The Poor Mouth Part 5

DURING the year that followed Mrs Crotty's death, the atmosphere of the house changed somewhat. Annie joined some sort of a little club, probably composed mostly of women who met every afternoon to play cards or discuss household matters. She seemed to be-heavens!- coming out of her sh.e.l.l. Mr Collopy returned to his mysterious work with renewed determination, not infrequently having meetings of his committee in our kitchen after warning everybody that this deliberative chamber was out of bounds for that evening. From an upper window I occasionally saw the arrival of his counsellors. Two elderly ladies and the tall, gaunt man of the funeral came, also Mr Rafferty with a young lady who looked to me, in the distance at least, to be pretty.

The brother went from strength to strength and eventually reached the stage of prosperity that is marked by borrowing money for industrial expansion. From little bits of information and from inference, I understood that he had borrowed 400 short-term with interest at twenty per cent. A quick turn-over, no matter how small the profit, was the brother's business axiom. He happened to read of the discovery in an old English manor house of 1,500 two-volume sets of a survey in translation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavaedra, his work and times. The volumes are very elegant, bound in leather and handsomely ill.u.s.trated; the first contained an account of the life of Cervantes, the second extracts from his major works. These volumes were printed and published in Paris in 1813, with a consignment apparently shipped to England, stored and forgotten. A London bookseller bought the lot for a small sum and to him the brother wrote offering 3s. 6d. cash per set for the whole consignment. At the time I thought the transaction foolhardy, for surely the London man could be presumed to have had a clear idea of the market. But once again the brother seemed to know what he was about. Using the name of the Simplex Nature Press, he put advertis.e.m.e.nts into English newspapers recklessly praising the work as to content and format, and also making the public an astonishingly generous offer, viz., any person buying Volume I for 6s. 6d. would also get Volume II for absolutely nothing. The offer, which was of limited duration, could not be repeated. No fewer than 2,500 acceptances reached him, quite a few from colleges, and he was many times later to adopt this system of enticement, offering something for nothing. The deal showed a clear profit of about 121. It also indirectly affected myself, for when wooden packing cases began to arrive full of those memorials of Cervantes, he politely suggested that I should take my bed and other gear to another room which was empty, as the original room was now his 'office' as well as his bedroom. I had no objection to this move, and agreed. Unfortunately the first four packing cases arrived when both myself and the brother were out, and Mr Collopy had to sign for them. I was the first to arrive home to find them piled in the kitchen. Mr Collopy was frowning from his chair.

In G.o.d's name, he said loudly, what is that bucko up to?

I don't know. I think there are books in those cases.

Books? Well now! What sort of books is he peddling? Are they dirty books?

Oh I don't think so. They might be Bibles.

Faith and that would take me to the fair altogether. You heard what he said about the pious and G.o.dly Christian Brothers some months ago. Now by the j.a.ppers he is all for being a missionary to the n.i.g.g.e.rs in Black Africa or maybe the Injuns. Well, there's no doubt about it, we rare up strange characters in this country. I don't think he knows anything about the Word of G.o.d. I'm not sure that he knows even his prayers.

My mention of the Bible was only a guess, I protested.

Mr Collopy had risen and was at the press in search of his crock and gla.s.s. Fortified with them, he sat down again.

We'll see what's in them all in good time, he announced sternly, and if those books are dirty books, lascivious peregrinations on the fringes of filthy indecency, cloacal spewings in the face of Providence, with pictures of prost.i.tutes in their pelts, then out of this house they will go and their owner along with them. You can tell him that if you see him first. And I would get Father Fahrt to exorcise all fiendish contaminations in this kitchen and bless the whole establishment. Do you hear me?

Yes, I hear.

Where is he now?

I don't know. He is a very busy man. Perhaps he is at confession.

The what was that?

He might be seeing the clergy on some abstruse theological point.

Well, I'll abstruse him if he is up to any tricks because this is a G.o.d-fearing house.

I sat down to attack my loathsome homework with the idea of being free at eight o'clock so that I could meet a few of the lads for a game of cards. Mr Collopy sat down quietly sipping his whiskey and gazing at the glare of the fire.

It was about eleven when I got home that night, to find no trace of Mr Collopy nor the piled boxes. Next morning I learnt that Mr Collopy had gone to bed early and the brother, arriving home about ten, went out again to summon Mr Hanafin to a.s.sist him in getting the boxes up to his office. No doubt the reward was a handsome tip, though a soiled gla.s.s in the sink suggested that further recompense from the crock had been sought by either Mr Hanafin or the brother himself. I warned the latter, before I set off for school, of Mr Collopy's dire suspicions about the books and the threats to fire him out of the house. Was Cervantes an immoral writer?

