My New Curate Part 11

"You mistake my meaning," I interrupted. "What I was about to say was this,--when young men give their services gratuitously, and undertake great labor in the cause of religion and charity, it would be most unfair to expect that they would also make a pecuniary sacrifice."

They looked relieved.

"Now, I have reason to know that you all have undergone great expense in connection with this concert."

There was a smirk of pharisaical satisfaction on their faces.

"But I cannot allow it. My conscience would not permit me. I see no record in this balance-sheet of the three dozen of Guinness that was ordered for the dressing-room. And there is not a word about the box of Havanas, which William Mescal ordered specially from Dublin; nor any mention of the soda-water and accompaniments that were hauled up in a basket through the back window. Really, I cannot allow it, gentlemen, your generosity is overpowering--"

The deep silence made me look around. They had vanished. I opened the brown parcel, and counted four s.h.i.+llings and eleven-pence halfpenny in coppers.

CHAPTER IX

SEVERELY REPRIMANDED

It was quite impossible that these changes or innovations could take place without a certain amount of reclamation, to use the theological expression, amongst the brethren. We are a conservative race, and our conservatism has been eminently successful in that matter of supreme moment,--the preservation of the faith and the purity of our people. It is difficult, therefore, to see the necessity of change, to meet the exigencies of the times, and the higher demands of the nation and the race. Yet we have been forewarned a hundred times that we cannot put new wine into old bottles, and that a spirit is stirring amongst our people that must become unbridled and incontinent if not guided by new methods and new ideas. This is not intuitive wisdom on my part. It is gathered slowly and painfully amongst the thorns of experience.

But I cannot say I was too surprised when, one morning, an old and most valued friend called on me, and revealed his anxiety and perturbation of spirit by some very deep remarks about the weather. We agreed wonderfully on that most harmonious topic, and then I said:--

"You have something on your mind?"

"To be candid with you, Father Dan," he replied, a.s.suming a sudden warmth, "I have. But I don't like to be intrusive."

"Oh, never mind," I replied. "I am always open to fraternal correction."

"You know," he continued nervously, "we are old friends, and I have always had the greatest interest in you--"

"For goodness' sake, Father James," I said, "spare me all that. That is all _subintellectum_, as the theologians say when they take a good deal for granted."

"Well, then," said he,--for this interruption rather nettled him,--"to be very plain with you, your parish is going to the dogs. You are throwing up the sponge and letting this young man do what he likes. Now, I can tell you the people don't like it, the priests don't like it, and when he hears it, as he is sure to hear it, the Bishop won't like it either."

"Well, Father James," I said slowly, "pa.s.sing by the mixed metaphors about the dogs and the sponge, what are exactly the specific charges made against this young man?"

"Everything," he replied vaguely. "We don't want young English mashers coming around here to teach old priests their business. We kept the faith--"

"Spare me that," I said. "And don't say a word about the famine years.

That episode, and the grandeur of the Irish priests, is written in Heaven. We want a Manzoni to tell it,--that is, if we would not prefer to leave it unrecorded, except in the great book,--which is G.o.d's memory."

He softened a little at this.

"Now," said I, "you are a wise man. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to pitch into that young fellow," he said, "to cuff him and make him keep his place."

"Very good. But be particular. Tell me, what am I to say?"

"Say? Tell him you'll stand no innovations in your parish. _Nil innovetur, nisi quod prius traditum est._ Tell him that he must go along with all the other priests of the diocese and conform to the general regulations,--_Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. Tell him that young men must know their place; and then take up the _Selva_, or the Fathers, and prove it to him."

"G.o.d bless you!" said I, thankfully and humbly. "You have taken a load off my heart. Now, let me see would this do."

I took down from the dusty shelves a favorite little volume,--a kind of Anthology of the early Fathers, and I opened it.

"We'll try the _sortes Virgilianae_" I said, and read slowly and with emphasis:--

"At nunc, etiam sacerdotes Dei, omissis Evangeliis et Prophetis, vidimus comdias legere, amatoria Bucolicorum versuum verba cantare, tenere Virgilium, et id quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se facere voluptatis."

"That's not bad," said my hearer, critically, whilst I held the book open with horror and amazement. "That applies to him, I'm sure. But what's the matter, Father Dan? You are not ill?"

"No," said I, "I'm not; but I'm slightly disconcerted. That anathema strikes me between the two eyes. What else have I been doing for fifty years but thumbing Horace and Virgil?"

"Oh, never mind," he said, airily. "Who wrote that? That's extreme, you know."

"An altogether wise and holy man, called St. Jerome," I said.

"Ah, well, he was a crank. I don't mean that. That sounds disrespectful.

But he was a reformer, you know."

"A kind of innovator, like this young man of mine?" I said.

"Ah, well, try some sensible saint. Try now St. Bernard. He was a wise, gentle adviser."

I turned to St. Bernard, and read:--

"Lingua magniloqua--ma.n.u.s otiosa!

Sermo multus--fructus nullus!

Vultus gravis--actus levis!

Ingens auctoritas--nutans stabilitas!"

That hit my friend between the eyes. The auguries were inauspicious. He took up his hat.

"You are not going?" said I, reaching for the bell. "I am just sending for Father Letheby to let you see how I can cuff him--"

"I--I--must be going," he said; "I have a sick-call--that is--an engagement--I--er--expect a visitor--will call again. Good day."

"Stay and have a gla.s.s of wine!" I said.

"No, no, many thanks; the mare is young and rather restive. _Au revoir!_"

"_Au revoir!_" I replied, as I took up my hat and gold-headed cane and set out to interview and reprimand my curate. Clearly, something should be done, and done quickly. There was a good deal of talk abroad, and I was supposed to be sinking into a condition of senile incompetence. It is quite true that I could not challenge my curate's conduct in a single particular. He was in all things a perfect exemplar of a Christian priest, and everything he had done in the parish since his arrival contributed to the elevation of the people and the advancement of religion. But it wouldn't do. Every one said so; and, of course, every one in these cases is right. And yet there was some secret misgiving in my mind that I should do violence to my own conscience were I to check or forbid Father Letheby's splendid work; and there came a voice from my own dead past to warn me: "See that you are not opposing the work of the right hand of the Most High."

These were my doubts and apprehensions as I moved slowly along the road that led in a circuitous manner around the village and skirted the path up to the school-house. I woke from my unpleasant reverie to hear the gentle murmur of voices, moving rhythmically as in prayer; and in a short bend of the road I came face to face with the children leaving school. I had been accustomed to seeing these wild, bare-legged mountaineers breaking loose from school in a state of subdued frenzy, leaping up and down the side ditches, screaming, yelling, panting, with their elf-locks blinding their eyes, and their bare feet flas.h.i.+ng amid the green of gra.s.ses or the brown of the ditch-mould. They might condescend to drop me a courtesy, and then--anarchy, as before. Today they moved slowly, with eyes bent modestly on the ground, three by three, and all chanting in a sweet, low tone--the Rosary. The centre girl was the coryphaeus with the "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys"; the others, the chorus. I stood still in amazement and challenged them:--

"I am happy to see my little children so well employed. How long since you commenced to say the Rosary thus in common?"

In a twinkling the solemnity vanished and I was surrounded by a chattering group.