My New Curate Part 8

The young man scowled at his aged mother; and in response to an emphatic gesture from the priest, he pulled out a little coil of rope, partly worn at the end into a little wisp of flax.

"And are you such an utter fool," said the priest, angrily, holding the rope gingerly between his fingers, "as to believe that that wretched thing could cure you?"

"It _has_ cured me," said the young man. "Look here!"

Father Letheby looked; and sure enough, there was but a faint scar, as of a burn, on the place where he knew well there had been a hideous running ulcer a few days ago. He was struck dumb.

"I am not surprised," he said, recovering himself rapidly; "I know Satan possesses supernatural power. But you, unhappy man, do you not know that it is to the devil you owe your cure?"

"I told him so, your reverence," whimpered the poor mother. "I said, better be sick forever, Ned, than break G.o.d's law. Sure, nothing good can come from it."

"Thin why did G.o.d allow it?" said the young man, angrily.

"If you knew anything of your religion," said the priest, "you might know that G.o.d permits evil things to happen. So much the worse for evil doers. You have committed grave sin."

"But, sure, this is good," said the poor fellow, feebly groping after theological lights, "and whatever is good comes from G.o.d."

"The effect may be good," said the priest, "the instrument is bad. What is that?" and he pointed to the rope that was dangling in his hand.

The young man was silent.

"You are afraid to tell? Now what is it? There's something uncanny about it?"

He fumbled with his vest, and looked sullenly into the darkening night.

"Then, as you won't answer, I'll take it with me," said the priest, folding the rope into a coil, and preparing to put it in his pocket.

There was a sullen smile around the young man's mouth.

"The owner will be looking for it," said he.

"Tell the owner that Father Letheby has it, and she can come to me for it," said the priest. He put the rope in his pocket and moved to the door.

"Don't! don't! Father dear," said the old woman. "It isn't good. Give it back, and Ned will give it to the good 'oman to-morrow."

"No! I shall give it myself," said the priest, "and a bit of my mind with it."

The young man moved to the door, and stood beside the priest.

"You would not touch it if you knew what it was," he whispered.

"What?" said Father Letheby.

"Do you remember old Simmons, the pinsioner, down at Lougheagle?"

"Who destroyed himself?"

"Yes! he hanged himself to a rafter in the barn."

"I remember having heard of it."

"He hanged himself with a rope."

"I presume so."

"Your reverence has the rope in your pocket."

The priest stepped back as if stung. The thing was so horrible that he lost his self-possession. Then a great flood of anger swept his soul; and taking the hideous instrument from his pocket, he pa.s.sed over to the open hearth; with one or two turns of the wheel, that answers the purpose of a bellows in Ireland, he kindled the smouldering ashes into flame, buried the rope deep down in the glowing cinders, and watched it curl into a white ash, that bent and writhed like a serpent in pain. The old woman told her beads, and then blessed the priest, with, however, a tremor of nervous fear in her voice. The young man lifted his hat, as the priest, without a word, pa.s.sed into the darkness.

"She'll be after asking for the rope, your reverence?" he said at length, when the priest had gone a few yards.

"Refer her to me," Father Letheby said. "And look here, young man," he cried, coming back and putting his face close to the peasant's, "I'd advise you to go to your confession as soon as you can, lest, in the words of Scripture, 'something worse happen to you.'"

It was a pleasant dinner party at the "Great House." Colonel Campion presided. Bittra sat opposite her father. Captain Ormsby, Inspector of Coast Guards, was near her. There were some bank officials from a neighboring town; Lord L----'s agent and his wife; a military surgeon; a widower, with two grown daughters; the new Protestant Rector and his wife. Father Letheby was very much pleased. He was again in the society that best suited his natural disposition. It was tolerably intelligent and refined. The lights, the flowers, the music, told on his senses, long numbed by the quietness and monotony of his daily life. He entered into the quiet pleasures of the evening with zest, made all around him happy, and even fascinated by the brilliancy with which he spoke, so much so that Bittra Campion said to him, as he was leaving about eleven o'clock:--

"Father, we are infinitely obliged to you."

He returned home, filled with a pleasant excitement, that was now so unusual to him in his quiet, uneventful life. The moonlight was streaming over sea and moorland, and he thought, as he pa.s.sed over the little bridge that spanned the fiord, and stepped out into the broad road:--

"A delightful evening! But I must be careful. These Sybaritic banquets unfit a man for sterner work! I shall begin to hate my books and to loathe my little cabin. G.o.d forbid! But how pleasant it was all. And how Campion and Ormsby jumped at that idea of mine about the fishing schooner. I look on the matter now as accomplished. After all, perhaps, these Irish gentry are calumniated. Nothing could equal the ardor of these men for the welfare of the poor fishermen. Who knows? In six months' time, the 'Star of the Sea' may be ploughing the deep, and a fleet of sailing boats in her wake; and then the fish-curing stores, and, at last, the poor old village will look up and be known far and wide. Dear me! I must get that lovely song out of my brain, and the odor of those azaleas out of my senses. 'T will never do! a Kempis would shame me; would arraign me as a rebel and a traitor. What a lovely night! and how the waters sleep in the moonlight! Just there at the bend we'll build the new pier. I see already the 'Star of the Sea' putting out, and the waters whitening in her wake."

He looked around, and saw the cottages of the peasants and the laborers gleaming against the dark background of the moor and the mountain; and the thought smote him: Perhaps there some little children went to bed hungry to-night. He went home sadly, and, sitting down, he said:--

"Let me see! Soup, entrees, joints, sweets, fruits, wine, coffee. Let me see! White roses, azaleas, chrysanthemums. Let me see! Waldteufel, Strauss, Wagner! Let me see!"

