The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 54

"For what?"

"For the priest's body, sir, in the first place, and then for the pocket-book and pistols."

"If I were a little stronger," replied the baronet, in an angry voice, "I would write the receipt upon your own body with a strong horsewhip; begone, you impudent scoundrel!"

Skipton turned upon him a bitter and vindictive look, and replied, "Oh, very well, sir--come, Tom, you are witness that I did my duty."

Sir Thomas on entering the study threw himself listlessly on a sofa, and desired Gibson to retire.

"Take a seat, sir," said he, addressing Father M'Mahon. "I am far from well, and must rest a little before I speak to you; I know not what is the matter with me, but I feel all out of sorts."

He then drew a long breath, and laid his head upon his hand, as if to recover more clearly the powers of his mind and intellect. His eyes, full of thought not unmingled with anxiety, were fixed upon the carpet, and he seemed for a time wrapped in deep and painful abstraction. At length he raised himself up, and drawing his breath apparently with more freedom began the conversation.

"Well, sir," said he, in a tone that implied more of authority and haughtiness than of courtesy or gentlemanly feeling; "it seems the property of which I have been robbed has come into your possession."

"It is true, sir; and allow me to place it in your own hands exactly as I got it. I took the precaution to seal the pocket-book the moment it was returned to me, and although it was for a short time in possession of the officers of justice, yet it is untouched, and the seal I placed on it unbroken."

The baronet's hand, as he took the pocket-book, trembled with an agitation which he could not repress, although he did everything in his power to subdue it: his eye glittered with animation, or rather with delight, as he broke the seal.

"It was very prudently and correctly done of you, sir, to seal up the pocket-book; very well done, indeed: and I am much obliged to you so far, although we must have some conversation upon the matter immediately--"

"I only did what, as a Catholic clergyman, Sir Thomas, and an honest man, I conceived to be my duty."

"What--what--what's this?" exclaimed the baronet, his eye blazing with rage and disappointment. "In the name of h.e.l.l's fire, sir, what is this? My money is not all here! There is a note, sir, a one pound note wanting; a peculiar note, sir; a marked note; for I always put a marked note among my money, to provide against the contingency of such a robbery as I sustained. Pray, sir, what has become of that note? I say, priest, the whole pocket-book ten times multiplied, was not worth a fig compared with the value I placed upon that note."

"How much did you lose, Sir Thomas?" asked the priest calmly.

"I lost sixty-nine pounds, sir."

"Well, then," continued the other, "would it not be well to see whether that sum is in the pocket-book. You have not yet reckoned the money."

"The note I speak of was in a separate compartment; in a different fold of the book; apart from the rest."

"But perhaps it has got among them? Had you not better try, sir?"

"True," replied the other; and with eager and trembling hands he examined them note by note; but not finding that for which he sought, he stamped with rage, and dashing the pocket-book, notes and all, against the floor, he ground his teeth, and approaching the priest with the white froth of pa.s.sion rising to his lips, exclaimed, "Hark you, priest, if you do not produce the missing note, I shall make you bitterly repent it! You know where it is, sir! You could understand from the note itself--" He paused, however, for he felt at once that he might be treading dangerous ground in entering into particulars. "I say, sir," he proceeded, with a look of menace and fury, "if you refuse to produce the note I speak of, or to procure it for me, I shall let you know to your cost what the power of British law can effect."

The priest rose up with dignity, his cheek heightened with that slight tinge, which a sense of unmerited insult and a consciousness of his own integrity render natural to man--so long as he is a man.

"Sir Thomas Gourlay," he proceeded, "upon your conduct and want of gentlemanly temper since I have entered this apartment it is not my intention to make any comment; but I need not tell you that the minister of G.o.d is received in Christian society with the respect due to his sacred office."

"Minister of the devil, sir," thundered the baronet; "do you think that I shall be influenced by this slavish cant? Where is the note I speak of? If you do not produce it, I shall consider you an accomplice after the fact, and will hold you responsible as such. Remember, you are but a Popish priest."

