cares that borrowTheir color from a world of strife.The fields are burdened with toil,The seas are sown with the dead,With never a hand of a priest to assoilA soul that in sin hath fled.I have gold: I dread the danger by night;I have none: I repine and fret;I have children: they darken the pale sunlight;I have none: I'm in nature's debt.The young lack wisdom; the old lack life;I have brains; but I shake at the knees;Alas! who could covet a scene of strife?Give me peace in this life's surcease!"
"What do you think of this? It is a loose translation from Posidippus."
"It swings well," said Father Letheby. "But who was he?"
"One of the gnomic, or sententious poets," I replied.
"Greek or Latin?" he asked.
Then I succumbed.
"You never heard his name before?" I said.
"Never," said he emphatically.
I paused and reflected.
"The Bishop told me," said I, "that you were a great Greek scholar, and took a medal in Greek composition?"
"The Bishop told me," said he, "that you were the best Greek scholar in Ireland, with the exception, perhaps, of a Jesuit Father in Dublin."
We looked at each other. Then burst simultaneously into a fit of laughter, the likes of which had not been heard in that room for many a day.
"I am not sure," said I, "about his Lordship's classical attainments; but he knows human nature well."
Father Letheby left next morning to see after his furniture. He had taken a slated, one-storied cottage in the heart of the village. It was humble enough; but it looked quite aristocratic amongst its ragged neighbors.
THE PANTECHNICON
The usual deadly silence of a country village in Ireland, which is never broken but by the squeal of a pig, or the clucking of chickens, or a high voice, heard occasionally in anger, was rudely shocked on the following Thursday evening. The unusual commotion commenced with a stampede of sans-culottish boys, and red-legged, wild-eyed girls, who burst into the village streets with shouts of
"Rah! rah! the circus! the circus! the wild baste show! Rah! rah!"
In an instant every door frame was filled with a living picture. Women of all shapes, and in all manners ofhabilleanddishabille, leaned over the cross-doors and gazed curiously at the coming show. The men, too phlegmatic even in their curiosity, simply shifted the pipe from one side of the mouth to the other; and, as the object of all this curiosity lumbered into the street, three loafers, who supported a blank wall opposite my door, steered round as slowly as a vessel swings with the tide, and leaned the right shoulder, instead of the left, against the gable. It was a tremendousexpenditure of energy; and I am quite sure it demanded a drink. And I, feeling from these indications that something unusual was at hand, drew back my window curtains, and stared decorously at the passing wonder. It was a long van, drawn by two horses, which sweated and panted under the whip of their driver. It was painted a dark green; and in gold letters that glittered on the green, I read the magic legend:—
PANTECHNICON.
"Pan" is Greek for "all," thought I; and "technicon" is appertaining to art. It means an exhibition of all the arts; that is, a Gypsy wagon with bric-Ã -brac, or one of these peep-shows, which exhibits to admiring youngsters Napoleon crossing the Alps, or Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage. I let the curtain fall, and went back to my books; but in a moment I heard the caravan stopping just a few doors below, and I heard my bedroom window raised; and I knew that Hannah was half way between heaven and earth. I have not a particle of curiosity in my composition, but I drew back the curtain again, and looked down the street. The van had stopped at Father Letheby's new house, and a vast crowd surged around it. The girls kept at a respectful distance, whilst the men unyoked their horses; but the boys stood near, in the attitude of runners at a tournament, ready to make off the momentthe first ominous growl was heard. The adults were less excited, though quite as curious, and I could hear the questionings over the silence of expectation that had fallen on the village.
"Yerra, what is it?"
"How do I know? It's the place where the circus people live."
"O—yeh! what a quare place to live in? And where do they sleep?"
"In the wagon."
"An' ate?"
"In the wagon."
"Yerra, they're not Christians at all, at all."
Then the men slowly opened the door of the wagon, and took out, from a mass of canvas and straw, a dainty satin-covered chair. A tidy, well dressed servant, with a lace cap perched on the top of her head, and what the village folk called "sthramers" flying behind, came out of Father Letheby's cottage, and helped to take the furniture within. As each pretty article appeared, there was a chorus of "oh-h-hs" from the children. But the climax of delight was reached when a gilt mirror appeared. Then for the first time sundry boys and girls saw their own dear smutty faces; and huge was their delight. But I am wrong. The climax came when the heaviest article appeared. Great was the curiosity.
"What is it? what is it?" "A bed?" "No." "A dresser?" "No." "A thing for books?" "No."
But one enlightened individual, who had been up to the great house at a spring cleaning, astonished the natives by declaring that it was a piano.
"A pianney? Yeh, for what? A priest with a pianney! Yerra, his niece is going to live wid him. Yerra, no! He'll play it himself."
Which last interpretation was received with shouts of incredulous laughter. What a versatile people we are! And how adoration and laughter, and reverence and sarcasm, move side by side in our character, apparently on good terms with each other. Will the time come when the laughter and the wit, grown rampant, will rudely jostle aside all the reverential elements in our nature, and mount upwards to those fatal heights which other nations have scaled like Satan,—and thence have been flung into the abyss?
I was curious to know what Hannah thought of it all. Hannah too is versatile; and leaps from adoration to envy with wonderful facility.
"Father Letheby's furniture, I suppose?" I said, when she brought in the dinner.
"I believe so," she replied, in a tone of ineffable scorn,—"a parcel of gimcracks and kimmeens."
"I thought they looked nice from here," I said.
"Don't sit on his chairs, unless you have your will made," she said.
"Did I see a looking-glass?" I asked.
"Oh yes! to curl his hair, I suppose. And a pianney to play polkas."
"It isn't as solid as ours, Hannah," I said. This opened the flood-gates of wrath.
"No," she said, in that accent of sarcasm in which an Irish peasant is past master, "nor purtier. Look at that sophy now. Isn't it fit for any lady in the land? And these chairs? Only for the smith, they'd be gone to pieces long ago. And that lovely carpet? 'T would do for a flag for the 'lague.' You haven't one cup and saucer that isn't cracked, nor a plate that isn't burnt, nor a napkin, nor a tablecloth, nor a saltcellar, nor—nor a—nor a—"
"I'll tell you what, Hannah," I said. "Father Letheby is going to show us what's what. I'll furnish the whole house from top to bottom. Was that his housekeeper?"
"I suppose so," she said contemptuously. "Some poor girl from an orphanage. If she wasn't, she wouldn't wear them curifixes."
