My New Curate Part 2

It is many years since I was appointed to the parish of Kilronan. It happened in this wise. The Bishop, the old man, sent for me; and said, with what I would call a tone of pity or contempt, but he was incapable of either, for he was the essence of charity and sincerity:--

"Father Dan, you are a bit of a litterateur, I understand. Kilronan is vacant. You'll have plenty of time for poetizing and dreaming there.

What do you say to it?"

I put on a little dignity, and, though my heart was beating with delight, I quietly thanked his Lords.h.i.+p. But, when I had pa.s.sed beyond the reach of episcopal vision, which is far stretching enough, I spun my hat in the air, and shouted like a schoolboy: "Hurrah!"

You wonder at my ecstasies! Listen. I was a dreamer, and the dream of my life, when shut up in musty towns, where the atmosphere was redolent of drink, and you heard nothing but scandal, and saw nothing but sin,--the dream of my life was a home by the sea, with its purity and freedom, and its infinite expanse, telling me of G.o.d. For, from the time when as a child the roar of the surges set my pulse beating, and the scents of the weed and the brine would make me turn pale with pleasure, I used to pray that some day, when my life's work would be nearly done, and I had put in my years of honest labor in the dusty streets, I might spend my declining years in the peace of a seaside village, and go down to my grave, washed free from the contaminations of life in the daily watching and loving of those

"Moving waters at their priestlike task Of cold ablution round earth's human sh.o.r.es."

My wish was realized, and I was jubilant.

Returning home by train, when my emotion had calmed down, my mind could not help recurring to the expression used by the Bishop; and it suggested the following reflections: How has it come to pa.s.s in Ireland that "poet" and "saint" are terms which denote some weakness or irregularity in their possessors? At one time in our history we know that the bard was second only to the King in power and influence; and are we not vaguely proud of that t.i.tle the world gives us,--Island of Saints? Yet, nowadays, through some fatal degeneracy, a poet is looked upon as an idealist, an unpractical builder of airy castles, to whom no one would go for advice in an important matter, or intrust with the investment of a five-pound note. And to speak of a man or woman as a "saint" is to hint at some secret imbecility, which it would be charitable to pa.s.s over in silence. I was quite well aware, therefore, on that day, when I had the secret pleasure and the sublime misfortune of seeing my name in print over some wretched verses, that I was ruining my prospects in life. The fact of being a litterateur, although in the most modest and hidden manner, stamped me as a volatile, flighty creature, who was no more to be depended upon than a feather in the wind; or, as the Italians say, _qu' al piume al vento_. It is a curious prejudice, and a purely insular one. And sometimes I think, or rather I used to think, that there was something infinitely grotesque in these narrow ideas, that shut us out from sympathy with the quick moving, subtle world as completely as if we were fakirs by the banks of the sacred Ganges. For what does modern literature deal with? Exactly those questions of philosophy, ethics, and morality which form the staple material of theological studies and discussions in our own colleges and academies. Novels, poetry, essays, lectures, treatises on the natural sciences,--all deal with the great central questions of man's being, his origin, and his conduct. And surely it is folly to ignore these discussions in the market places of the world, because they are literature, and not couched in scholastic syllogisms. Dear me! I am philosophizing,--I, old Daddy Dan, with the children plucking at my coat-tails and the brown snuff staining my waistcoat, and, ah, yes! the place already marked in my little chapel, where I shall sleep at last. I must have been angry, or gloomy, that day, thirty years ago, when I stepped on the platform at M----, after my interview with the Bishop, and met my friends, who had already become aware that I was elevated out of the junior ranks, and had become an independent officer of the Church Militant.

"You don't mean to say that you have accepted that awful place?" said one.

"You'll have nothing but fish to eat," said another. "The butcher's van goes there but once a week."

"And no society but fishermen," said a third. "And they speak nothing but Irish, and you know you cannot bless yourself in Irish."

"Well," I replied, "my Job's comforters, I have accepted Kilronan, and am going there. If all things go well, and you are good boys, I may ask for some of you as curate--"

"You'll be glad to get a curacy yourself in six months," they shouted in chorus.