"That is a fact, sir, which I shall always recollect with an humble sense of my own unworthiness; but so long as I discharge its duties conscientiously and truly, I shall also recollect it with honor. Of the note you allude to in such unbecoming words, I know nothing; and as to your threats, I value them not."

"If you know nothing of the note, sir, you do certainly of the robber."

"I do, Sir Thomas; I know who the man is that robbed you."

"Well, sir," replied the other, triumphantly, "I am glad you have acknowledged so much. I shall force you to produce him. At least I shall take care that the law will make you do so."

"Sir Thomas Gourlay, I beg you to understand that there is a law beyond and above your law--the law of G.o.d--the law of Christian duty; and that you shall never force me to transgress. The man who robbed you in a moment of despair and madness, repented him of the crime; and the knowledge of that crime, and its consequent repentance were disclosed to me in one of the most holy ordinances of our religion."

"Is it one of the privileges of your religion to throw its veil over the commission of crime? If so, the sooner your religion is extirpated out of the land the better for society."

"No, sir, our religion does not throw its veil over the criminal, but over the penitent. We leave the laws of the land to their own resources, and aid them when we can; but in the case before us, and in all similar cases, we are the administrators of the laws of G.o.d to those who are truly penitent, and to none others. The test of repentance consists in reformation of life, and in making rest.i.tution to those who have been injured. The knowledge of this comes to us in administering the sacred ordinance of penance in the tribunal of confession; and sooner than violate this solemn compact between the mercy of G.o.d and a penitent heart, we would willingly lay down our lives. It is the most sacred of all trusts."

"Such an ordinance, sir, is a bounty and provocative to crime."

"It is a bounty and provocative to repentance, sir; and society has gained much and lost nothing by its operation. Remember, sir, that those who do not repent, never come to us to avow their crimes, in which case we are ignorant both of the crime and criminal. Here there is neither repentance, on the one hand, nor rest.i.tution, on the other, and society, of course, loses everything and gains nothing. In the other case, the person sustaining the injury gains that which he had lost, and society a penitent and reformed member. If, then, this sacred refuge for the penitent--not for the criminal, remember--had no existence, those rest.i.tutions of property which take place in thousands of cases, could never be made."

"Still, sir, you shield the criminal from his just punishment."

"No, sir; we never shield the criminal from his just punishment. G.o.d has promised mercy to him who repents, and we merely administer it without any reference to the operation of the law. It often happens, Sir Thomas Gourlay, that a person who has repented and made rest.i.tution, is taken hold of by the law and punished. This ordinance, therefore, does not stand between the law and its victim; it only deals between him and his G.o.d, leaving him, like any other offender, to the law he has violated."

"I am no theologian, sir; but without any reference to your priestly cant, I simply say, that the man who is cognizant of another's crime against the law, either of G.o.d or man, and who will shield him from justice, is _particeps criminis_, and I don't care a fig what your obsolete sacerdotal dogmas may a.s.sert to the contrary. You say you know the man who unjustly deprived me of my property; if then, acknowledging this, you refuse to deliver him up to justice, I hold you guilty of his crime. Suppose he had taken my life, as he was near doing, how, pray, would you have made rest.i.tution? Bring me to life again, I suppose, by a miracle. Away, sir, with this cant, which is only fit for the barbarity of the dark ages, when your church was a ma.s.s of crime, cruelty, and ignorance; and when a cunning and rapacious priesthood usurped an authority over both soul and body, ay, and property too, that oppressed and degraded human nature."

"I will reason no longer with you, sir," replied the priest; "because you talk in ignorance of the subject we are discussing--but having now discharged an important duty, I will take my leave."

"You may of me," replied the other; "but you will not so readily shift yourself out of the law."

"Any charge, sir, which either law or Justice may bring against me, I shall be ready to meet; and I now, for your information, beg to let you know that the law you threaten me with affords its protection to me and the cla.s.s to which I belong, in the discharge of this most sacred and important trust. Your threats, Sir Thomas, consequently, I disregard."

