My New Curate Part 23

"I don't think," I said, to cheer him--for where is the use of fretting in this queer world?--"there was so much need for Ormsby to go as far as Ceylon to find Buddha and the Nirvana. Look there."

Leaning against the blank wall opposite my house were three silent figures. They were a little distance apart, and they leaned against their support with the composure of three cabinet ministers on their green benches on the night of a great debate. Their feet were slightly parted, and they gazed on the road with a solemn, placid expression, as of men to whom the Atlantean weight of this weary world was as the down on a feather. Calmly and judicially, as if seeing nothing, yet weighing all things, they looked on pebble and broken limestone, never raising their heads, never removing their hands from their pockets. They had been there since breakfast time that morning, and it was now past noon.

"My G.o.d," said Father Letheby, when I told him, "'t is awful!"

"'T is the sublime," I said.

"And do you mean to tell me that they have never stirred from that posture for two long hours?"

"You have my word for it," I replied; "and you know the opinion entertained about my veracity,--'he'd no more tell a lie than the parish priest.'"

"I notice it everywhere," he said, in his impetuous way. "If I drive along the roads, my mare's head is right over the car or b.u.t.t, before the fellow wakes up to see me; and then the exasperating coolness and deliberation with which he draws the reins to pull aside. My boy, too, when waiting on the road for a few minutes whilst I am attending a patient, falls fast asleep, like the fat boy in Pickwick; down there, under the cliffs, the men sleep all day in, or under, their boats. Why does not Charcot send all his nervous patients to Ireland? The air is not only a sedative, but a soporific. 'T is the calm of the eternal G.o.ds,--the sleep of the immortals."

"'T is the sleep of Enceladus in Etna," I replied. "When they wake up and turn, 't is hot lava and ashes."

"That's true, too," he said, musingly; "we are a strange people."

My own voice again echoing out of the dead past.

Miss Campion and "her friend from Dublin," Miss Leslie, were very busy about the Christmas decorations. Mrs. Darcy helped in her own way. I am afraid she did not approve of all that was being done. Miss Campion's and Mrs. Darcy's ideas of "the beautiful" were not exactly alike. Miss Campion's art is reticent and economical. Mrs. Darcy's is loud and p.r.o.nounced. Miss Campion affects mosaics and miniatures. Mrs. Darcy wants a circus-poster, or the canvas of a diorama. Where Mrs. Darcy, on former occasions, put huge limbs of holly and a tangled wilderness of ivy, Miss Campion puts three or four dainty glistening leaves with a heart of red coral berries in the centre. Mrs. Darcy does not like it, and she thinks it her duty to art and religion to remonstrate.

"Wisha, Miss, I wouldn't be sparin' the holly if I was you. Sure 't is chape."

"Ah, well, now, Mrs. Darcy, don't you think this looks neat and pretty?"

"As nate and purty as yourself, Miss; but sure the parish priest won't mind the expinse. 'T is Christmas times, and his heart is open."

This wasn't too kind of Mrs. Darcy; but it does not matter. She looked ruefully at the fallen forest of greenery that strewed the chapel floor.

Miss Campion saw her distress, and said, kindly:--

"Now, Mrs. Darcy, is there any improvement you would kindly suggest before we conclude?"

"Wisha, Miss, there isn't much, indeed. You have made it lovely. But I'd like to see a little bit of holly in the Blessed Virgin's crown, and just a weeshy little bit in her Child's fingers. Sure, whatever is going these Christmas times, them have the best right to it."

Miss Campion smiled, and yielded to the pious wishes of the chapel woman, and then said:--

"Now, Mrs. Darcy, we'll put a few n.o.ble branches around the front porch, and whatever is left you must take it home, and let Jemmy decorate the dresser."

The first suggestion met Mrs. Darcy's tastes to perfection; the second went straight to her mother's heart.

"May G.o.d bless you, Miss; and may it be many a long day till throuble or sorrow cra.s.s the thrishol' of your dure."

The neighbors flocked in on Christmas eve to see Mrs. Darcy's cabin.