I admit that Hannah's scorn for my scanty belongings was well bestowed. The sofa, which appeared to affect her æsthetic sense most keenly, was certainly a dilapidated article. Having but three legs, it leaned in a loafing way against the wall, and its rags of horsehair and protruding springs gave it a most trampish and disreputable appearance. The chairs were solid, for the smith had bound them in iron clamps. And the carpet?—Well,I pitied it. It was threadbare and transparent. Yet, when I looked around, I felt no feminine scorn. They all appealed to me and said:—
"We have been forty years in your service. We have seen good things and evil things. Our faces are familiar to you. We have spent ourselves in your service."
And I vowed that, even under the coming exigencies, when I should have to put on an appearance of grace and dignity,—exigencies which I clearly foresaw the moment my curate made his appearance, these old veterans should never be set aside or cast as lumber, when their aristocratic friends would make their appearance. And my books looked at me as much as to say:—
"You're not ashamed of us?"
No, dear silent friends, I should be the meanest, most ungrateful of mortals if I could be ashamed of you. For forty years you have been my companions in solitude; to you I owe whatever inspirations I have ever felt; from you have descended in copious streams the ideas that raised my poor life above the commonplace, and the sentiments that have animated every good thing and every holy purpose that I have accomplished. Friends that never obtruded on my loneliness by idle chatter and gossip, but always spoke wise, inspiriting things when most I needed them; friends that never replied in irritation to my own disturbed imaginings, but always uttered your calm wisdomlike voices from eternity, to soothe, to control, or to elevate; friends that never tired and never complained; that went back to your recesses without a murmur; and never resented by stubborn silence my neglect,—treasures of thought and fountains of inspiration, you are the last things on earth on which my eyes shall rest in love, and like the orphans of my flock your future shall be my care. True, like your authors, you look sometimes disreputable enough. Your clothes, more to my shame, hang loose and tattered around you, and some of your faces are ink-stained or thumb-worn from contact with the years and my own carelessness. I would dress you in purple and fine linen if I may, yet you would reproach me and think I was weary of your homely faces. Like the beggar-maid you would entreat to be allowed to go back from queenly glory and pomp to the tatters and contentment of your years. So shall it be! but between you and me there must be no divorce, so long as time shall last for me. Other friends will come and go, but nothing shall dissolve our union based upon gratitude and such love as man's heart may have for the ideal and insensible.
When there had been time for perfecting all his arrangements, I strolled down to pay a formal visit to Father Letheby. The atmosphere of absolute primness and neatness struck my senses when I entered. Waxed floors, dainty rugs, shining brasses, coquettish little mirrors here andthere, a choice selection of daintily bound volumes, and on a writing desk a large pile of virgin manuscript, spoke the scholar and the gentleman. My heart sank, as I thought how sick of all this he will be in a few weeks, when the days draw in, and the skies scowl, and the windows are washed, and the house rocked under the fierce sou'westers that sweep up the floor of the Atlantic, and throw all its dripping deluges on the little hamlet of Kilronan. But I said:—
"You have made a cosey little nest for yourself, Father Letheby; may you long enjoy it."
"Yes," he said, as if answering my horrible scepticism, "God has been very good to send me here."
Now what can you do with an optimist like that?
"There is just one drawback," I said, with a faint attempt at humor, "to all this æstheticism." I pointed to a window against which four very dirty noses were flattened, and four pairs of delighted eyes were wandering over this fairy-land, and a dirty finger occasionally pointed out some particularly attractive object.
"Poor little things," he said, "it gives them pleasure, and does me no harm."
"Then, why not bring them in?" I said.
"Oh, no," he replied, with a little laugh, "I draw the line there." He pointed to the shining waxed floors. "Besides, it would destroy their heaven. To touch and handle the ideal, brings it toppling down about our ears."
We spoke long and earnestly about a lot of things. Then, looking a little nervously at me, he made a great leap of thought.
"Would you mind my saying a serious word to you, sir?" said he.
"Certainly not," I replied, "go ahead."
"It seems to me, then," he said, deliberately, "that we are not making all that we might out of the magnificent possibilities that lie at our disposal. There is no doubt things are pretty backward in Ireland. Yet, we have an intelligent people, splendid natural advantages,—an infernally bad government, it is true,—but can we not share the blame with the government in allowing things to remain as they are? Now, I am not an advocate for great political designs: I go in for decentralization, by which I mean that each of us should do his very best exactly in that place where Providence has placed him. To be precise, what is there to prevent us from improving the material condition of these poor people? There is a pier to be built. I am told shoals of fish whiten the sea in the summer, and there are no appliances to help our fishermen to catch them and sell them at a vast profit. There is an old mill lying idle down near the creek. Why not furnish it up, and get work for our young girls there? We have but a poor water supply; and, I am told, there is a periodical recurrence of fever. Pardon me, sir," he continued, "if I seem to be finding fault with the ministry ofthe priests here, but I am sure you do not misunderstand me?"
"Certainly not," said I, "go on."
And he went on with his airy optimism, drawing wonderful castles with the light pencils of his young fancy, and I seemed to hear my own voice echoing back from thirty years long passed by, when the very same words were on my lips and the same ideas throbbed through my brain. But would it be kind to leave him undeceived? I decided not.
"Your first step," I said, "is to see the landlord, who owns the sloping fields and the foreshore."
"Certainly," he said, "that's quite easy. What's his address?" He took up his note-book.
"I am not quite sure," I replied. "He is probably this moment staking half his property on the red at Monte Carlo, or trying to peep into a harem at Stamboul, or dining off bison steak in some cañon in the Sierras."
He looked shocked.
"But his agent,—his representative?"
"Oh! he's quite available. He will be very polite, and tell you in well chosen words that he can do—nothing."
"But the Governmental Office,—the Board of Works?"
"Quite so. You'll write a polite letter. It will be answered in four weeks to the day: 'We begto acknowledge receipt of your communication, which shall have our earliest attention.' You'll write again. Reply in four weeks: 'We beg to acknowledge receipt of your communication, which we have placed before the Board.' You'll hear no more on the matter. But don't let me depress you!"
"But is there no redress? What about Parliament?"
"Oh, to be sure! A question will be asked in the House of Commons. The Chief Secretary will reply: 'The matter is under the deliberation of the Board of Works, with whose counsels we do not wish to interfere.'"
He was silent.
