My New Curate Part 25

And this was the story, told with much impressiveness, a fair amount of gesticulation, and one or two little profane expressions, which made the Recording Angel cough and look away to see how was the weather.

It appears that about seven o'clock Father Letheby had a sick-call outside the village. There are generally a fair share of sick-calls on the day succeeding the great festivity, for obvious reasons. He was returning home through the village, when the sound of singing arrested his steps just outside Mrs. Haley's public house. His heart gave a bound of delight as he heard the familiar lines and notes of the _Adeste_. "Thank G.o.d!" he said, "at last, the people are beginning to bring our Catholic hymns into their own homes." As he listened intently there was a slight reaction as he recognized the sweet liquid notes, with all the curls and quavers that are the copyright and strictly legal and exclusive possession of Jem Deady.

"Good heavens!" said the young priest, in a frenzy of indignation, "has that ruffian dared to introduce into the taproom our Christmas melodies, and to degrade them into a public-house chorus?"

He stepped into the shop. There was no one there. He turned softly the handle of the door, and was in the taproom for several minutes before he was recognized. What he witnessed was this. Leaning in a tipsy, maudlin way against the wall were the holly bushes, which, decorated with pink ribbons, and supposed to conceal in their dim recesses the "wren, the wren, the king of all birds," had been the great attraction of the morning. Leaning on the deal table, with gla.s.ses and pints of porter before them, as they sat and lounged or fell in various stages of intoxication, were the wren-boys; and near the fire, with his back turned to the door, and his fingers beating time to the music in pools of dirty porter, was Jem Deady. As Father Letheby entered he was singing:--

"Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Gestant puellae viscera--"

the most awful and tender lines of the glorious hymn.

He was unconscious of the priest's presence, and quite unconscious of his horrible sacrilege. Father Letheby continued gazing on the sad scene for a few minutes, with mingled feelings of anger, horror, and disgust.

Then, closing the door softly after him, he strode through the street, and knocking peremptorily at all the doors, he soon had a procession of the fathers and mothers of the children following him to the public house. What occurred then has pa.s.sed into the historical annals of Kilronan. It is enough to say here that its good people heard that night certain things which made their ears tingle for many a day. Mrs. Haley came up to my house the following morning to give up her license; and there was a general feeling abroad that every man, woman, and child in Kilronan should become total abstainers for life.

"But that's all," said Father Letheby; "and now I am really sick of the entire business; and to-morrow I shall write to the Bishop for my _exeat_, and return to England or go to Australia, where I have been promised a mission."

It was rather late, and I should have been long ago in my comfortable bed; but the text was too good to miss.

"My dear Father Letheby," I said, "it is clear to me that you are working not for G.o.d's honor, but for your own _kudos_."

He started at these strong words, and stared at me.

"Because," I continued calmly, "if it was the honor of G.o.d you had at heart, this calamity, the intensity of which I have no idea of minimizing, would have stimulated you to fresh efforts instead of plunging you into despair. But your pride is touched and your honor is tarnished, and you dread the criticism of men. Tell me honestly, are you grieved because G.o.d has been offended, or because all your fine plans have _ganged aglee?_ There! Dear St. Bonaventure, what a burden you laid on the shoulders of poor humanity when you said, _Ama nesciri, et pro nihilo reputari_. You did not know, in the depths of your humility, that each of us has a pretty little gilded idol which is labelled _Self!_ And that each of us is a fanatic in seeking to make conversions to our own little G.o.d. And I am not at all sure but that education only helps us to put on a little more gilding and a little more tawdry finery on our hidden deity; and that even when we sit in judgment upon him, as we do when preparing for Confession, it is often as a gentle and doting mother, not as an inflexible and impartial judge. Here are you now (turning to Father Letheby), a good, estimable, zealous, and successful priest; and because you have been touched in a sore point, lo! the voice from the inner shrine demanding compensation and future immunity.

Everything has prospered with you. Religion has progressed, with leaps and bounds, since you came to the parish; the people adore you, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are that most difficult of heroic successes, a conqueror because a reformer; and because you have met one reverse, you are going to turn your back on your work, and seek the curse of those who put pillows under their armpits and garlands of roses in their hair. Did you imagine that Satan, a living, personal, and highly intelligent force, was going to allow you to have everything your own way here,--to fold his arms while you were driving back his forces in utter rout and confusion? If you did, you were greatly mistaken. You have met a slight reverse, and it has become a panic. _Sauve qui peut!_ And the commander--the successful general--is the first to turn his back, throw down his sword, and flee."

"Say no more, Father Dan, for G.o.d's sake. I am heartily ashamed of myself."

A good scolding is almost equal to a cold bath as a tonic for disordered nerves.

