My New Curate Part 1

My New Curate.

by P.A. Sheehan.

CHAPTER I

THE CHANGE

It is all my own fault. I was too free with my tongue. I said in a moment of bitterness: "What can a Bishop do with a parish priest? He's independent of him." It was not grammatical, and it was not respectful.

But the bad grammar and the impertinence were carried to his Lordship, and he answered: "What can I _do_? I can send him a curate who will break his heart in six weeks."

I was not too much surprised, then, when one evening my dear old friend and curate, Father Tom Laverty, came to me, with tears in his eyes and an open letter in his hand:--

"I am off, Father Dan. Look at this!"

It was a succinct, laconic order to present himself to a parish priest twenty miles distant, and to be in time to discharge his duties in that parish the following Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, for his jurisdiction was transferred, etc.

It was a hard stroke. I was genuinely attached to Father Tom. We had the same tastes and habits,--easy, contented, conservative, with a cordial dislike of innovations of any kind. We held the same political opinions, preached the same sermons, administered the Sacraments in the old way, and had a reverence for antiquities in general. It was a sad break in my life to part with him; and it is a harmless vanity on my part to say that he was sorry to part from me.

"I suppose there's no help for it?" said he.

"No," said I; "but if you care--"

"No use," said he; "when _he_ has made up his mind you might as well be talking to a milestone."

"And you must be off to-morrow?" said I, consulting the bishop's letter.

"Yes," said he, "short shrift."

"And who am I getting?" I wondered.

"Hard to guess," said he. He was in no humor for conversation.

The following week, that most melancholy of processions, a curate's furniture _en route_, filed slowly through the village, and out along the highroad, that led through bog and fen, and by lake borders to the town of N----. First came three loads of black turf, carefully piled and roped; then two loads of hay; a cow with a yearling calf; and lastly, the house furniture, mostly of rough deal. The articles, that would be hardly good enough for one of our new laborers' cottages, were crowned by a kitchen table, its four legs pointing steadily to the firmament, like an untrussed fowl's, and between them, carefully roped, was the plague and the pet of the village, Nanny the goat, with her little kid beside her. What Nanny could not do in the way of mischief was so insignificant, that it need not be told. But the Celtic vocabulary, particularly rich in expletives, failed to meet the ever-growing vituperative wants of the villagers. They had to fall back on the Saxon, and call her a "rep," "a rip," "de ribble," etc., etc. I walked side by side with Father Laverty, who, with head bent on his breast, scarcely noticed the lamentations of the women, who came to their cross-doors, and poured out a Jeremiad of lamentations that made me think my own well-meant ministrations were but scantily appreciated.

"Wisha, G.o.d be wid you, Father, wherever you go!"

"Wisha, may your journey thry wid you. Sure 't is we'll miss you!"

"Yerra, what'll the poor do now, whin he's gone?"

"Bishop, inagh, 't is aisy for him wid his ring and his mitre, and his grand carriage. Couldn't he let him alone?"

"Father," said a young girl, earnestly, her black hair blinding her eyes, "may G.o.d be with you." She ran after him. "Pray for me," she whispered. "You don't know all the good you done me." She hadn't been very sensible.

He turned towards her.

"Yes! Nance, I'll remember you. And don't forget all that I told you."

He held out his hand. It was such an honor, such a condescension, that she blushed scarlet: and hastily rubbing her hand in her ap.r.o.n, she grasped his.

"May G.o.d Almighty bless you," she said.

But the great trial came when we were pa.s.sing the school-house. It was after three o'clock, the time for breaking up: and there at the wall were all the little boys and the _sheilas_ with their wide eyes full of sorrow. He pa.s.sed by hastily, never looking up. His heart was with these children. I believe the only real pleasure he ever allowed himself was to go amongst them, teach them, amuse them, and listen to their little songs. And now--

"Good by, Father--"

"Good by, Father--"

Then, Alice Moylan gave a big "boo-hoo!" and in a moment they were all in tears; and I, too, began to wink, in a queer way, at the landscape.

At last, we came to the little bridge that humps itself over the trout stream. Many a summer evening we had made this the terminus of our evening's walk; for I was feeble enough on my limbs, though my head is as clear as a boy's of seventeen. And here we used to lean over the parapet, and talk of all things, politics, literature (the little we knew of it), the old cla.s.sics, college stories, tales of the mission, etc.; and now we were to part.

"Good by, Father Tom," I said. "You know, there's always a bite and a sup and a bed, whenever you come hither. Good by. G.o.d knows, I'm sorry to part with you."

"Good by," he said. Not another word. I watched and waited, till I saw the melancholy procession fade away, and until he became a speck on the horizon. Then, with a heavy heart I turned homewards.

If I had the least doubt about the wonderful elasticity of the Irish mind, or its talent for adaptation, it would have been dispelled as I pa.s.sed again through the village. I had no idea I was so popular, or that my little labors were so warmly appreciated.

"Well, thank G.o.d, we have _himself_ whatever."

Gentle reader, "himself" and "herself" are two p.r.o.nouns, that in our village idioms mean the master and mistress of the situation, beyond whom there is no appeal.

"Wisha, the Lord spare him to us. G.o.d help us, if _he_ wint."

"The heads of our Church, G.o.d spare them long! Wisha, your reverence might have a copper about you to help a poor lone widow?"

I must say this subtle flattery did not raise my drooped spirits. I went home, sat down by my little table, and gave myself up to gloomy reflections.

It must have been eight o'clock, or more, for the twilight had come down, and my books and little pictures were looking misty, when a rat-tat-tat rang at the door. I didn't hear the car, for the road was muddy, I suppose; but I straightened myself up in my arm-chair, and drew my breviary towards me. I had read my Matins and Lauds for the following day, before dinner; I always do, to keep up the old tradition amongst the Irish priests; but I read somewhere that it is always a good thing to edify people who come to see you. And I didn't want any one to suspect that I had been for a few minutes asleep. In a moment, Hannah, my old housekeeper, came in. She held a tiny piece of card between her fingers, which were carefully covered with her check ap.r.o.n, lest she should soil it. I took it--while I asked--

"Who is it?"

"I don't know, your reverence."

"Is 't a priest?"

"No, but I think he's a gintleman," she whispered. "He talks like the people up at the great house."

She got a candle, and I read:--

Rev. Edward Letheby, B. A., C. C.

"'Tis the new curate," I said.

"Oyeh," said Hannah, whose dread and admiration for the "strange gintleman" evaporated, when she found he was a mere curate.

I went out and welcomed with what warmth I could my new cooperator. It was too dark for me to see what manner of man he was; but I came to some rapid conclusions from the way he spoke. He bit off his words, as riflemen bite their cartridges, he chiselled every consonant, and gave full free scope to every vowel. This was all the accent he had, an accent of precision and determination and formalism, that struck like a knell, clear and piercing on my heart.