"About the factory," I continued. "You know there is a large shirt factory in Loughboro, six miles away. If you apply to have a branch factory established here, the manager will come down, look at the store, turn up his nose, ask you where are you to find funds to put the building in proper order, and do you propose to make the store also a fish-curing establishment; and then he will probably write what a high-born lady said of the first Napoleon: 'Il salissait tout ce qu'il touchait.'"
"It's a damned lie," said Father Letheby, springing up, and, I regret to say, demolishing sundry little Japanese gimcracks, "our people are the cleanest, purest, sweetest people in the world in their own personal habits, whatever be said oftheir wretched cabins. But you are not serious, sir?"
He bent his glowing eyes upon me. I liked his anger. And I liked very much that explosive expletive. How often, during my ministry, did I yearn to be able to utter that emphatic word! Mind, it is not a cuss-word. It is only an innocent adjective—condemned. But what eloquence and emphasis there is in it! How often I could have flung it at the head of a confirmed toper, as he knelt at my feet to take the pledge. How often I could have shot it at the virago, who was disturbing the peace of the village; and on whom my vituperation, which fell like a shot without powder, made no impression! It sounded honest. I like a good fit of anger, honest anger, and such a gleam of lightning through it.
"I am," I said, "quite serious. You want to create a Utopia. You forget your Greek."
He smiled.
"I am reserving the worst," I said.
"What is it?" he cried. "Let me know the worst."
"Well," I said slowly, "the people won't thank you even in the impossible hypothesis that you succeed."
He looked incredulous.
"What! that they won't be glad to lift themselves from all this squalor and misery, and be raised into a newer and sweeter life?"
"Precisely. They are happy. Leave them so. They have not the higher pleasures. Neither have they the higher perils. 'They sow not, neither do they spin.' But neither do they envy Solomon in all his glory. Jack Haslem and Dave Olden sleep all day in their coracles. They put down their lobster pots at night. Next day, they have caught enough of these ugly brutes to pay for a glorious drunk. Then sleep again. How can you add to such happiness? By building a schooner, and sending them out on the high seas, exposed to all the dangers of the deep; and they have to face hunger and cold and death, for what? A little more money, and a little more drink; and your sentence: Why didn't he leave us alone? Weren't we just as well off as we were? which is the everlasting song of your respected predecessor, only he put it in Latin:Cui bono?"
He pondered deeply for a long time. Then he said: "It sounds sensible; but there is some vile fallacy at the bottom of it. Anyhow, I'll try. Father, give me your blessing!"
"There again," I said, "see how innocent you are. You don't know the vernacular."
He looked surprised.
"When you know us better," I answered, in reply to his looks, "you will understand that by that formula you ask for a drink. And as I don't happen to be under my own roof just now—"
His glorious laugh stopped me. It was like the ringing of a peal of bells.
"No matter," he said. "I may go on?"
"Certainly," I replied. "You'll have a few gray hairs in your raven locks in twelve months time,—that's all."
"What a hare," I thought as I went home, "is madness, the youth, to leap over the meshes of good counsel, the cripple." Which is not mine, but that philosopher, Will Shakespeare; or is it Francis Bacon?
A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING
Father Letheby commenced sooner than I had expected.
I think it was about nine or ten days after his formal instalment in his new house, just as I was reading after breakfast theFreeman's Journalof two days past, the door of my parlor was suddenly flung open, a bunch of keys was thrown angrily on the table, and a voice (which I recognized as that of Mrs. Darcy, the chapel woman), strained to the highest tension of indignation, shouted:—
"There! and may there be no child to pray over my grave if ever I touch them again! Wisha! where in the world did you get him? or where did he come from, at all, at all? The son of a jook! the son of a draper over there at Kilkeel. Didn't Mrs. Morarty tell me how she sowld socks to his ould father? An' he comes here complaining of dacent people! 'Dirt,' sez he. 'Where?' sez I. 'There,' sez he. 'Where?' sez I. I came of as dacent people as him. Wondheryounever complained. But you're too aisy. You always allow these galivanters of curates to crow over you. But I tell you I won't stand it. If I had to beg my bread from house to house, I won't standbeing told I'm dirty. Why, the ladies of the Great House said they could see their faces in the candlesticks; and didn't the Bishop say 't was the natest vestry in the diocese? And this new cojutor with his gran' accent, which no one can understand, and his gran' furniture, and his whipster of a servant, begor, no one can stand him. We must all clear out. And, after me eighteen years, scrubbing, and washing, and ironing, wid me two little orphans, which that blackguard, Jem Darcy(the Lord have mercy on his sowl!) left me, must go to foreign countries to airn me bread, because I'm not good enough for his reverence. Well, 't is you'll be sorry. But, if you wint down on your two binded knees and said: 'Mrs. Darcy, I deplore you to take up them kays and go back to your juties,' I wouldn't! No! Get some whipster that will suit his reverence. Mary Darcy isn't good enough."
"My door was suddenly flung open, and a bunch of keys was thrown angrily on the table.""My door was suddenly flung open, and a bunch of keys was thrown angrily on the table."
She left the room, only to return. She spoke with forced calmness.
"De thrifle of money you owe me, yer reverence, ye can sind it down to the house before I start for America. And dere's two glasses of althar wine in the bottle, and half a pound of candles."
She went out again, but returned immediately.
"The surplus is over at Nell O'Brien's washing, and the black vestment is over at Tom Carmody's since the last station. The kay of the safe is under the door of the linny[1]to de left, and the chalice is in the basket, wrapped in the handkercher. And, if you don't mind giving me a charackter, perhaps, Hannah will take it down in the evening."
She went out again; but kept her hand on the door.
"Good by, your reverence, and God bless you! Sure, thin, you never said a hard word to a poor woman." Then there was the sound of falling tears.
To all this tremendous philippic I never replied. I never do reply to a woman until I have my hand on the door handle and my finger on the key. I looked steadily at the column of stocks and shares on the paper, though I never read a word.
"This is rather a bad mess," said I. "He is coming out too strong."
The minute particulars I had from Hannah soon after. Hannah and Mrs. Darcy are not friends. Two such village potentates could not be friends any more than two poets, or two critics, or two philosophers. As a rule, Hannah rather looked down on the chapel woman, and generally addressed her with studied politeness. "How are youto-day, Mrs. Darcy?" or more frequently, "Goodmorning, Mrs. Darcy." On the other hand, Mary Darcy, as arbitress at stations, wakes, and weddings, had a wide influence in the parish, and I fear used to speak contemptuously sometimes of my housekeeper. But now there was what the newspapers call a Dual Alliance against the newcomers, and a stern determination that any attempt at superiority should be repressed with a firm hand, and to Mrs. Darcy's lot it fell to bear the martyrdom of high principle and to fire the first shot, that should be also the final one. And so it was, but not in the way Mrs. Darcy anticipated.