I went home with a satisfied conscience, murmuring, _Per la impacciata via, retro al suo duce_. I think I know whither he is tending.

A demoralized, woe-begone, wilted, helpless figure was before me in the hall. If he had been under Niagara for the last few hours he could not be more hopelessly washed out. It was Jem Deady in the custody of his wife, who was now in the ascendant.

"Here he is, your reverence,--a misfortunate angash.o.r.e! For the love of G.o.d make him now a patthern to the parish! Cling him to the ground, or turn him into somethin'; make him an example forever, for my heart is broke with him."

Whilst I was turning over in my mind into which of the lower animals it would be advisable to cause the immortal soul of Jem to transmigrate and take up a temporary residence, I thought I saw a glance upwards from his eye, visibly pleading for mercy.

"It is quite clear, Jem," I said, "that your Christmas dinner disagreed with you."

"Begor, thin, your reverence," broke in Mrs. Deady, setting herself in a rather defiant att.i.tude, "he had as good a dinner as any poor man in your parish. He had a roast goose, stuffed by thim two hands with praties and inguns, until the tears ran down my face; and he had a pig's cheek, and lashins of cabbage."

"And why don't you tell his reverence about the rice puddin'?" said Jem, in a tone of honest indignation. "'T is a shame for you, Bess! She made a rice puddin', your reverence, that was fit for the Grate House; and begor, your reverence might sit down to worse yourself. Sich raisons and currans!"

"Begor, I'm thinking you're thrying to put the comedher on me, you blagard, with your blarney," said Mrs. Deady with angry suspicion, drawing back and scrutinizing his face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "And why don't you tell his reverence about the rice puddin'?"]

"Thrying to put the comedher on _you_, Bess? Begor, I'd like to see the man that could do it. But I'll say this, in the presence of his reverence, and wid yerself to the fore, that there isn't in this parish, nor in the nex', nor in the nex' again, nor widin the four walls of Ireland, a betther wife nor a betther housekeeper den you, Bess Clancy." And to emphasize this panegyric, Jem threw his battered hat on the floor and brushed away a tear.

It was a pity not to come to the aid of such a superb diplomatist. No wonder the British diplomatic service is manned by Irishmen from Singapore to Halifax. What would Melikoff, and Von Schaffterhausen, and De Laborie be in the hands of Jem Deady? He'd twist them around his little finger. I saw the angry wrinkles smoothing themselves on the brow of Mrs. Deady, as she melted under the gentle rain of flattery.

"I'd forgive you a good deal, Deady," I said; "your repeated violations of solemn pledges, your sacrilege in bringing down to a public house the most sacred melodies of the Church--"

"They were _at_ me," said Jem. "They said as how I couldn't get my tongue around the Latin, and that Father Letheby--"

"I understand," I interrupted; "but even that I'd forgive. But to take the innocent lambs of my flock, my choir boys and altar boys, the children of sober and religious parents, whose hearts are broken by your misconduct--"

"Childre' of sober and religious parents,--whose hearts are broken,"

chimed in Mrs. Deady. "Wisha, thin, without manin' any disrespect to your riverence, would you be plazed to mintion these dacent people? An'

if these religious parents wor mindin' their childre', insted of colloguing and placin' their nabors, their religious childre' wouldn't be lying drunk in Mrs. Haley's public house. But of coorse 't is Jim Deady here and Jim Deady there; and if the thruth wos towld, he's as good as any of 'em, though I shouldn't say it to his face. Come along, you poor fool."

"I must do what I came for," said Jem, solemnly. Then, with an air of awful determination, as if he were binding iron bars and padlocks on his thirsty lips, Jem took the pledge. Mrs. Deady, in high dudgeon, had gone down the street. Jem and I were alone.

"Tell me, yer reverence," he whispered, "did that mane scut of a tailor insult ye the other night?"

"Oh, not at all, Jem," I cried, fearing the consequences to the tailor.

"I have an eye on him this long time," said Jem, "and faith, he'll come to grief soon."

"Now, Jem," I warned emphatically, "no violence, mind. The unfortunate fellow is sorry."

"All right, your reverence; we are not going to waste violence on the likes of him. But--"

Here Jem fell into a profound reverie.

"Begor, your reverence, ye did that little job nately," he cried, waking up. "That woman's tongue didn't lave me worth tuppence. G.o.d bless yer reverence, and spare ye long to us."

He took my hand, and kissed it till it was blistered by the sharp bristles of his unshaven lips. Poor fellows! how they warm to us! and how, with all their faults, we fling around them something more than maternal love!