He went over, and opened what appeared to be a rather highly decorated cupboard. He drew back three shutters, and revealed a triptych, sunk deep in the wall of his little parlor. It was the only thing of real value he held. It was given to him by a Roman lady, who, for one reason or another, chose to reside in England. It nearly filled the entire s.p.a.ce on the low wall. As he drew back the shutters, the lamplight fell on the figure that occupied the whole of the central panel. It was the Christ. The tall shape was closely wrapped around in the Jewish kethoneth,--the first of the _vestes albae_ of the priest, as St. John represents in the Apocalypse. The capouche fell loosely over His head, and was embroidered in many colors, as was also the hem of His long white robe, which fell in folds over His sandalled feet. The hood of the capouche shaded His eyes and threw a dark shadow on the face as far as the lips. But the sacred figure also held its right hand to shelter the eyes more deeply from a strong glare of sunset. The left hand fell loosely by His side, and the first of a large flock of sheep had nestled its head comfortably in the open palm. The large, gray eyes of Christ were filled with an anxious light, as they gazed over the silent desert, questing for some lost object; and the mouth, lightly fringed with beard, was querulous with pain and solicitude. It was a beautiful picture,--one worthy to be screened from indevout eyes, or revealed only to those who loved and worshipped.

The young priest gazed long and lovingly at this presentment of his Divine Master, whom he loved with the strongest personal affection.

Then he knelt down and pressed his forehead against the dust-stained feet of Christ, and moaned:--

"Master, if I have done wrong in aught this night, let me know it! If I have betrayed Thy interests, or brought Thy Name to shame, teach me in the sharpest tones and flames of Thy anger, for I need a monitor; and where shall I find so loving or so truthful a monitor as Thou? Alas! how weak and pitiful I am, and how this poor unsubdued nature of mine craves for things beyond Thee! I know there is no truth but in Thee,--no sincerity, no constancy. I know what men are; how deceitful in their words; how unkind in their judgments. Yet this lower being within my being forever stretches out its longings to sensible things that deceive, and will not rest in Thee, who art all Truth. But I must be brought back to Thee through the sharp pangs of trial and tears. Spare me not, O Master! only do not punish with the deprivation of Thy Love!"

He rose up strengthened, yet with a premonition in his heart of great trials awaiting him. Who would dream of such tragic things under the heavy skies and the dull environments of life in Ireland?

CHAPTER VIII

OUR CONCERT

The winter stole in quietly, heralded by the white frosts of late October; and nothing occurred to disturb the quiet of the village, except that Father Letheby's horse, a beautiful bay, ran suddenly lame one evening, as he topped a hill, and a long reach of mountain lay before him on his way to a sick-call. There were, of course, a hundred explanations from as many amateurs as to the cause of the accident. Then a quiet farmer, who suspected something, found a long needle driven deep into the hoof. It had gone deeper and deeper as the action of the horse forced it, until it touched the quick, and the horse ran dead lame. The wound festered, and the animal had to be strung up with leather bands to the roof of his stable for three months. Father Letheby felt the matter acutely; but it was only to myself he murmured the one significant word, Ahriman.

Late one evening in November a deputation waited on me. It consisted of the doctor, the schoolmaster, and one or two young fellows, generally distinguished by their vocal powers at the public house, when they were asked for "their fisht and their song." The doctor opened negotiations.

I have a great regard for the doctor, and he knows it. He is a fine young fellow, a great student, and good and kind to the poor. I often spent a pleasant hour in his surgery over his microscope, where I saw wonderful things; but what has haunted me most is the recollection of a human brain, which the doctor had preserved in spirits, and on which he has given me several lectures. I remember well my sensations when I first held the soft, dark, pulpy ma.s.s in my hand. All that I had ever read in psychology and metaphysics came back to me. This is the instrument of G.o.d's masterpiece,--the human soul. Over these nodes and fissures it floated, like the spirit of G.o.d over the face of the deep.

Here, as on a beautiful instrument, the spirit touched the keys, and thought, like music, came forth; and here were impressed indelibly ideas of the vast universe without, of time and eternity; yea, even of the Infinite and Transcendent,--of G.o.d. Hushed in the silence of prayer, here the soul brooded as a dove above its nest; and here in moments of temptation and repentance, it argued, reasoned, prayed, implored the inferior powers that rebelled or recanted beneath. With what sublime majesty it ruled and swayed the subjects that owned its imperial dominion; and how it touched heaven on the one hand for pity, and earth on the other in power! And when the turbulent pa.s.sions raged and stormed, it soothed and quelled their rebellion; and then, in recompense to itself, it went out and up towards the celestials, and joined its emanc.i.p.ated sisters before the great white throne, and drank in peace and the blessedness of calm from the silences and worship of Heaven.

Where is that soul now? Whither has it gone? Silent is the instrument, just crumbling to inevitable decay. But where in the boundless ocean of s.p.a.ce is the deathless spirit that once ruled it in majesty, and drew from it music whose echoes roll through eternity? And how has science mapped and parcelled it, like a dead planet. Here is the "island of Reil," here the "pons Varolii"; here is the "arbor vitae"; and here is the "subarachnoid s.p.a.ce"; and here that wonderful contrivance of the great Designer that regulates the arterial supplies. I lift my hat reverentially and whisper, _Laudate_!