My New Curate Part 32

"(6) 'Lives of the Fathers,' by the author of 'A Dominican Artist,' 3 vols.

"(7) Neander's 'Church History,' 8 vols.

"(8) Neale's 'Oriental Church.'"

Here Father Letheby stopped me, as he broke from a suppressed chuckle into uncontrollable laughter.

"Why, Father Dan, what in the world are you reading? Don't you know that you are calling out a list of the most rampant heretics and disbelievers, every one of whom is probably on the Index? Is it possible that you cannot discover any English Catholic authorities on these subjects?"

"I have not seen them," I said mournfully. "And do you mean to say that all these Protestants, and many of them, you say, infidels, have not been interested in these subjects?"

"Well, I presume they would not have gone to the vast trouble of acc.u.mulating material, and writing ponderous volumes otherwise."

"And what are we doing? And if ever these grave subjects become of importance or interest to our youth, say in the higher systems of education, what books can we put into their hands?"

We were both in a brown study. These things make men thoughtful. At last Father Letheby said:--

"How do they manage in the German and French universities, I wonder?"

"Depend upon it," I replied, "there is no lack of Catholic authors on every subject there. And I'm told the Italian priests take an extraordinary interest in these higher studies. And in France every French priest thinks he is bound to write at least one book."

"I never understood the importance of this matter till I met Ormsby,"

said Father Letheby. "He opened my eyes. By the way, Father Dan, I must congratulate you on the impression you have made there. Some things you said have made a vivid impression on him. He keeps on saying: 'A sixth sense! A sixth sense. Perhaps he is right, after all.' And that dependence on the prayers of little children and the afflicted touched him deeply. Do you know, I think he'll come 'round."

"G.o.d grant it," I said, rising. "But I suppose this little project of ours is knocked on the head."

"You mean the books?"

"Yes."

"I fear so. The fact is, Father Dan, I find I have no time. Between my two hours with the choir on Tuesdays and Fridays, the Sat.u.r.day and Sunday evenings in the church, the occasional evening out, and my correspondence, I don't know where to get time to fit in everything. And now that you have been so good as to secure the sympathy of the editor of the----for me, I think I may do something for him at intervals."

"I have regretted a few things during my life, young man," I said; "but I never regretted anything so much as to have sent on that poem of yours instead of sending it up the chimney."

"My dear Father Dan," said he, "what are you saying? Don't you know that the Pope himself writes poetry, and writes it well?"

"May G.o.d forgive him!" I said fervently. Then I got sorry, as this was not reverent, and a bright thought struck me.

"What kind of poetry does His Holiness write?"

"Why, the most beautiful Latin elegiacs and hexameters."

"I thought so," I said triumphantly. "I knew that the Holy Father would write nothing but in the style of the divine Mantuan. If you do anything that way, my boy, I'll forgive you. Keep to your cla.s.sics, keep to your cla.s.sics, and you're all right."

It was delightful to find us, the last remnant of the great generation of the cla.s.sical priests of Ireland, backed up by the first authority in the world.

It was twilight when I left, and I made my usual detour around our hamlet. Outside the village and just beyond the school-house, in a little cottage whose diamond windows are almost hidden under green creepers, lived Alice Moylan, the head monitress in our little school. I rather liked Alice, for when she was a little child of seven years, she gave me an idea of something for which I had been long seeking. It was a few years back, when I had not laid up my pen finally, but still retained the belief, with a certain author, that "there is no greater mental excitement, and scarcely a sweeter one, than when a young man strides up and down his room, and boldly resolves to take a quire of writing paper and turn it into a ma.n.u.script." And in these latter days of life I still sought for a vision of our Lady, which I could keep before my imagination when writing certain things in her honor. Now (perhaps I have already said it), I had a peculiar devotion to the Child-Virgin of the Temple and of the House of Nazareth, where in the noontide the Archangel entered and spoke his solemn words. And I never said the _Magnificat_ but on my knees and with a full heart, as I thought on the Child-Prophetess of Hebron and the wondering aged saints.

But I sought her face everywhere in vain--in pictures, in the faces of my little children; but not one came up to my ideal of what the little maiden of the Temple and Nazareth was like. At last, one day, little Alice came, and in her sweet oval face, and calm, entreating eyes and raven hair, subdued beneath such a dainty frilled headdress, I saw our Blessed Lady and wondered and was glad. And in those days of her simple childhood, before the awful dawn of self-consciousness, I used dream and dream, and put into form my dreams; and the face that haunted all my sacred and poetic conceptions of our dear Queen was the face of little Alice. But the child grew, and waxed in strength, but waned in beauty,--at least the beauty I regarded when the white soul looked out of the beautiful childish face. But Alice grew to be the village beauty, and she knew it. Every one told her of it; but her chief admirer was the little milliner, who lived down near the post-office, and whose simple life was a mixture of very plain, prosaic poverty, and very high and lofty romance. From this Miss Levis, who was a confirmed novel-reader, Alice learned that "she had the face and form of an angel"; that "her eyes had a velvety softness that drew you like an enchanted lake"; that these same eyes were "starry in their l.u.s.trous beauty"; that she had "the complexion of a creole, or rather the healthy pallor of the high-born aristocracy of England"; that "her figure was willowy and swayed like a reed in the wind"; and all the other curious jargon of the novelette--the deadly enemy of simplicity and innocence. Then Alice grew proud and vain, and her vanity culminated on the night of our concert in November, when she drew up for the first time her luxuriant black hair and tied it in a knot and bound it in a fillet, which was said to be the _mode a la Grecque_. But she was a very pure, innocent girl withal, and exceedingly clever in her work at school.