CHAPTER XVII

A CLERICAL SYMPOSIUM

There is no law, supernatural or natural, forbidding us (who, if we have not many of the crosses, neither have we many of the pleasures of this life) from meeting sometimes, and carrying out St. Paul's prescriptions in the matter of hospitality. I believe, indeed, his words--and he was a wise, kind saint--apply princ.i.p.ally to bishops; but why should not we imitate our superiors afar off, and practise the kindly virtue? It is good to meet sometimes and exchange opinions; it softens the asperities of daily life, makes the young think reverently of the old, and the old charitably of the young. At least, these are my views, and acting upon them there is always an open door and a _Cead Mile Failte_ for a brother; and a few times in the year I try to gather around me my dear friends, and thus to cement those bonds of friendship that make life a little more pleasant, and, perhaps, may keep our memories green.

Sometimes, indeed, my dear old friends object to face a drive of eight or ten miles on a cold night in winter; but the young fellows always come. Nothing but extreme urgency would keep them away from an evening with Daddy Dan. Now, we have no nonsense,--no soups, nor entrees, which some of my more fashionable confreres are at present affecting, if you please; but a plain turkey and ham, and a roast leg of mutton, and a few little tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs to fill up vacant s.p.a.ces. There is an old tradition, too, in Ireland, which I keep to pretty closely,--never to invite more than the Muses, nor less than the Graces; but on this occasion--it was during the Octave of the Epiphany--I departed from the custom, and, owing to a few disappointments, the ominous number of thirteen sat down to dinner. I must say, however, it had not a paralyzing effect on the appet.i.tes of my guests, nor did they appear to have any apprehensions of a sudden call to the places where turkeys and good mutton are not appreciated. There were a few jokes about the intolerable longevity of certain parish priests; and when my curate, who occupied the vice-chair with infinite grace and dignity, remarked in his own grand style that "really Da Vinci's 'Last Supper' was responsible for that unhallowed superst.i.tion, and there really was nothing in it," some few wags professed themselves greatly relieved, and showed it by new-born zeal in the avocations of the evening. My duties as host engrossed all my attention, until the table was cleared for action; and the call for coffee from eight out of thirteen guests recalled me to my favorite meditation on the mighty yet silent revolution that is progressing in the Irish Church.

I have been now in touch with three generations of Irish priests, each as distinct from the other, and marked by as distinctive characteristics, as those which differentiate an Anglican parson from a mediaeval monk. My early education was colored by contact with the polished, studious, timid priests, who, educated in Continental seminaries, introduced into Ireland all the grace and dignity and holiness, and all the dread of secular authority with the slight tendency to compromise, that seemed to have marked the French clergy, at least in the years immediately succeeding the revolutions and the Napoleonic wars. These were the good men who fraternized with landlords, and lent their congregations to a neighboring parson on the occasion of some governmental visitation; who were slightly tinged with Gallican ideas, and hated progress and the troubles that always accompany it.

They were holy, good, kindly men, but they could hardly be called officers of the Church Militant. Then came Maynooth, which, founded on governmental subsidies, poured from its gates the strongest, fiercest, most fearless army of priests that ever fought for the spiritual and temporal interests of the people,--men of large physique and iron const.i.tutions, who spent ten hours a day on horseback, despised French claret, loved their people and chastised them like fathers, but were prepared to defend them with their lives and the outpouring of their blood against their hereditary enemies. Intense in their faith, of stainless lives and spotless reputations, their words cut like razors, and their hands smote like lightning; but they had the hearts of mothers for the little ones of their flocks. They had the cla.s.sics at their fingers' ends, could roll out lines from Virgil or Horace at an after-dinner speech, and had a profound contempt for English literature.

In theology they were rigorists, too much disposed to defer absolution and to give long penances. They had a cordial dislike for new devotions, believing that Christmas and Easter Communion was quite enough for ordinary sancity. Later on they became more generous, but they clung with tenacity to the Brown Scapular and the First Sunday of the month. I am quite sure they have turned somersaults in their graves since the introduction of the myriad devotions that are now distracting and edifying the faithful. But they could make, and, alas! too often perhaps for Christian modesty, they did make, the proud boast that they kept alive the people's faith, imbued them with a sense of the loftiest morality, and instilled a sense of intense horror for such violations of Church precepts as a _communicatio c.u.m hereticis in divinis_, or the touching of flesh meat on a day of abstinence. I believe I belong to that school, though my sympathies are wide enough for all. And as in theology, I am quite prepared to embrace Thomists, and Scotists, and Molinists, Nominalists and Realists in fraternal charity, so, too, am I prepared to recognize and appreciate the traits and characteristics of the different generations of clerics in the Irish Church. Sometimes, perhaps, through the vanity that clings to us all to the end, I play the part of "laudator temporis acti," and then the young fellows shout:--

"Ah, but, Father Dan, they were giants in those days."

And the tags and shreds of poor human nature wave in the wind of flattery; and I feel grateful for the modest appreciation of a generation that has no sympathy with our own.