My New Curate Part 52

"If it were tin millions times as much, your reverence, I'd give it to him, my darlin' gintleman. Sure, an' 't was he came to me up on that lonesome hill in all the rain and cowld of last winter; and 't was he said to me, 'Me poor woman, how do you live at all! And where's the kittle?' sez he; but sure, I had no kittle; but he took up a black burnt tin, and filled it with wather, and put the grain of tay in it, and brought it over to me; and thin he put his strong arm under my pillow, and lifted me up, and 'Come, me poor woman,' sez he, 'you must be wake from fastin'; take this; and thin he wint around like a 'uman and set things to rights; and I watchin' him and blessin' him all the time in _my_ heart of hearts; and now to think of him without bite or sup;--wisha, tell me, your reverence," she said, abruptly changing her subject, "how much was it? Sure, I thought there was always a dacent living for our priests at Kilronan. But the times are bad, and the people are quare."

It needed all my eloquence and repeated a.s.severations to persuade her that Father Letheby was not gone to gaol as yet, and most probably would not go. And it was not disappointment, but a sense of personal injury and insult, that overshadowed her fine old face as I gathered up her money and returned it to her. She went back to her lonely cabin in misery.

When Father Letheby came in and sat down to a late dinner, I told him all. He was deeply affected.

"There is some tremendous mine of the gold of human excellence in these good people," he said; "but the avenues to it are so tortuous and difficult, it seems hardly worth while seeking for. They are capable of the most stupendous sacrifices provided they are out of the common; but it is the regular system and uniformity of the natural and human law that they despise. But have you any letter for me?"

"None. But here is a tremendous indictment against myself from Duff."

"No letter from the bishop?" he said despondently, as he opened and read the letter, which ran thus:--

Atheloy, 13/10/7--.

Rev. dear Father Dan:--How has all this miserable business occurred? Well, to our minds, you alone are culpable and responsible. We must seem to Letheby to be utter caitiffs and cowards, to allow matters to come to such a horrible crisis, especially in the case of a sensitive fellow like him. But up to the date of that horrible exposure in Stubbs', we had no idea there were complications with those factory people--nothing, in fact, beyond the responsibilities of that unhappy boat. Now, why didn't you let us know? You may not be aware that the evening of the disaster I made a solemn engagement to stand by him to the end; and now all this must seem the merest braggadocio. And yet, the thing was a trifle. Would you tell Letheby now, that it will be all right in a few days, and to cheer up; no harm done, beyond a temporary humiliation! But we'll never dine with you again, and we shall, one and all, brave the Episcopal anger by refusing to be your curates when Letheby is promoted.

Yours, etc., Charles L. Duff, C. C.

"He's very kind, very kind, indeed," said Father Letheby, meditatively; "but I cannot see how he is going to make it all right in a few days."

"It wouldn't surprise me much," I replied, "if that good young fellow had already put a sop in those calves' mouths over there at Kilkeel."

"Impossible!" he cried.

"Well, time will tell."

I called down to see Alice and talk over things. It is wonderful what a _clairvoyante_ she has become. She sees everything as in a magic mirror.

"I think the Holy Souls will come to his relief," she said, in a cool, calm way. "He has, I think, a great devotion to the Holy Souls. He told me once, when we were talking about holy things, that he makes a _memento_ in every Ma.s.s of the most neglected and abandoned priest in purgatory; but, sure, priests don't go to purgatory, Father Dan, do they?"

"Well, my dear, I cannot answer you in general terms; but there's one that will be certainly there before many years; and unless you and Father Letheby and Bittra pull him out by your prayers, I'm afraid--But continue what you were saying."

"He makes a _memento_, he said, for the most abandoned priest, and for the soul that is next to be released. And whenever he has not a special intention, he always gives his Ma.s.s to our Blessed Lady for that soul.

Now, I think, that's very nice. Just imagine that poor soul waiting inside the big barred gates, and the angel probably her warder for many years, outside. They don't exchange a word. They are only waiting, waiting. Far within are the myriads of Holy Souls, praying, suffering, loving, hoping. There is a noise as of a million birds, fluttering their wings above the sea. But here at the gate is silence, silence. She dares not ask: When?--because the angel does not know. Now and again he looks at her and smiles, and she is praying softly to herself. Suddenly there is a great light in the darkness overhead, and then there is a dawn on the night of purgatory; for a great spirit is coming down swiftly, swiftly, on wings of light, until he reaches the prison-house.

Then he hands the warder-angel a letter from the Queen of Heaven; and in a moment, back swing the gates, and in plunges the guardian angel, and wraps up that expectant soul in his strong wings, and up, up, up, through starry night and sunny day they go, until they come into the singing heavens; and up along the great avenues of smiling angels, until at last the angel lays down that soul gently at the feet of Mary. And all this was done by a quiet priest in a remote, whitewashed chapel, here by the Atlantic, and there was no one with him but the little boy who rang the bell."

I had been listening to this rhapsody with the greatest admiration, when just then Bittra came in. She has got over the most acute period of her grief, "except when," she says, "she looks at the sea and thinks of what is there."

"Alice is prophesying," I said; "she is going to take Father Letheby out of his purgatory on Monday."

"Ah, no, Daddy Dan, that's not fair. But I think he will be relieved from his cross."

"And what about your own troubles, Alice?" said Bittra. "Is the healing process going on?"

"Yes, indeed, thank G.o.d," she replied, "except here and there."

Bittra was watching me curiously. Now it is quite a certain fact, but I never dreamed of attaching any importance to it, that this child had recovered her perfect health, so far as that dreadful scrofulous affection extended, except in the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet, where there remained, to the doctor's intense disappointment, round, angry sores, about the size of a half-crown, and each surrounded with a nimbus of raw, red flesh, which bled periodically.

"And here, also," she said innocently this evening, "here on my side is a raw sore which sometimes is very painful and bleeds copiously. I have not shown the doctor that; but he gets quite cross about my hands and feet."

"It is very curious," I said, in my own purblind fashion, "but I suppose the extremities heal last."

"I shall walk home with you, Father Dan, if you have no objection," said Bittra.

"Come along, child," I replied. "Now, Alice, we shall be watching Monday, All Souls' Day."

"Very well, Daddy Dan," she said, smiling. "Everything will come right, as we shall see."

As we walked through the village, Bittra said to me wonderingly:--

"Isn't it curious about those sores, Father? They won't heal."

"It is," I said musingly.

"I have been thinking a lot about it," she said.

"And the result of your most wise meditations?"

"You'll laugh at me."

"Never. I never laugh. I never allow myself to pa.s.s beyond the genteel limits of a smile."

"Then I think--but--"

"Say it out, child. What are you thinking of?"

"I think it is the _stigmata_," she said, blushing furiously.

I was struck silent. It was too grand. Could it be? Had we a real, positive saint amongst us?

"What do you think, Father Dan? Are you angry?"

"G.o.d forbid, child. But tell me, have you spoken to Alice on the matter?"

"Oh, dear no! I wouldn't dream of such a thing. It would give her an awful shock."

"Well, we'll keep it a profound secret, and await further revelations.

'Abscondisti haec a prudentibus, et revelasti ea parvulis.'"

But next evening, I think I threw additional fervor into the _Laudate's_ and _Benedicite's_ at Lauds.

But as I looked at Father Letheby across the table in the lamplight, and saw his drawn, sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, and the white patch of hair over his ears, I could not help saying to myself: "You, too, have got your _stigmata_, my poor fellow!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: Shroud.]