And so I came to Kilronan, and here have I been since. The years have rolled by swiftly. Life is a coach, whose wheels move slowly and painfully at the start; but, once set moving, particularly when going down the deep decline of life, the years move so swiftly you cannot see the spokes in the wheels, which are the days we number so sadly. What glorious resolutions I made the first months of my residence here! How I would read and write and burn the midnight oil, and astonish the world, and grow from dignity to dignity into an honored old age! Alas!

circ.u.mstances are too much for us all, and here I am, in my seventieth year, poor old Daddy Dan, with no great earthly trouble, indeed, and some few consolations,--my breviary and the grand psalms of hope,--my daily Ma.s.s and its hidden and unutterable sweetness,--the love of little children and their daily smiles,--the prayers of my old women, and, I think, the reverence of the men. But there comes a little sting sometimes, when I see young priests, who served my Ma.s.ses long ago, standing in cathedral stalls in all the glory of purple and ermine, and when I see great parishes pa.s.sing into the hands of mere boys, and poor old Daddy Dan pa.s.sed over in silence. I know, if I were really good and resigned, I would bless G.o.d for it all, and I do. But human nature will revolt sometimes, and people will say, "What a shame, Father Dan; why haven't you the red b.u.t.tons as well as so and so," or, "What ails the Bishop, pa.s.sing over one of the most learned men in the diocese for a parcel of gossoons!" I suppose it was my own fault. I remember what magnificent ideas I had. I would build factories, I would ferr the streets, I would establish a fis.h.i.+ng station and make Kilronan the favorite bathing resort on the western coast; I would write books and be, all round, a model of push, energy, and enterprise. And I did try. I might as well have tried to remove yonder mountain with a pitchfork, or stop the roll of the Atlantic with a rope of sand. Nothing on earth can cure the inertia of Ireland. It weighs down like the weeping clouds on the damp heavy earth, and there's no lifting it, nor disburthening of the souls of men of this intolerable weight. I was met on every side with a stare of curiosity, as if I were propounding something immoral or heretical. People looked at me, put their hands in their pockets, whistled dubiously, and went slowly away. Oh, it was weary, weary work!

The blood was stagnant in the veins of the people and their feet were shod with lead. They walked slowly, spoke with difficulty, stared all day at leaden clouds or pale sunlight, stood at the corners of the village for hours looking into vacuity, and the dear little children became old the moment they left school, and lost the smiles and the sunlight of childhood. It was a land of the lotos. The people were narcotized. Was it the sea air? I think I read somewhere in an old philosopher, called Berkeley, that the damp salt air of the sea has a curious phlegmatic effect on the blood, and will coagulate it and produce gout and sundry disorders. However that be, there was a weary weight on everything around Kilronan. The cattle slept in the fields, the fishermen slept in their coracles. It was a land of sleep and dreams.

I approached the agent about a foresh.o.r.e for the pier, for you cannot, in Ireland, take the most preliminary and initial step in anything without going, cap in hand, to the agent. I explained my intentions. He smiled, but was polite.

"Lord L----, you know, is either in Monte Carlo or yachting in the Levant. He must be consulted. I can do nothing."

"And when will his Lords.h.i.+p return?"

"Probably in two years."

"You have no power to grant a lease of the foresh.o.r.e, or even give temporary permission to erect a pier?"

"None whatever."

I went to the Presentment Sessions about a grant for paving or flagging the wretched street. I woke a nest of hornets.

"What! More taxation! Aren't the people crushed enough already? Where can we get money to meet rates and taxes? Flagging Kilronan! Oh, of course! Wouldn't your reverence go in for gas or the electric light?

Begor, ye'll be wanting a water supply next," etc., etc.

I applied to a factory a few miles distant to establish a local industry by cottage labor, which is cheap and remunerative.

"They would be delighted, but--" And so all my castles came tumbling down from the clouds, and left them black and lowering and leaden as before. Once or twice, later on, I made a few spasmodic efforts to galvanize the place into life; they, too, failed, and I accepted the inevitable. When Father Laverty came he helped me to bear the situation with philosophical calmness. He had seen the world, and had been rubbed badly in contact with it. He had adopted as his motto and watchword the fatal _Cui bono?_ And he had printed in large Gothic letters over his mantelpiece the legend:

'TWILL BE ALL THE SAME IN A HUNDRED YEARS.