No, the brother said grimly, but I won't be long here in any case. I think I know how to fix the oul divil. Have a look at these books.

They were thick octavo volumes of real beauty in an old-fashioned way, and there were many clear pictures of the woodcut kind. If only as an adornment to bookshelves, they were surely good value for six and sixpence.

Later in the day the brother cunningly inscribed a dedication to Mr Collopy in each volume and ceremoniously presented them in the kitchen.

At first, he told me, he was mollified, then he was delighted and said I had very true taste. Cervantes, he said, was the Aubrey de Vere of Spain. His Don Quixote was an immortal masterpiece of the cla.s.sics, clearly inspired by Almighty G.o.d. He told me not to fail to send a copy to Father Fahrt. I had to laugh. There's a pair of humbugs in it. Can you give me a hand to do some packing? I have bought a load of brown paper.

I had to, of course.

It was a peculiarity of the brother never to stop in his tracks or rest on his oars. In a matter of days he was back at work in his private mine, the National Library.

After some weeks he asked my opinion of three ma.n.u.scripts he had compiled for issue as small books by the Simplex Nature Press. The first was the 'Odes and Epodes of Horace done into English Prose by Dr Calvin Knottersley, D.Litt.(Oxon)'; the second was 'Clinical Notes on Pott's Fracture, by Ernest George Maude, M.D., F.R.C.S.'; and the third was 'Swimming and Diving. A Manly and n.o.ble Art, by Lew Paterson'. It was clear that these compositions were other people's work rehashed but I offered no comment other than a warning of the folly of making Dr Maude a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. A register of such Fellows was in existence, and somebody was bound to check.

How do you know there isn't a Fellow named Maude? the brother asked.

So much the worse if there is, I answered.

But I noticed later that the doctor had lost that honour.

10.

IT was a vile night as we sat in the kitchen, Mr Collopy and I. He was slumped at the range in his battered arm-chair, reading the paper. I was at the table, indolently toying with school exercises, sometimes pausing to reflect on the possibilities of getting a job. I was really sick of the waste of time known as study, a futile messing about with things which did not concern me, and I rather envied the brother's free, almost gay, life. I could sense his growing maturity and his determination to make money, a lot of it, as quickly as possible without undue worry as to the methods used. This night he was out, possibly conferring on some new deal in a public house. Annie was also out.

There was a knock and I admitted Father Fahrt. Mr Collopy greeted him without rising.

Evening, Father. And isn't it a caution!

Ah yes, Collopy, but we had a good summer, thank G.o.d. You and I don't go out much, anyway.

I think we deserve a smahan, Father, to keep the winter out of us.

As Father Fahrt produced his pipe, now a treasured solace, Mr Collopy dragged himself up, went to the press and took down the crock, two gla.s.ses, and fetched a jug of water.

Now, he said.

Drinks were poured and delicately savoured.

I will tell you a funny one, Father, Mr Collopy said. A d.a.m.n funny one. I will give you a laugh. We had a committee meeting last Wednesday. Mrs Flaherty was there. She told us all about her dear friend, Emmeline Pankhurst. Now there is a bold rossie for you if you like, but she's absolutely perfectly right. She'll yet do down that scoundrel, Lloyd George. I admire her.

She has courage, Father Fahrt agreed.

But wait till you hear. When we got down to our own business, discussing ways and means and ekcetera, out comes the bold Mrs Flaherty with her plan. Put a b.u.mb under the City Hall!

Lord save us!

Blow all that b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up. Slaughter them. Blast them limb from limb. If they refuse to do their duty to the ratepayers and to humanity. They do not deserve to live. If they were in ancient Rome they would be crucified.

But Collopy, I thought you were averse to violence?

That may be, Father, That may well be. But Mrs Flaherty isn't. She would do all those crooked corporators in in double quick time. What she calls for is action.

Well, Collopy, I trust you explained the true att.i.tude to her-your own att.i.tude. Agitation, persistent exposure of the true facts, reprimand of the negligence of the Corporation, and the rousing of public opinion. Whatever Mrs Flaherty could do on those lines, now that she is at large, there is little she could do if she were locked up in prison.