I had missed her recently, but had been occupied with other thoughts until the time came for the quarterly salaries of the teachers; and I noticed in the returns from the princ.i.p.al teacher that Alice had been absent the greater part of the time. This evening, after leaving Father Letheby, I determined to call, unprepared to witness the little tragedy that was before me--one of those little side-scenes in the great drama of existence, which G.o.d turns suddenly to the front lest we should ever mistake the fact that our little world is a stage, and that we have all the denizens of the veiled eternities for our audience. Mrs. Moylan was one of those beautiful Irish mothers, who, having pa.s.sed through the stress and storm of life, was moving calmly into the great sea of Death and Eternity. She had one of those Irish faces that were so typical of our race some years ago, and the intense resignation and patience of which rivalled the sweet innocence of our little Irish children for the admiration of such a keen and sympathetic observer as Dr. Newman. There were a few wrinkles in the pallid cheeks, and one or two lines across the white forehead, crowned with the clean white cap which our Irish mothers wear. She looked, I thought, a little reproachfully at me as I entered, but only welcomed me with that courteous reverence which makes us priests so often humbled and ashamed. After a few words I inquired for Alice.

"My poor child hasn't been well, your reverence. We were jealous that you never asked for her."

I protested my utter ignorance of her illness, and inquired what was the ailment.

"You can see yourself, your reverence," the poor mother said, silently wiping away a tear. "But," she whispered, "don't pretend to see anything. She feels it very much."

I pa.s.sed into the little chamber and was making my apologies to the poor child, when, in spite of her mother's warning, I started back, shocked and horror-stricken.

"Good G.o.d," I could not help crying out, "what has happened to you, my poor child?"

She smiled faintly, and then a tear rolled down the leprous cheek. Ay!

indeed! my poor little Madonna, my little child, whose beauty was such a dream of Paradise, was changed. The large, l.u.s.trous eyes were untouched; but the fair cheek was one hideous, leprous sore. The black, glossy hair was now a few dirty wisps. The child, whose face and figure every one turned around to look at a second time, was now a revolting mummy, seamed and scarred by some terrible disease. I had presence of mind enough to take up the thin, white hand; she picked the coverlet and said nothing. Her heart was too full of her misery to utter a word. I could only say:--

"My poor child! my poor child!"

I turned to the mother.

"This is too dreadful! What has happened?"

"Dreadful enough, your reverence," she cried; "but welcome be the will of G.o.d!"

"But what has happened?" I cried.

Then I thought it would be a relief to the poor child's feelings to tell me her own sad tale, so I said:--

"Never mind! Alice will tell me all herself. Now, my child, tell me all."

She did, with all the humility and such gentle submission to G.o.d's decree that I wept freely. It would appear that on the afternoon of that November concert, Alice, like so many other girls, was very much engrossed in her preparations for the evening. She had studied the "Young Lady's Journal" and several other works of interest and usefulness, and all day long was highly excited over her appearance.

Once, when she was particularly engaged at the looking-gla.s.s, she heard some one fumbling at the half-door, as if anxious to come into the kitchen. Angry at being disturbed, she burst from her room, and saw in the framework of the door an awful sight. It was a poor woman, whose face was completely eaten away by a dread disease called nasal polypus.

The nose was completely gone and the upper lip. The eyes stared out as if from a death's-head. The poor creature begged for alms; but Alice, flushed at the thought of her own beauty, and in a rage from being called away from her gla.s.s, clapped her hands and shouted:--

"Well, you _are_ a beauty."

"Not so handsome as you, alanna," said the afflicted one. "There was wance when, perhaps, I was. But your time may come. Mockin' is catchin'.

Mockin' is catchin'."

And with these words the woman strode away.

"I could not get the thought of my sin out of my head all that day,"

continued Alice; "her face was always coming before me, until at last I gave up looking at the gla.s.s. But when the night came and we were all in the concert-room, my vanity came back again, for I heard people whisper as I was pa.s.sing, and my foolish head was turned. Then, when it was all over, and the girls broke into groups, and the people were all around, I tried to attract more attention. And I had been reading of a trick in the novels for making one's self more interesting by standing on tiptoe and opening the eyes widely; and, G.o.d help me! I was practising this foolishness, thinking that some of the young men were admiring me for it, when suddenly Father Letheby saw me, and he gave me a look that struck me like a flash of lightning. I felt dazed and blinded, and asked one of the girls to take me from the room and lead me home. But all that night I never slept, the woman's face and the awful look that Father Letheby gave me were staring at me out of the curtains and out of the dark, until late in the morning I fell into a sleep, only to dream the same dreadful things."

Here the poor girl broke down and sobbed in an agony of remorse.

"Well, then, Father, I got up sick and sorrowful, and before my breakfast I went over there to the Blessed Virgin's altar and said a Rosary, and begged and prayed her not to punish me for what I had done.

Sure, I said, 't was only a girl's foolishness and I was young; and I promised then and there to give up novel-reading and to be good, and to let my hair fall down, and to drop all my foolish notions; but 't was no use. I saw something in the face of the Blessed Virgin that frightened me, and I knew I was in for something. I didn't think my punishment would be so dreadful."