And so I drifted, drifted down from high empyreans of great ideals and lofty speculations into a humdrum life, that was only saved from sordidness by the sacred duties of my office. After all, I find that we are not independent of our circ.u.mstances. We are fas.h.i.+oned and moulded by them as plaster of Paris is fas.h.i.+oned and moulded into angels or gargoyles by the deft hand of the sculptor. "Thou shalt lower to his level," true of the wife in Locksley Hall, is true of all who are thrown by fate or fortune into unhappy environments. In my leisure moments, when I took up my pen to write, some evil spirit whispered, _Cui bono?_ and I laid down my pen and hid my ma.n.u.script. Once or twice I took up some old Greek poets and essayed to translate them. I have kept the paper still, frayed and yellow with age; but the fatal _Cui bono?_ disheartened me, and I flung it aside. Even my love for the sea had vanished, and I had begun to hate it. During the first few years of my ministry I spent hours by the cliffs and sh.o.r.es, or out on the heaving waters. Then the loneliness of the desert and barren wastes repelled me, and I had begun to loathe it. Altogether I was soured and discontented, and I had a dread consciousness that my life was a failure. All its possibilities had pa.s.sed without being seized and utilized. I was the barren fig tree, fit only to be cut down. May I escape the fire! Such were my surroundings and disposition when Father Letheby came.

CHAPTER III

A NIGHT CALL

It must have been about two o'clock on Sunday morning, when the house bell was pulled violently and a rapid series of fierce, sharp knocks woke up the house. What priest does not know that tocsin of the night, and the start from peaceful slumbers? I heard the housekeeper wake up Father Letheby; and in a short time I heard him go down stairs. Then there was the usual hurried colloquy at the hall door, then the retreating noises of galloping feet. I pulled the blankets around my shoulders, lifted the pillow, and said, "Poor fellow!" He had to say last Ma.s.s next day, and this was some consolation, as he could sleep a few hours in the morning. I met him at breakfast about half past one o'clock. There he was, clean, cool, cheerful, as if nothing had happened.

"I was sorry you had that night call," I said; "how far had you to go?"

"To some place called Knocktorisha," he replied, opening his egg; "'t was a little remote, but I was well repaid."

"Indeed," said I; "the poor people are very grateful. And they generally pay for whatever trouble they give."

He flushed up.

"Oh, I didn't mean any pecuniary recompense," he said, a little nettled. "I meant that I was repaid by the extraordinary faith and fervor of the people."

I waited.

"Why, Father," said he, turning around and flicking a few invisible crumbs with his napkin, "I never saw anything like it. I had quite an escort of cavalry, two hors.e.m.e.n, who rode side by side with me the whole way to the mountain, and then, when we had to dismount and climb up through the boulders of some dry torrent course, I had two linkmen or torchbearers, leaping on the crest of the ditch on either side, and lighting me right up to the door of the cabin. It was a picture that Rembrandt might have painted."

He paused and blushed a little, as if he had been pedantic.

"But tell me, Father," said he, "is this the custom in the country?"

"Oh yes," said I; "we look upon it as a matter of course. Your predecessors didn't make much of it."

"It seems to me," he said, "infinitely picturesque and beautiful. It must have been some tradition of the Church when she was free to practise her ceremonies. But where do they get these torches?"

"Bog-oak, steeped in petroleum," I said. "It is, now that you recall it, very beautiful and picturesque. Our people will never allow a priest, with the Blessed Sacrament with him, to go unescorted."

"Now that you have mentioned it," he said, "I distinctly recall the custom that existed among the poor of Salford. They would insist always on accompanying me home from a night sick-call. I thought it was superfluous politeness, and often insisted on being alone, particularly as the streets were always well lighted. But no. If the men hesitated, the women insisted; and I had always an escort to my door. But this little mountain ceremony here is very touching."

"Who was sick?"

"Old Conroy,--a mountain ranger, I believe. He is very poorly; and I anointed him." "By Jove," said he after a pause, "how he did pray,--and all in Irish. I could imagine the old Hebrew prophets talking to G.o.d from their mountains just in that manner. But why do they expect to be anointed on the breast?"

"I do not know," I replied, "I think it is a Gallican custom introduced by the French refugee priests at the beginning of the century. The people invariably expect it."

"But you don't?" he asked in surprise.

"Oh dear, no. It would be hardly orthodox. Come, and if you are not too tired, we'll have a walk."