It would appear, then, that Father Letheby had visited the sacristy, and taken a most minute inventory of its treasures, and had, with all the zealof a new reformer, found matters in a very bad state. Now, he was not one to smile benignantly at such irregularities and then throw the burden of correcting them on his pastor. He was outspoken and honest. He tore open drawers, and drew out their slimy, mildewed contents, sniffed ominously at the stuffy atmosphere, flung aside with gestures of contempt some of Mrs. Darcy's dearest treasures, such as a magnificent reredos of blue paper with gold stars; held up gingerly, and with curled lip, corporals and purificators, and wound up the awful inspection with the sentence:—
"I never saw such abominable filth in my life."
Now, you may accuse us in Ireland of anything you please from coining to parricide, but if you don't want to see blazing eyes and hear vigorous language don't say, Dirt. Mrs. Darcy bore the fierce scrutiny of her menage without shrinking, but when he mentioned the ugly word, all her fury shot forth, and it was all the more terrible, because veiled under a show of studied politeness.
"Dirt!" she said. "I'd be plazed to see your reverence show one speck of dirt in the place."
"Good heavens, woman!" he said, "what do you mean? There is dirt everywhere, in the air, under my feet, in the grate, on the altar. It would take the Atlantic to purify the place."
"You're the first gentleman that ever complained of the place," said Mrs. Darcy. "Of coorse, therearen't carpets, and bearskins, and cowhides, which are now the fashion, I believe. An' dere isn't a looking-glass, nor a pianney; but would your reverence again show me the dirt. A poor woman's charackter is all she has."
"I didn't mean to impute anything to your character," he said, mildly, "but if you can't see that this place is frightfully dirty, I suppose I can't prove it. Look at that!"
He pointed to a grewsome heap of cinders, half-burnt papers, brown ashes, etc., that choked up the grate.
"Yerra. Glory be to God!" said Mrs. Darcy, appealing to an imaginary audience, "he calls the sweepings of the altar, and the clane ashes, dirt. Yerra, what next?"
"This next," he said, determinedly; "come here." He took her out and pointed to the altar cloth. It was wrinkled and grimy, God forgive me! and there were stars of all sizes and colors darkening it.
"Isn't that a disgrace to the Church?" he said, sternly.
"I see no disgrace in it," said Mrs. Darcy. "It was washed and made up last Christmas, and is as clane to-day as the day it came from the mangle."
"Do you call that clean?" he shouted, pointing to the drippings of the candles.
"Yerra, what harm is that," said she, "a bit ofblessed wax that fell from the candles? Sure, 't is of that they make the Agnus Deis."
"You're perfectly incorrigible," he said. "I'll report the whole wretched business to the parish priest, and let him deal with you."
"Do you call that clean?""Do you call that clean?"
"Begor you may," said she, "but I'll have my story first."
And so she had. Father Letheby gave me his version afterwards. He did so with the utmost delicacy, for it was all an indirect indictment of my own slovenliness and sinful carelessness. Ilistened with shamed face and bent head? And determined to let him have his way. I knew that Mrs. Darcy would not leave for America just yet.
But what was my surprise on the following Sunday, when, on entering the sacristy to prepare for Mass, I slid along a polished floor, and but for the wall would probably have left a vacancy at Kilronan to some expectant curate. The floor glinted and shone with wax; and there were dainty bits of fibre matting here and there. The grate was black-leaded, and there was a wonderful firescreen with an Alpine landscape. The clock was clicking steadily, as if Time had not stood still for us all for many years: and there were my little altar boys in snowy surplices as neat as the acolytes that proffered soap and water to the Archbishop of Rheims, when he called for bell and book in the famous legend.
But oh! my anguish when I drew a stiff white amice over my head, instead of the dear old limp and wrinkled one I was used to; and when I feebly tried to push my hands through the lace meshes of an alb, that would stand with stiffness and pride, if I placed it on the floor. I would gladly have called for my old garment; but I knew that I too had to undergo the process of the new reformation; and, with much agony, I desisted. But I drew the line at a biretta which cut my temples with its angles, and I called out:—
"Mrs. Darcy."
A young woman, with her hair all tidied up, and with a white apron, laced at the edges, and pinned to her breast, came out from a recess. She was smiling bashfully, and appeared as if she would like to run away and hide somewhere.
"Mrs. Darcy," I called again.
The young woman smiled more deeply, and said with a kind of smirk:—
"Here I am, your reverence!"
It is fortunate for me that I have acquired, after long practice, the virtue of silence; for when I recognized the voice of my old friend, I was thunderstruck. I'm sure I would have said something very emphatic, but my habits restrained me. But I regret to say it was all a source of distraction to me in the celebration of the Divine Mysteries, and during the day. What had occurred? I was dying to know; but it would not be consistent with the dignity of my position to ask. To this day, I congratulate myself on my reticence; for, who could help asking how? when face to face with a miracle. It was some days before I discovered the secret of the magical transformation.
"Here I am, your Reverence!""Here I am, your Reverence!"
It would appear, then, that the late lamented Jem Darcy, when he departed to his reward, left his poor widow two charges in the shape of children. What do I say? Charges? No. She would scornfully repudiate the word. For was not Patsey, the baby of eighteen months, "the apple ofher eye," and Jemmy, the little hunchback of six summers, "the core of her heart"? For them she labored and toiled, and "moiled," as she used to say; and worked herself into oil to get them bread, and a pink ribbon for the baby's shoulder knot, and a navy cap, with "Hero" in gold letters for Jemmy. And across her troubled life, full of cares and apprehensions, poor soul! was there any gleam of sunshine, except that which was reflected in the iris of her baby's eyes; or that which dappled the mud floor of her cabin, when Jemmy lay there and played hide and seek with the gossamer threads that shone through the chink in the half-door! Ah me! it is easy to lecture the poor, and complain of their horrid ways; but the love such as no man hath gilds and enamels most of the crooked and grimy things that disfigure their poor lives in the eyes of the fastidious; and perhaps makes the angels of Him, before whose Face the stars are not spotless, turn from the cold perfection of the mansion and the castle to gaze lovingly on the squalid lowliness of the hamlet and the cabin. Well. On the morning that Mrs. Darcy gave me formal notice of her relinquishment of the solemn office she held, she bent her steps homeward with a heavy heart. She had done her duty, like all the other great people who have done disagreeable things; but it brought no consolation. And she had flung behind her her little cabin, and all the sweet associations connected therewith, andthe pomp and pride of power, when she officiated at the public offices of the Church, and every one knew her to be indispensable. For who could tell the name of a defaulter at the station, but Mrs. Darcy? And who arranged the screaming baby in the clumsy arms of a young godmother, but Mrs. Darcy? And who could lay out a corpse like Mrs. Darcy? And who but Mrs. Darcy found the ring when the confused and blushing bridegroom fumbled in every pocket at the altar, and the priest looked angry, and the bride ashamed?