"The more shame for it if it does," replied the baronet; "but, hark you, sir, I do not wish, after all, that you and I should part on unfriendly terms. You refuse to give up the robber?"

"I would give up my life sooner."

"But could you not procure me the missing note?"

"Of the missing note, Sir Thomas Gourlay, I know nothing. I consequently neither can nor will make any promise to restore it."

"You may tell the robber from me," pursued the baronet, "that I will give him the full amount of his burglary, provided he restores me that note. The other sixty-nine pounds shall be his on that condition, and no questions asked."

"I have already told you, sir, that it was under the seal of confession the knowledge of the crime came to me. Out of that seal I cannot revert to the subject without betraying my trust; for, if he acknowledged his guilt to me under any other circ.u.mstances, it would become my duty to hand him over to the law."

"Curse upon all priests!" said the other indignantly; "they are all the same; a crew of cunning scoundrels, who attempt to subjugate the ignorant and the credulous to their sway; a pack of spiritual swindlers, who get possession of the consciences of the people through pious fraud, and then make slavish instruments of them for their own selfish purposes. In the meantime I shall keep my eye upon you, Mr. M'Mahon, and, believe me, if I can get a hole in your coat I shall make a rent of it."

"It is a poor privilege, sir, that of insulting the defenceless. You know I am doubly so--defenceless from age, defenceless in virtue of my sacred profession; but if I am defenceless against your insults, Sir Thomas Gourlay, I am not against your threats, which I despise and defy. The integrity of my life is beyond your power, the serenity of my conscience beyond your vengeance. You are not of my flock, but if you were, I would say, Sir Thomas, I fear you are a bold, bad man, and have much to repent of in connection with your past and present life--much reparation to make to your fellow-creatures. Yes; I would say, Sir Thomas Gourlay, the deep tempest of strong pa.s.sions within you has shaken your powerful frame until it totters to its fall. I would say, beware; repent while it is time, and be not unprepared for the last great event. That event, Sir Thomas, is not far distant, if I read aright the foreshadowing of death and dissolution that is evident in your countenance and frame. I speak these words in, I trust, a charitable and forgiving spirit. May they sink into your heart, and work it to a sense of Christian feeling and duty!

"This I would say were you mine--this I do say, knowing that you are not; for my charity goes beyond my church, and embraces my enemy as well as my friend;" and as he spoke he prepared co go.

"You may go, sir," replied the baronet, with a sneer of contempt, "only you have mistaken your man. I am no subject for your craft--not to be deceived by your hypocrisy--and laugh to scorn your ominous but impotent croaking. Only before you go, remember the conditions I have offered the scoundrel who robbed me; and if the theological intricacies of your crooked creed will permit you, try and get him to accept them. It will be better for him, and better for you too. Do this, and you may cease to look upon Sir Thomas Gourlay as an enemy."

The priest bowed, and without returning any reply left the apartment and took his immediate departure.

Sir Thomas, after he had gone, went to the gla.s.s and surveyed himself steadily. The words of the priest were uttered with much solemnity and earnestness; but withal in such a tone of kind regret and good feeling, that their import and impressiveness were much heightened by this very fact.

"There is certainly a change upon me, and not one for the better," he said to himself; "but at the same time the priest, cunning as he is, has been taken in by appearances. I am just sufficiently changed in my looks to justify and give verisimilitude to the game I am playing. When Lucy hears of my illness, which must be a serious one, nothing on earth will keep her from me; and if I cannot gain any trace to her residence, a short paragraph in the papers, intimating and regretting the dangerous state of my health, will most probably reach her, and have the desired effect. If she were once back, I know that, under the circ.u.mstances of my illness, and the impression that it has been occasioned by her refusal to marry Dunroe, she will yield; especially as I shall put the sole chances of my recovery upon her compliance. Yet why is it that I urge her to an act which will probably make her unhappy during life?