She wouldn't be the first in this country, Father, who went to prison for an ideal. It's a habit with some people here.

For public agitation you must be in the middle of the public. They must see you.

How would the Church look on Mrs Flaherty's scheme?

I have no doubt it would merit strong condemnation and censure. Such a thing would be highly sinful. I think it could be cla.s.sed as murder. It is not lawful to kill to ameliorate public misrule or negligence. a.s.sa.s.sination is never justified. One must put one's trust in elections and the vote, not in shedding human blood.

I fear, Father Fahrt, that that is the gospel of chicks and goslings. My forebears were brave, strong-arm fellows. And what about the early Christian martyrs. They thought nothing of shedding their own blood in defence of a principle. Give me your gla.s.s.

There is no comparison, of course. Thanks.

Now listen here, Father. Listen carefully. This is the first part of November. In the year 1605 in England, King James the First was persecuting the Catholics, throwing them into prison and plundering their property. It was diabolical, worse than in Elizabeth's time. The R.C.s were treated like dogs, and their priests like pigs. It would put you in mind of the Roman emperors, except that a thullabawn like Nero could at least boast that he was providing public entertainment. Well, what happened?

James was a very despicable monarch, Father Fahrt said slowly.

I will tell you what happened. A man named Robert Catesby thinks to himself that we've had as much of this sort of carry-on as we're going to take. And he thought of the same plan as Mrs Flaherty. He planned to blow up the parliament house and annihilate the whole b.l.o.o.d.y lot of the bosthoons, His Majesty included. I know the thanks you'd get if you told him to busy himself with elections and votes. He'd slap your face and give you a knee in the belly. Remember, remember the Fifth of November.

They lived in another age, of course, Father Fahrt answered.

Right and wrong don't change with the times and you know that very well, Father. Catesby got Guy Fawkes on his side, a brave man that was fighting in Flanders. And Grant and Keyes and the two Winters, any G.o.d's amount of sound men, Romans all. Fawkes was the kingpin and the head bottlewasher of the whole outfit. He managed to get a ton and a half of gunpowder stuffed into a cellar under the House of Lords. But there were two other men lending a good hand all the time and saying G.o.d bless the work. I mean Greenway and Garnet. Know who they were, Father?

I think I do.

Of course you do. They were Jesuits. Hah?

My dear man, Jesuits also can make mistakes. They can err in judgement. They are human.

Faith then they didn't err in judgement when Guy Fawkes was found out. They scooted like greased lightning and Father Greenway and another priest managed to get to a healthier country. Father Garnet was not so alive to himself. He got caught and for his pains he got a length of hempen rope for himself, on the gallows high.

A martyr for the Faith, of course, Father Fahrt said evenly.

And Fawkes. They gave him tortures you wouldn't see outside h.e.l.l itself to make him give the names of the others. Be d.a.m.n but he wouldn't. But when he heard that Catesby and a crowd of his segocias had been chased, caught and killed, he broke down and made some cla.s.s of a confession. But do you know what? When this rigmarole was put before him for signature, believe it or not but he couldn't sign it. The torture had him banjaxed altogether. His hands were all broken be the thumbscrews. What's your opinion of that?

The torture Fawkes so heroically endured, Father Fahrt said, was admittedly appalling and terrifying, the worst torture that the head of man could think of. It was called per gradus ad ima. He was subjected to it by direct order of the King. He was very brave.

I needn't tell you he and several others got the high jump. But Lord save us, poor Fawkes couldn't climb up the ladder to the gallows, he was so badly bet and broken up in the torture. He had to be carried up. And he was hanged outside the building he tried to blow up for the greater glory of G.o.d.

I suppose that's true enough, Father Fahrt said meekly.

For the greater glory of G.o.d. How's this you put Latin on that?

Ad majorem Dei gloriam. It is our own Society's watchword.

Quite right. A.M.D.G. Many a time I've heard it. But if blowing up councillors is bad and sinful as you said, how do you account for two Jesuits, maybe three, being guilty of that particular transaction, waging war on the civil power? Isn't Mrs Flaherty in the same boat as Mr Fawkes?