And then her pride in the Church! How wonderful were her designs in holly and ivy at Christmas! What fantasies she wove out of a rather limited imagination! What art fancies, that would shame William Morris, poet and socialist, did she conceive and execute in the month of May for the Lady Altar! Didn't Miss Campion say that she was a genius, but undeveloped? Didn't Miss Campion's friend from Dublin declare that there was nothing like it in Gardiner Street? And when her time would be spent, and she was old and rheumatized, would not little Jemmy, the hunchback, who was a born pre-Raphaelite, take her place, and have a home, for he could not face the rough world? Ah me! and it was all gone; cast behind her through a righteous feeling of pride and duty. She moved through the village with a heavy heart; and her check apron went to her eyes.
She had an amiable habit of never entering hercabin without playing "Peek-a-boo!" through the window with the baby. For this purpose, the cradle was always drawn so that the baby faced the window; and when it saw the round face, which it knew so well, peeping over the speck blossoms of the mignonette, well—there were developments. On this particular morning, Mrs. Darcy was in no humor for playacting; but the force of habit is strong, and she peered through the little window with reddened eyes. And these eyes, as she afterwards described it, "sprod in her head" at what she saw. For, on the floor, in his favorite attitude, his head propped between his hands, was the hunchback, Jemmy, studying with all the intense appreciation of an Edison, how to construct an airy castle out of certain painted wood-blocks, which strewed the floor; and there, his back turned towards the window, was her arch-enemy, Father Letheby, his right hand raised aloft and dangling an india-rubber baby; whilst Patsey, his eyes dilated with excitement, made frantic attempts to seize the prize, and crowed and chuckled in the exuberance of his delight. Mrs. Darcy drew back hastily, then peeped again. No doubt of it. It was no phantasm of the imagination. She looked again. Then whispered something softly to herself, and, with a great lump in her throat, sped swiftly through the village and up to the "Great House." The result of her interview with Miss Campion we have seen. Father Letheby hasscored again. There were heavy bets of fifteen to one in half-gallons of porter, laid by desperate gamblers, that Father Letheby would make Mrs. Darcy wash her face. It was supposed to be a wild plunge in a hopeless speculation. I am told now, that the betting has gone up at the forge, and is now fifty to one that, before a month, she'll have a lace cap and "sthramers" like the maids at the "Great House."
FOOTNOTES:[1]Saxon, linhay.
[1]Saxon, linhay.
[1]Saxon, linhay.
AT THE STATION
Captain Campion was one of that singular race of Catholics, with which Ireland was familiar fifty years ago, but which is now dying rapidly away under the new conditions and environments of our age. A strong, rough lot they were, with whom a word meant a blow; gentlemen every inch of them, who would die for the faith whose dogmas they knew nothing of, and whose commands they ignored. Often in the town and country clubs of Ireland strange things happened, of which the outer world heard nothing; for stewards are discreet, and managers imbibe the spirit of respectability from their superiors. But the walls could tell of wine glasses shattered, and billiard cues broken, and hot blows exchanged for a word about the Pope, or against the priests; it was a leap of hot flame, which died out in a moment, and they were gentlemen again. And the perfervid imagination of the Celt had invented some such heroism about Captain Campion,—particularly one brilliant achievement at a hunt, when he unhorsed with the butt of his riding whip, and then cut and lashed an unfortunate young officerin the Lancers, who had dared say something about Bittra,—the "lovely Papist," who was toasted at the mess in distant Galway, and had set half the hunting men of the country wild with her beauty and her prowess. It may be supposed then that Captain Campion was not a practical Catholic. He came to Mass occasionally, where he fidgeted in his pew, and twisted and writhed under the sermon. He never went to Confession; not even to his Easter duty,—which prevented me from accepting the hospitalities which he freely proffered. There were other little circumstances which made me wish not to be too intimate. Whatever political opinions I held, and they were thin and colorless enough, were in direct antagonism to his. He was a three-bottle Tory, who regarded the people as so many serfs, who provided laborers for his comfort, and paid him for the privilege of living on stony mountain or barren bog. The idea of their having any rights struck him as positively ludicrous. There was but one thing that had rights, and that was the fetish, property. Every attempt, therefore, to lift the people from that condition of serfdom he regarded as absolutely treasonable; and he was my chief opponent in any futile attempts I made to introduce some improvements into the wretched place. And of course he was hated. There was hardly a family to whom he had not done an injury, for he pushed the law to savage extremes. He hadevicted, and burnt down the deserted cottages; he had driven honest lads for some paltry act of poaching into criminal and dishonest courses; he had harassed the widow and unhoused the orphan; and every prayer that went up for the sweet face of his child was weighted with a curse for the savage and merciless father. He knew it, and didn't care. For there were plenty to fawn upon him and tell him he was quite right. Ah me! how the iron has sunk into our souls! Seven centuries of slavery have done their work well.
Bittra Campion sat in the large drawing-room, with the high, broad windows, that looked over a dun, brown moorland, to where the sea-line threw its clear curve athwart the sky. She was working quietly at some little garment for a poor peasant girl or half-clad boy in the mountains; but over her gentle and usually placid face stole a look of apprehension, as if a shadow of coming evil was thrown forward by the undefined future. Yet why should she fear, who hated no one, but poured her love abroad upon all? Ah, why? is it not upon the gentle and the kind that the hailstones of destiny beat oftenest, as if they felt that here, and not upon the rugged and the stern, their pitiless strength should succeed? From time to time, Bittra looked to the door, or paused in her work, to listen for a footstep. At last it came,—her father's heavy step, as he strode across the corridor, and the doors slammed behind him.
"All alone, mignonne," he said. "A penny, nay, a pound for your thoughts."
"Agreed, father," she said eagerly, "I want a pound rather badly just now."
