My New Curate Part 56

"Dulce est desipere in loco,"

said he. Thank you, Flaccus! You were always ready:--

"Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,"

he cried, as he vanished into the shades. Then came Ovid, laurel-crowned, and began to sing:--

"Somne, quies rerum, placidissime somne deorum!"

But I dismissed him promptly. Then Seneca hobbled in, old usurer as he was, and said:--

"Commodis omnium laeteris, movearis incommodis."

"Good man!" I cried; "that's just me!"

Then came dear, gentle St. Paul, with the look on his face as when he pleaded for the slave:--

"Rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep!"

Lastly, came my own Kempensis, who shook his head gravely at me, and said:--

"A merry evening makes a sad morning!"

I like a Kempis; but indeed, and indeed, and indeed again, Thomas, you are sometimes a little too personal in your remarks.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: A half-idiot.]

CHAPTER x.x.xI

FAREWELL

Thomas a Kempis was right in saying that next morning would be a sad one--not on account of previous merriment; but, as I drove home alone, the separation from Father Letheby affected me keenly. He had, to use a homely phrase, grown into my heart. a.n.a.lyzing my own feelings, as I jogged along the country road, I found that it was not his attractive and polished manners, nor his splendid abilities, nor his sociability that had impressed me, but his open, manly character, forever bending to the weak, and scorning everything dishonorable. It was quite true that he "wore the white flower of a blameless life"; but that is expected and found in every priest; it was something else,--his manliness, his truth, that made him

"--my own ideal knight, Who reverenced his conscience as his king, Whose glory was redressing human wrongs; Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it.

... We have lost him; he is gone; We know him now; all narrow jealousies Are silent; and we see him as he moved, How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise, With what sublime repression of himself, And in what limits, and how tenderly!"

My poor boy! my poor boy! I thought he would be over me in my last hour to hear my last confession, and place the sacred oils on my old limbs, and compose me decently for my grave; but it was not to be. _Vale, vale, longum vale!_

There was a letter from the bishop, and a large brown parcel before me when I reached my home. I opened the letter first. It ran thus:--

My dear Father Dan:--The prebendary stall, vacated by the death of the late Canon Jones, I now have much pleasure in offering for your acceptance. I suppose, if the [Greek: to prepon] always had force in this world, you would have been canon for the last twenty or thirty years; but at least it is my privilege now to make compensation; and I sincerely hope I may have the benefit of your wise counsel in the meetings of the Cathedral Chapter. It will also give you a chance of seeing sometimes your young friend, whom I have so suddenly removed; and this will weigh with you in accepting an honor which, if it has come tardily, may it be your privilege to wear for many years

I am, my dear Father Dan, Yours in Christ, ----

"Kind, my Lord, always kind and thoughtful," I murmured.

Then I cut the strings of the parcel. It contained the rochet, mozzetta, and biretta of a canon, and was a present from some excellent Franciscan nuns, to whom I had been formerly chaplain, and who were charitable enough not to have forgotten me. So there they were at last, the dream of half a lifetime. G.o.d help us! what children we are! Old and young, it's all the same. I suppose that is why G.o.d so loves us.

I took up the dainty purpled and ermined mozzetta. It was soft, and beautiful, and fluffy. I could fold the entire rochet in the palms of my hands, the lace work was so fine and exquisite. I put them down with a sigh. My mind was fully made up.

Hannah came in, and took in the situation at a glance.

"Did he give 'em to ye at last?"

"He did, Hannah. How do you like them?"

"'Twas time for him! Lor', they're beautiful!"

"Hannah," I said, "have you any camphor or lavender in the house?"

She looked at me suspiciously.

"I have," she said. "What for? Aren't you going to wear them?"

"They are not intended to form the every-day walking-suit of a country parish priest," I replied. "They must be carefully put by for the present."

I took my hat and strolled down to see Alice. After telling her all the news, and Father Letheby's triumphs, I said:--

"The bishop wants me to change my name, too!"

"_You_ are not going?" she said in alarm.

"No; but his Lordship thinks I have been called Father Dan long enough; he wants me now to be known as the Very Rev. Canon Hanrahan."

"It's like as if you were going away to a strange country," she said.

"Do you think the people will take kindly to it?" I said.

"No! no! no!" she cried, shaking her head; "you will be Father Dan and Daddy Dan to the end."

"So be it!" I replied.

I returned home, and just before dinner I penned two letters--one to my good nuns, thanking them for their kindness and generosity; the other to the bishop, thanking his Lordship _ex imo corde_ also, but declining the honor. I was too old, _et detur digniori_. Then I got my camphor and lavender, and laid the fragrant powder between the folds of the mozzetta. And then I took a sheet of paper and wrote:--

To the Very Reverend Edward Canon Letheby, B.A., P.P., a gift from the grave of his old friend and pastor, the Rev. Daniel Hanrahan, P.P., more affectionately and familiarly known as "Daddy Dan."

Then the old temptation came back to wind up with a lecture or quotation. I ransacked all my cla.s.sics, and met with many a wise and pithy saying, but not one pleased me. I was about to give up the search in despair, when, taking up a certain book, my eye caught a familiar red pencil-mark. "Eureka!" I cried, and I wrote in large letters, beneath the above:--