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CHAPTER XI.
Father Eusebius did not ride over to the Manuscript Man’s cabin as he had promised; for he was often ailing now, and a touch of illness disabled him shortly afterward. An old man, his health was broken, and many a warning had he that the tabernacle would some day be taken down, and the immortal tennant sent to house elsewhere.
The old priest bore the prospect tranquilly enough. It was the lot of all men; why should he repine? He troubled not himself as much about the future; his easy nature took things for granted very largely, and of course the Church must be all right. Theology of the Fathers and of the Schools had been well crammed into his brain at college in the Low Countries, and for many years concerned him not at all. It was lumber for the back-rooms of his mind; a necessary part of his professional education; and then he settled into the groove alloted for him, as parish priest of an extensive and wild district, where, remote from cities and their ways, he could indulge the quiet life that suited him best—the mild scholarship, the love of beautiful aspects of nature as seen on that grand, solitary coast, which furnishes perpetual variety with its unchanging black precipices, and ever changing iridescent surges, under a sky of the loveliest cloud-scenery in the world.
For there is scenery in the clouds, and Mr. Ruskin justly reproaches us that we raise our eyes so seldom to the heavens except for the sordid purpose of guessing at the weather. Over the wide Atlantic is a vast manufactory of vapour, as Ireland knows by her damp climate; but there is some recompense in the emerald verdure of her soil, in the gorgeous sunsets, steeped in every imaginable brilliancy of colour, in the moonrise through arches of pearl.
Father Eusebius had the artist’s eye of one who has looked at many pictures, and these effortless effects of sky and sea gave him pleasure that never palled. “These are thy glorious work, Parent of Good!” was at times the reflection of his grateful mind. He grew into a patriarch among his people, winning their love by his amiability and intimate knowledge of them all. He had a good memory for faces, and forgot nobody he had seen, and seldom the little facts about them. Nothing harsh could be ascribed to his government. He had a way of shifting all such procedure to the hands of other authorities; and whereas the Roman Church “is a regular system, formed for the purpose of conveying all power in heaven and earth to the ministers of that Church,” (as said Archbishop Sumner,) Father Eusebius bated no jot of his pretentions, though wielding his despotism mildly. Like an hereditary royalty his authority sat upon him, partly because he came of an ancient county family, and the peasants set great store by long descent, which they term “comin’ of the ould stock.” But the notion got among his ecclesiastical superiors that he was lax, sepecially in the pursuit of “Biblicals,” and in the matter of mixed marriages, where he thought it common justice that the Protestant parent should have some voice in the education of the children; therefore it was that a new Bishop of the diocese made up any suspected want of bigotry by placing Mr. Devenish as his coadjutor, who, in his last curacy, had successfully hunted out a Scripture reader, and quelled a few persons who were beginning to take the liberty of thinking for themselves.
In consequence of this zeal Father Eusebius heard a good many facts and fancies from his curate concerning the Manuscript Man as a tool of the Biblicals. He must look into the matter personally.
“Parrah, go you down to Donat Clare’s, and tell him I’ll be at the Fairy-Gun when it’s blowing this evening, above an hour before full tide, and for him to meet me there without fail, and to bring with him what we were talking about. Now, don’t let the grass grow under your feet.”
This he said to a red-headed, bare-legged boy, nephew of the housekeeper, who sustained the post of “gossoon” in the priests’ establishment, his duties being to run the numerous messages, black the boots, feed the pigs, take care of the poultry, weed the garden, and perform all the odds and ends of outdoor work in general. The admonition to speed was scarcely needed, for Parrah prided himself on being a sort of human telegraph in rapidity.
The Fairy-Gun was an orifice in the horizontal surface of the cliff, through which the surge was forced up into the air at certain stages of spring-tides, and certain states of the wind, assuming the appearance of a column of the finest mist spray, often wreathed on rainbows when the sun shone level. Father Eusebius knew that such a combination of tide, wind, and sunbeams was likely to occur on this special afternoon, and he would fain enjoy the sight, it being summer weather. In winter nothing that was not waterproof could stand near the spot when this ordinance of the sea was exploding and seeming to shake the earth with its thunder.
The pillar of mist did not spring very high to-day, because the breakers below were comparatively gentle in their onset; but the iris played about it very beautifully, rising and falling as if it were a spirit dancing in the spray, and the thunder was softened into a reverberative echo, deep, sonorious, almost musical. Our Manuscript Man lay on the grass, and watched the wonder till he heard the car wheels in the distance. He rose and went toward them. Presently the vehicle left the road, which was separated by no fence or landmark from the cliff, save a simple rut, and came in upon the springy turf as near the Fairy-Gun as might be.