"Some new idiot discovered in the hills," he said, "or some disreputable tramp with a good imagination. You shall have it, Bittra," he said, coming over, and gently stroking her hair. He looked down fondly upon her, and said, suddenly changing his voice:—
"I am hungry as a hawk, Bittra; would you get me some tea?"
She rose to meet his wishes, and as her tall, beautiful figure passed from the room, he said to himself:—
"God, how like her mother!"
He threw himself on a sofa, and looked out over the moor. But he saw—
A long, low island, with the plumes of palms crowning the hill; and beneath, the white waves creeping up the coral crests to mingle with the lazy waters of the lagoon. A cottage, shaded with palms, close down by the beach, with magnolias clustering round the windows, and orchids far back in the moist shades, and creeping vines tangled in and out amongst the palms, and a strong sun, going down in an orange and crimson sky, and a cool, welcome breeze from the sea, that just lifts up the fans of the palms, and a stray curl on the forehead of a girl—for she was hardly more thana girl—who sat out on the tiny lawn, and at her feet the young naval officer, who had carried off his bride at the last season at the Castle and brought her here under southern skies, and believed that this was the world—and heaven. His ship lay at anchor on the eastern side; and here they were stationed for weeks, it may be for months, away from civilization and all its nuisances, and alone with Nature and the children of Nature, who came by degrees to love at least the gentle lady who was so kind to them and their brown babies. Alas for human happiness! One short year, and he was a widower, with the charge of a little babe.
"It was a bitter fate," he said to himself, "and I called her 'Bittra' in my rage. I must change that name."
He started, for the door opened and Bittra came in, immediately followed by the servant with tea.
"We've got a new neighbor, mignonne," he said, as he broke up his toast, "and must call immediately. Can you guess?"
"No, father," she said; but it fitted in with her apprehensions and made her shudder.
"Neither can I," he said, laughing. "But I have got mysterious hints that indicate a neighbor."
"Judith again," said Bittra. "She can never be explicit."
Then, after a long pause, she said, as if communing with herself:—
"I don't like new acquaintances. They are pretty certain to be troublesome. Can't we live for one another, father?"
"Gladly, my child," he said, darkly, "but what can you do? Life is warp and woof. It must be held together somehow. And the woof is what we call society."
"Father," she said timidly, "there will be a station at the glen in the morning. Might I ask the priests to breakfast here?"
"By all means," he replied, "it will be better than a dejeuner in a room with two beds, and a squalling baby, with the bread taken from the blankets, and the butter from the top of the dresser."
"Ah, no, pap, 't is never so bad as that. They do their best, poor things—"
"All right," he cried. "Bring up their reverences. There are two or three sole brought up from the yacht."
It was rather a remarkable station, that at Glencarn, although we did not accept Miss Campion's invitation. I was rather apprehensive of the effect these country stations would have on my fastidious curate; and I narrowly watched him, as we left our car on the hills, and strode through soft yellow mud and dripping heather to some mountain cabin. And I think there was a little kindly malice in my thoughts when I allowed him enter first, and plunge into the night of smoke that generally filled these huts. Then the saying of Mass on a deal table, with a horse collar overhead, and a huge collie dog beneath, and hens making frantic attempts to get on the altar-cloth,—I smiled to myself, and was quite impatient to know what effect all these primitive surroundings would have on such refinement and daintiness. "He'll never stand it," I thought, "he'll pitch up the whole thing, and go back to England." As usual, I was quite wrong. Where I anticipated disgust, there were almost tears of delight and sympathy; where I expected indignation, I found enthusiasm.
"There's nothing like it in the world," he used say (this was a favorite expression of his); "such faith, such reverence, such kindly courtesy! Why, no empress could do the honors of the table like that poor woman! Did you notice her solicitude, her eagerness, her sensitiveness lest she should be intruding on our society. But those men in that smoky kitchen,—it took me a long time to discern their faces in the gloom of the smoke. And then I'd have given half that I have ever learned to be able to paint them,—strong, brave mountaineers, their faces ruddy from sun and wind; and such a reverential attitude! And then the idea of their coming over to me, a young lad like themselves, and kneeling down on the cobblestones, and whispering their little story,—there in the presence of their comrades; and the little maidens with their sweet, pure faces hidden under the hoods of theirshawls, and the eyes of wondering children, and the old men, bending over the fire,—why you ought to be the happiest man on the face of the earth,—they are a people to die for!"
Well, this morning at Glencarn we had a scene; and, as an easy, good-tempered old man, I hate scenes, and keep away from them. The morning was sullenly wet,—not in fierce, autumnal gusts, but there was a steady persistent downpour of soft, sweet rain, that bathed your face like a sponge, and trickled under your coat collar, and soaked your frieze and waterproof, and made you feel flabby and warm and uncomfortable. We did not see the cabin until we were quite close to it; and when we entered, the first person we saw, kneeling on the mud floor, but the kindness of the people had placed a bag under her knees, was Bittra Campion. She was wrapped round about with a waterproof cloak, the hood of which, lined with blue, covered her head, and only left her face visible. There she knelt among the simple people; and if the saint of the day appeared in bodily form, I am not sure that he would have received more reverence than was poured around that gentle figure from the full hearts that beat silently near her. I was not much surprised, for I had seen Miss Campion at stations before; but Father Letheby started back in astonishment, and looked inquiringly at me. I took no notice, but passed into the little bedroom, and commenced hearing confessions.
The tinkling of the little bell was the only indication I had of the progress of the Holy Sacrifice; and when I knew it was ended, and was studying some faded photographs of American friends over the rude mantelpiece, I heard, amid the profound silence, Father Letheby's voice suddenly raised in anger.
"Kneel down at once! Have you no respect for Him whom you have just received, and who is before you on the altar?"
The people had arisen the moment the last prayer was said. It grated on the feelings of the young priest, who, as I afterwards found, had the most intense reverence and devotion towards the Most Holy Sacrament. I waited for some minutes; then came out, and read the Station List, and returned to the little bedroom off the kitchen. Miss Campion came in, and proffered the hospitality of her home. We gladly declined. It would have pained our humble hosts to have turned our backs upon them; and I confess I was infinitely more at my ease there in that little bedroom with its mud floor and painted chairs, than in Captain Campion's dining-room. It is quite true, that James Casey cut the bread very thick, and drank his tea with a good deal of expression from his saucer. But these were slight drawbacks. The eggs were fresh and milky, the cream delicious, the tea strong, the bread crispy, the butter sweet and golden; and the daughters of the house andthe mother waited on us with a thoroughness and courtesy, that would have done credit to a court; and we talked on all subjects,—the weather, the harvest, the neighbors; and chaffed old Dan Downey—who was a great Biblical scholar—about the "Jeroakims," and asked him where a hare might be found on the mountains; but this was professional, so he stuffed his mouth with bread, and insured his statutory silence. Then the little children crept in shyly for bits of sugar; and the neighbors waited patiently till the clergy were served; and we left the house with our blessing, and such gratitude as only an Irish priest can feel for his flock.
