My New Curate Part 31

"That's very kind of them; and no interest, no security. I did not think Boards could be so generous."

"No, indeed. They have full security to be paid back, princ.i.p.al and five per cent interest, in less than five years."

"By Jove! You are a clever fellow. And where have you got all this Midas wealth?"

He asked me to be good enough to move with him to the window. True enough, even under the cold light, the broad sea stretched sparkling before us, with all its magic and glamour, but unruffled and unploughed by even one Nautilus-sail of busy man.

"There," he cried, "there lie the gold mines of Ireland, unworked and neglected. In these depths is wealth enough to make Kilronan a busy emporium of merchandise for half the world!"

"I see. And the other two hundred? Where do they come from?"

"Subscribed by twenty merchants, who have taken shares in the boat."

"And you never asked your old pastor to invest in this patriotic bank.

Shame! Shame! And I wanted a little return as well as the rest of the world."

He laughed.

"The mackerel fishery alone," he continued, in a calculating way, "is worth a hundred pounds each for each boat in the Manx and French fishing-fleets that anchor off our sh.o.r.es every year, and take our wealth back to their thriving villages. I calculate another cool hundred on cod, haak, etc. I think we shall pay back the Board's loan in three years, besides paying handsome dividends to our shareholders. The boat is in the hands of a Belfast firm. She will be ready by the first of May. On that day she will be christened the 'Star of the Sea,' and will make her first run to the fishing-fleet."

"And what about the shirt-factory?"

"That's all right, too," he said, though his face grew a little clouded.

"I shall have twenty sewing-machines in full swing by the middle of April. The manager was here and dined with me last Thursday; he's a fine fellow. He a.s.sures me that, after the initial expenses are over, the girls can earn from eight to ten shillings a week easily."

"By Jove! That's good. That will be a great help to the poor people."

"Yes; he sends the shirts here, ready and cut for sewing, by the new system of scientific shirt-making. Then all they have to do is to tack them together with the machines."

"G.o.d bless you!" I said fervently. "You're a wonderful fellow."

I was sorry that I gave him Ormsby's message of warning.

CHAPTER XX

MADONNA MIA

The winter had nearly rolled by, and the sky was opening out its eyelids wider and wider, and letting in light to man and all his wondrous train of servitors. It was a cold, steely light indeed, particularly on those March evenings; and the sunsetting was a dreary, lonesome thing, as the copper-colored rays rested on hamlet or mountain, or tinged the cold face of the sea. But it was light, and light is something man craves for, be it never so pale. Will not one of heaven's delights be to see the "inaccessible light" in which G.o.d--our G.o.d--is shrouded, and to behold one another's faces in the light that streams from the Lamb? And so, very tempting as my fire is--and I am as much a fire-worshipper as an Irish Druid or a Peruvian Inca--I always like to go out as the days are lengthening and the sun is stretching out his compa.s.ses to measure in wider arcs the sky.

This evening, too, I had a little business with Father Letheby. As I entered his parlor, I carried a tiny slip of printed paper in my hand.

"You'd hardly guess what it is?" I said, holding it from the light.

"A check for a hundred pounds, or my removal!" he exclaimed.

"Neither. Read it!"

I am quite sure it was infinitely more gratifying than the check, to say nothing of the removal; and I am quite sure the kindly editor, who had sent me that proof of Father Letheby's first poem, would have been amply repaid for his charity if he had seen the shades and flushes of delight and half-alarm that swept like clouds across the face of the young priest. And it was not all charity, either. The good editor spoke truly when he declared that the poem was quite original and out of the beaten track, and would probably attract some attention. I think, next to the day of his ordination, this was the supreme day in Father Letheby's life hitherto.

"It was very kind," he said, "very kind indeed. And how am I to thank you, Father Dan?"

"By keeping steadily at the work I pointed out for you," I replied.

"Now, let me see what you have done."

"Do you mean about the books?" he asked.

"Yes," I said determinedly, "and about the _horarium_ I marked out and arranged for you. Have you conscientiously studied during the two hours each evening, and written from 11 A.M. to noon every day, as I appointed?"

"To be candid," he said at once, "I have not. First came the lack of books. Except Butler's 'Lives of the Saints,' I cannot come across a single indication of what Basil and the Gregories did or wrote; and my edition of Butler is expurgated of all the valuable literary notes which, I understand, were in the first editions. Then the moment I take the pen into my hand, in comes Mrs. Luby to know wouldn't I write to the colonel of the Connaught Rangers to get her little boy discharged and sent home. He enlisted in a fit of drink. Then comes Mrs. Moriarty with the modest request to write to the pastor of Santa Barbara about her little girl who emigrated to America sixteen years ago. Then comes--"

"Never mind," I said, "I have been there. But I won't accept these excuses at all. You _must_ work, whether you like or no. Now, I am going to take away all excuses. I have been searching a lot of old catalogues, and I have discovered that these are the books for you. On the subject of 'Modern Pantheism' we will get:--

"(1) Lewes' 'History of Philosophy,' 4 vols.

"(2) Brucker's 'Historia Critica Philosophiae,' 6 vols.

"(3) Tenneman's 'History of Philosophy' (Cousin).

"(4) emile Saisset's 'Modern Pantheism,' 2 vols.

"(5) 'History of Pantheism' (Plumtre).

"(6) 'An Essay on Pantheism,' by J. Hunt, D.D.

"(7) 'Spinoza,' by Princ.i.p.al Caird, LL. D.

"(8) 'Spinoza,' by D. J. Martineau.

"(9) 'Spinoza, his Ethics and Correspondence,'

by R. Willis, M.D.

"(10) 'Spinoza,' by Nourrisson.

"Now, on the subject of Ecclesiastical History we will get, read, and consult:--

"(1) 'Historia Literaria Ecclesiae,' by Cave.

"(2) Farrar's 'Lives of the Fathers,' 2 vols.

"(3) Cave's 'Lives of the Fathers,' 3 vols.

"(4) 'Lives of the Fathers,' by the S. P. C. K.

"(5) The Bishop of Lincoln (Kaye) on 'The Fathers and Early Councils.'