Jemmy had risen to the occasion. The polished pewter vessels and the bra.s.s candlesticks shone resplendent from the background of black holly and veined ivy, and the red pearls of the berries. The comments, like all human criticisms, varied according to the subjectivity and prejudices of the visitors.

"Wisha, 't is purty, indeed. G.o.d bless those that gave it to the poor widow."

"Wisha, Jemmy, agra, there's no knowing what you'll be when you grows up."

"Wisha, thin, Mrs. Darcy, you wor always the good nabor. Would it be asking too much, ma'am, to give us thim few kippeens on the floor? Sure Abby says she'd like to have a little bit of holly to stick round the Infant Jesus this holy and blessed night."

"'T is aisy for some people to be proud. Aisy got, aisy gone. But 't is quare to be taking what ought to go to the house of G.o.d to make a babby-show for ourselves."

"Yerra, whisht, 'uman, we must hould our heads as high as we can while we have it. It may go soon, and Mary Darcy may wish to be no betther thin her nabors."

Ah me! Here is the great world in miniature.

"There is not a word of news going?" I said to Miss Campion, as we walked up and down the moss-covered walk that lay to the south side of the little church.

"Nothing, Father," she said, "except, indeed, that father makes his Christmas Communion in the morning; and oh! I am so thankful to G.o.d and to Father Letheby."

"It is really good news, Beata," I replied. I sometimes called her Beata, for Bittra sounds horrid. I intend to compromise on her wedding morn by calling her Beatrix. "Really good news. It will add considerably to the happiness of one, whose only object in life appears to be to make every one around her happy. But there is no other news that may be supposed to interest in a far-off way the old pastor, who gave Beata her First Communion, and--?"

She blushed crimson, and held down her head.

"Now," I said, "give your old parish priest your arm, for I am getting more and more feeble every day, and tell him all. Perhaps he could help you too."

"Oh, Father, if you could; but it is almost too much to expect from G.o.d.

Perhaps I'd forget Him."

"Not much fear of that," I exclaimed fervently; "but now let us calculate the chances."

"But oh, Father, if you only knew Rex,--he is so good, so gentle, he takes so kindly to the poor, ("the clever rascal," I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed under my breath,) and he likes us so much, I'm sure it needs but little to make him an excellent Catholic."

Well, now, what is a poor old man to do? Here am I, prepared to calculate and balance chances of this young man's conversion,--the _pros_ and _cons_ of a serious matter; and here this young lady branches off into a magnificent apotheosis of her young demiG.o.d! What has the cold yellow candle light of reason to do in the _camera obscura_ of the human heart? Let us fling open the shutters, and let in the golden sunshine.

"So I've heard," I said. "And I also know this, Beata, that is, I've read something like it in good books, written by holy and thoughtful men, that the gift of faith is given freely by the Holy Spirit to those who, like your _fiance_, have led pure and unsullied lives."

She started at the word _fiance_, and the smile on her face was a study.

Poor old Dante! no wonder you walked on air, and lightly spurned the stars, when your lady beckoned.

"Beatrice in suso, ed io in lei guardava."

So shall it be to the end.

Well, we talked the whole thing over; debated all possibilities, laughed at difficulties, cut through obstacles, leaped over obstructions, and, at last, saw in imagination, written on the cold, frosty air of December, the mystic legend, I WILL, surrounded by a gorgeous corona of orange blossoms.

Then, of course, the superb unreason of women. Beata began to cry as I handed her over to Miss Leslie, who looked daggers at me, and I am quite sure called me, in her own mind, "A horrid old thing!"

Father Letheby, after his unusually heavy confessional, was jubilant.

Nothing exhilarates him like work. Given a scanty confessional, and he is as gloomy as Sisyphus; given a hard, laborious day, and he is as bright as Ariel. He was in uncommonly good spirits to-day.

"By Jove, Father Dan," he said, as we walked home together to our little bit of fish, "I have it. I'll try him with the _Kampaner Thal!_"

"The very thing," I replied.