The same steady, persistent downpour of rain continued as we passed over the boulders of the torrent, and made our way through slushy mud and dripping heather to where our horse was waiting. Father Letheby was slightly moody.
At last, taking off his hat, and shaking down streams of water, he said:—
"That was a shocking thing this morning. You heard me speak angrily. Imagine those people standing up coolly, immediately after having received Holy Communion; and I have spoken to them so repeatedly about reverence."
"Did you notice where they were kneeling?" I said, not unkindly.
"Well, indeed it was not velvet."
"No," I said, "but rough cobblestones, ratherpointed, like some allusions in our sermons. Do you know how long they were kneeling there?"
"During Mass," he said.
"No," I replied, "they knelt there during the confessions, and during Mass. I am not excusing them, but did you ever hear of the ancient penance of wearing peas in pilgrims' shoes? Some, I believe, and I think Erasmus is the authority, had the wisdom to boil those peas. But you cannot boil cobblestones. I never realized this part of our people's sufferings till a poor fellow one morning, whilst I sat comfortably by the fire, interrupted his confession to say:—
"For the love of God, your reverence, would you lave me put my cap under my knees?"
My curate laughed good-naturedly. We got out on the highroad at last; and as we jogged home in the soft, warm rain, I took the opportunity of giving a little advice. It is a little luxury I am rather fond of, like the kindred stimulant of a pinch of snuff; and as I have had but few luxuries in my life, no one ought grudge me this.
"My dear Father Letheby," I said, as we sat comfortably together, "the great principle of Irish life isquieta non movere. Because, when you lay a finger on the most harmless and impotent things, they spring at once into hissing and spitting things, like the Lernæan hydra; and then, like that famous monster, you must cauterize thewound to heal, or prevent new hideous developments. You have, as yet, no idea of how many ways, all different and mutually antagonistic, there are, of looking at things in Ireland. To your mind there seems but one,—one judgment, and therefore one course of action. There are a hundred mirrors concentrated on the same object, and each catches its own shape and color from passion and interest. And each is quite honest in its own portraiture, and each is prepared to fight for its own view to the bitter end."
"I beg your pardon, sir," my curate said, deferentially, "I am following you with great attention. Do I understand you to say that each mirror is prepared to fight for its own view to the bitter end? I have seen something like that in a comic picture—"
"You know, you rascal, what I mean," I said, "I mean the hands that hold the mirrors."
"Of course," he said, "my stupidity. But I am a little bit of a purist in language."
Now, isn't this annoying? Poor Father Tom never interrupted me. He always used say: "Yes! yes! to be sure! to be sure!" or, "Ki bono? ki bono?" which grated horribly on my ears. I see I must be more careful; and I shall defer this lecture.
"Might I ask you to proceed, sir?" he said. "It is very interesting, indeed. You were talking about the pugnacity of mirrors."
There was a slight acidity here; but the poor fellow was put out.
"Never mind," I said, "you have a great deal to learn yet—with wrinkles and gray hairs. But if you want to keep these raven locks, now wet and dripping, intact, remember,quieta non movere! And if you want to keep your face, now smooth and ruddy, but, I regret to say, glistening with rain, free from wrinkles, remember,quieta non movere. Take now your frequent altar denunciations of local superstitions,—the eggs found in the garden, and the consequent sterility of the milk, the evil eye and the cattle dying, etc., etc.,—it will take more than altar denunciations, believe me,—it will take years of vigorous education to relegate these ideas into the limbo of exploded fantasies. And the people won't be comfortable without them. You take away the poetry, which is an essential element in the Gaelic character, and you make the people prosaic and critical, which is the worst thing possible for them. Thiggin-thu? But I beg your pardon. You are beyond all that."
"It sounds plausible," he said, getting down from the gig; "but it sounds also, pardon the expression, cowardly. However, we'll see!"
SCRUPLES
Captain Campion gave a large dinner party on All-Hallows-Eve. It is a ghostly time; and, in Ireland, every one, even the most advanced and materialistic, feels that the air is full of strange beings, who cannot be accounted for either by the microscope or the scalpel. Father Letheby was invited and went. I was rather glad he did go, for I felt that the village was rather dull for such a brilliant young fellow; and I had a kind of pardonable pride in thinking that he would be fully competent to meet on their own level any pretentious people that might stray hither from more civilized centres. There is hardly, indeed, any great risk of meeting too intellectual people in Ireland just now. The anatomy of a horse is about the term and end of the acquired knowledge of the stronger sex; and the latest ball—well, this won't do! I must suspend this criticism, otherwise I shall wound, and that does not suit an old priest, who is beginning to hear the murmurs of the eternal seas.
Father Letheby walked over across the moor to the "Great House." It was growing dark whenhe left home, and he allowed himself a full hour, as he had to make some calls by the way. One of these calls led him to a house where an old woman was bedridden. Her son, a strong man of thirty years or more, was doing something strange when the priest unexpectedly entered. He was suffering from a scrofulous ulcer in the neck, and it was a hideous disfigurement. He had just been standing before a broken piece of looking-glass, stuck in the rough plaster of the wall; and he hastily hid something as the priest entered. Father Letheby's suspicions were instantly aroused. And he said hastily,—for he detested anything like concealment,—
"What have you been doing?"
"Nothing, your reverence," said the peasant, nervously.
"Then, what are you hiding?" said Father Letheby.
"Nothing, your reverence," said the poor fellow.
"Tell the priest, Ned, alanna," said the old woman from her bed. "Sure, 't is only a charm which the good 'oman has set, Father. And it's cured him already."
The young man scowled at his aged mother; and in response to an emphatic gesture from the priest, he pulled out a little coil of rope, partly worn at the end into a little wisp of flax.
"And are you such an utter fool," said thepriest, angrily, holding the rope gingerly between his fingers, "as to believe that that wretched thing could cure you?"
"Ithascured me," said the young man. "Look here!"