I have pointed out, Collopy, that events and opinions vary drastically from one era to another. People are influenced by quite different things in dissimilar ages. It is difficult, even impossible, for the people of today to a.s.sess the stresses and atmosphere of Fawkes's day. Cicero was a wise and honest man and yet he kept slaves. The Greeks were the most sophisticated and civilized people of antiquity, but morally a great many of them were lepers. With them sins of the flesh was a nefarious preoccupation. But that does not invalidate the wisdom and beauty of the things many of them left behind them. Art, poetry, literature, architecture, philosophy and political systems, these were formulated and developed in the midst of debauchery. I have-ah-ha-sometimes thought that a degraded social climate is essential to inspire great men to achievement in the arts.

Mr Collopy put down his gla.s.s and spoke somewhat sternly, wagging a finger.

Now look at here, Father Fahrt, he said, I'm going to say something I've said in other ways before. Bed.a.m.n but I don't know that I can trust you men at all. Ye are for ever tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and adjudicating yourselves to the new winds that do blow. In case of doubt, send for a Jesuit. For your one doubt he will give you twenty new ones and his talk is always full of 'ifs' and 'buts', rawmaish and pseudo-theology. The word I have heard used for that sort of thing is casuistry. Isn't that right? Casuistry.

There is such a word but it's not true in this case.

Oh now you can always trust a Jesuit to make mischief and complicate simple things.

That word Jesuit. Our founder Ignatius was a Spaniard and had a different name for the Order, but it was called Societas Jesu by command of the Holy Father Paul III. Originally the t.i.tle Jesuit was one of hatred and contempt. What was intended as an insult we accepted as a compliment.

I suppose that's what I mean-you are for ever double-thinking and double-talking. You slither everywhere like quicksilver. There's no pinning a Jesuit down. Then we're told it is a mendicant order. Sure there isn't a better-got collection of men on the face of the earth, churches and palaces all over the world. I know a thing or two. I've read books. I'll tell you something about 35 Lower Leeson Street, the poor cave you hid in yourself.

What?

The emaciated friars in that place have red wine with their dinners. That's more than Saint Peter himself had. But Saint Peter got himself into a sort of a divarsion with a c.o.c.k. The holy fathers below in Clongowes Wood know all about c.o.c.ks, too. They have them roasted and they eat them at dinner. And they are great men for scoffing claret.

Such talk is most unworthy. We eat and drink according to our means. The suggestion that we are, well ... sybarites and gluttons is nonsense. And offensive nonsense, Collopy. I do not like such talk.

Well, is that so? Mr Collopy said testily. Is criticizing the Jesuits a new sin? Would you give somebody five rosaries in the confessional for that? Faith then, if criticizing the Jesuits is a fall from grace, let us say a Hail Mary for the repose of the soul of Pope Paul IV, for he told Ignatius Loyola that there were a lot of things wrong with the Order that would have to be put right. Did you know that? And did Ignatius bend the knee in front of the Holy Father? Not on your life. Give me your d.a.m.n gla.s.s.

Thanks. I do not say that Ignatius was without fault. Neither was Peter. But Ignatius was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV, only sixty-six years after his death. He is now in Paradise.

You know he died without the last rites?

I do. He was called suddenly. He was weak of body but his labours in this world were prodigious, and n.o.body can take from him credit for the great deed of founding the Order, which is now and ever has been the intellectual vanguard of the Catholic Church.

I wouldn't say the story is quite so simple as that, Father Fahrt. By Dad, the same Order caused a lot of bad b.l.o.o.d.y ructions at one time.

The Fathers are all over the world, they speak and write in all languages, they have built a wonderful apparatus for the propagation of the faith.

Some people at one time thought they were trying to banjax and bewilder the One, Holy and Apostolic. Oh and there are good people who are alive today and think the Church had a very narrow escape from the boyos of yesteryear.

I know it is useless asking who those important people are.

In the days of my youth I met a Jesuit in Belfast and he said the Jesuits were the cause of the Franco-Prussian War and the Boer War, for ever meddling in politics, and keeping a sharp eye out for Number One-money.

Do you tell me so? A Jesuit?

Yes, a Jesuit. He was a married man, of course.

Some dreadful apostate, you mean?

He was a most religious man, and told me he hoped his daughter would become a nun.

You must have been talking to the ghost of Martin Luther.

I think the Jesuits are jealous of Luther. He also tried to destroy the Catholic Church. I often think he made a better attempt than you people did.

Dear me, Collopy, you are very irresponsible. If you talked like that among strangers, you would be in grave danger of giving scandal, of leading others on to sin. You should be more circ.u.mspect.

I am as fond of my altar and my home, Father Fahrt, as the next. But I revere truth. I love truth.

Well, that is good news.