Father Letheby looked; and sure enough, there was but a faint scar, as of a burn, on the place where he knew well there had been a hideous running ulcer a few days ago. He was struck dumb.
"I am not surprised," he said, recovering himself rapidly; "I know Satan possesses supernatural power. But you, unhappy man, do you not know that it is to the devil you owe your cure?"
"I told him so, your reverence," whimpered the poor mother. "I said, better be sick forever, Ned, than break God's law. Sure, nothing good can come from it."
"Thin why did God allow it?" said the young man, angrily.
"If you knew anything of your religion," said the priest, "you might know that God permits evil things to happen. So much the worse for evil doers. You have committed grave sin."
"But, sure, this is good," said the poor fellow, feebly groping after theological lights, "and whatever is good comes from God."
"The effect may be good," said the priest, "the instrument is bad. What is that?" and he pointed to the rope that was dangling in his hand.
The young man was silent.
"You are afraid to tell? Now what is it? There's something uncanny about it?"
He fumbled with his vest, and looked sullenly into the darkening night.
"Then, as you won't answer, I'll take it with me," said the priest, folding the rope into a coil, and preparing to put it in his pocket.
There was a sullen smile around the young man's mouth.
"The owner will be looking for it," said he.
"Tell the owner that Father Letheby has it, and she can come to me for it," said the priest. He put the rope in his pocket and moved to the door.
"Don't! don't! Father dear," said the old woman. "It isn't good. Give it back, and Ned will give it to the good 'oman to-morrow."
"No! I shall give it myself," said the priest, "and a bit of my mind with it."
The young man moved to the door, and stood beside the priest.
"You would not touch it if you knew what it was," he whispered.
"What?" said Father Letheby.
"Do you remember old Simmons, the pinsioner, down at Lougheagle?"
"Who destroyed himself?"
"Yes! he hanged himself to a rafter in the barn."
"I remember having heard of it."
"He hanged himself with a rope."
"I presume so."
"Your reverence has the rope in your pocket."
The priest stepped back as if stung. The thing was so horrible that he lost his self-possession. Then a great flood of anger swept his soul; and taking the hideous instrument from his pocket, he passed over to the open hearth; with one or two turns of the wheel, that answers the purpose of a bellows in Ireland, he kindled the smouldering ashes into flame, buried the rope deep down in the glowing cinders, and watched it curl into a white ash, that bent and writhed like a serpent in pain. The old woman told her beads, and then blessed the priest, with, however, a tremor of nervous fear in her voice. The young man lifted his hat, as the priest, without a word, passed into the darkness.
"She'll be after asking for the rope, your reverence?" he said at length, when the priest had gone a few yards.
"Refer her to me," Father Letheby said. "And look here, young man," he cried, coming back and putting his face close to the peasant's, "I'd advise you to go to your confession as soon as you can, lest, in the words of Scripture, 'something worse happen to you.'"
It was a pleasant dinner party at the "Great House." Colonel Campion presided. Bittra sat opposite her father. Captain Ormsby, Inspectorof Coast Guards, was near her. There were some bank officials from a neighboring town; Lord L——'s agent and his wife; a military surgeon; a widower, with two grown daughters; the new Protestant Rector and his wife. Father Letheby was very much pleased. He was again in the society that best suited his natural disposition. It was tolerably intelligent and refined. The lights, the flowers, the music, told on his senses, long numbed by the quietness and monotony of his daily life. He entered into the quiet pleasures of the evening with zest, made all around him happy, and even fascinated by the brilliancy with which he spoke, so much so that Bittra Campion said to him, as he was leaving about eleven o'clock:—
"Father, we are infinitely obliged to you."
He returned home, filled with a pleasant excitement, that was now so unusual to him in his quiet, uneventful life. The moonlight was streaming over sea and moorland, and he thought, as he passed over the little bridge that spanned the fiord, and stepped out into the broad road:—
"A delightful evening! But I must be careful. These Sybaritic banquets unfit a man for sterner work! I shall begin to hate my books and to loathe my little cabin. God forbid! But how pleasant it was all. And how Campion and Ormsby jumped at that idea of mine about the fishing schooner. I look on the matter now as accomplished. After all, perhaps, these Irish gentry arecalumniated. Nothing could equal the ardor of these men for the welfare of the poor fishermen. Who knows? In six months' time, the 'Star of the Sea' may be ploughing the deep, and a fleet of sailing boats in her wake; and then the fish-curing stores, and, at last, the poor old village will look up and be known far and wide. Dear me! I must get that lovely song out of my brain, and the odor of those azaleas out of my senses. 'T will never do! À Kempis would shame me; would arraign me as a rebel and a traitor. What a lovely night! and how the waters sleep in the moonlight! Just there at the bend we'll build the new pier. I see already the 'Star of the Sea' putting out, and the waters whitening in her wake."
He looked around, and saw the cottages of the peasants and the laborers gleaming against the dark background of the moor and the mountain; and the thought smote him: Perhaps there some little children went to bed hungry to-night. He went home sadly, and, sitting down, he said:—
"Let me see! Soup, entrées, joints, sweets, fruits, wine, coffee. Let me see! White roses, azaleas, chrysanthemums. Let me see! Waldteufel, Strauss, Wagner! Let me see!"
He went over, and opened what appeared to be a rather highly decorated cupboard. He drew back three shutters, and revealed a triptych, sunk deep in the wall of his little parlor. It was the only thing of real value he held. It was given tohim by a Roman lady, who, for one reason or another, chose to reside in England. It nearly filled the entire space on the low wall. As he drew back the shutters, the lamplight fell on the figure that occupied the whole of the central panel. It was the Christ. The tall shape was closely wrapped around in the Jewish kethoneth,—the first of thevestes albæof the priest, as St. John represents in the Apocalypse. The capouche fell loosely over His head, and was embroidered in many colors, as was also the hem of His long white robe, which fell in folds over His sandalled feet. The hood of the capouche shaded His eyes and threw a dark shadow on the face as far as the lips. But the sacred figure also held its right hand to shelter the eyes more deeply from a strong glare of sunset. The left hand fell loosely by His side, and the first of a large flock of sheep had nestled its head comfortably in the open palm. The large, gray eyes of Christ were filled with an anxious light, as they gazed over the silent desert, questing for some lost object; and the mouth, lightly fringed with beard, was querulous with pain and solicitude. It was a beautiful picture,—one worthy to be screened from indevout eyes, or revealed only to those who loved and worshipped.