“Donat,” said the old priest, after he had been helped from the side of the car, and walked along the soft grass to the best point of observation, leaning on the Manuscript Man’s arm, and had sat down in an available space, cut like an arm-chair in the rocks, “Donat, I remember this Fairy-Gun almost as long as anything. Many a time I came to look at it as a boy, riding by my father’s side, with all the way of life before me; and now I return as an old, broken man, with all my life behind me, to find it just the same—as beautiful as ever;” and he murmured some line from a lyrist in some foreign tongue as to the change in man amid unchanging and unsympathizing nature.
“Sure, yer reverence, we’re all growin’ ould together,” was the rejoinder, as a topic of comfort. “Sure there’s none of us staying young behind the others.”
“True for you, Donat. Never said a truer thing, my man, though I wont deny but there’s a handful of years between you and me all the same. But, Donat, doesn’t it become us to look well to our souls, seeing we can’t expect to keep our bodies much longer? And Father Devenish tells me you’re very backward at your duty.”
“It’s his own fault, sir.” Then the Manuscript Man told his grievance, and supplied the other side of the story, which the old priest had wanted to hear. “But I brought the book to show yer reverence this day, for you ain’t underhanded,” he said.
Not now a Testament, but an entire Irish Bible, swelled out his pocket, the pages turned down in sundry places, and bearing all the marks of much perusal.
“Just what I expected,” said Father Eusebius, turning over the leaves as it lay on his knee; “Bishop Bedell’s translation of the Bible. Do you know who he was, my man?”
“Never heard tell of him before, yer reverence,” replied Clare, rubbing his hand over his chin in an embarrassed manner.
“Ay; well, you see how fit you are to judge about the book he translated.”
Then the priest told how Bedell was of English blood and Protestant faith; and various other facts relating to that truly apostolic bishop came also to his memory, which it was not necessary to mention—his wonderful goodness and kindness, which procured him safety and honor from even the savage rebels of 1641; and especially the exclamation of the Romish priest who saw him committed to the grave, “O sit anima mea cum Bedello!—May my soul be with Bedell!
“Of course the Church hasn’t authorized a translation by a Protestant bishop. What do you intend to do about it, Donat?”
These questionings puzzled the Manuscript Man more than any other form of speech could have done. He winced before the eyes of Father Eusebius; he changed the foot on which he leaned, looked out to sea, where a speck on the horizon’s purple rim indicated a passing ship; looked inland, where the horse, with the reigns on his neck, was constantly nibbling the herbage, before he spoke.
“I’d like to ask yer reverence a question, without fear or favour.”
“Certainly; but you must leave the answering of it to myself.”
“May be yer reverence will tell me if you think it’s a wrong translation?” He paused a moment, but saw no response in the listening face. “Yer reverence has learned a dale of books an’ languiges; and I’m a poor ignorant man, barrin’ for the Irish. Yer reverence knows whether there’s any thing in the translation (bein’ by a Protestan’ as you say) that a Catholic wouldn’t put in it.”
Now the old priest was not unaware that the case was so far otherwise that the translation had even been censured by Protestant critics, as appearing possibly to favour Romish interpretations.
“Come, Donat, you’re growing obstinate. What for do you hold so strongly to the book? What is it to you more than any other Irish book, that you can’t obey the Church, and let us all have a quiet life?”
“Sir,” said the Manuscript Man, standing firmly now, and something of solemnity gathering in his voice, “Sir, I believe it is the book of God himself, for nothing I’ve ever read or heered fits my heart like it. He that made the one made the other, to my thinkin’. An’ it fits my life too. If I’m glad it makes me more glad; if I’m sorry it has a comfortin’ word for me; there’s lots about poor people like meself, an’ how the Almighty helped ‘em. All the books I’ve ever read before are dead books; but this is a living book, yer reverence—nothing else but a living book.”
Father Eusebius was rather surprised at this outburst of energetic speech; he leaned forward on his silver-headed walking stick, and looked up at the tall figure.
“No Protestant born could talk better, Donat. And this is the reason you’ve been reading it about the country, in every house you come to?”
“Sir, you know I’ve been always in the habit of reading my Irish papers, an’ tellin’ histories about the ould auncient kings an’ bards, in the farm-houses of evenin’s an’ at weddins, an’ wakes, an’ places like-minded. Now when I found this book, I thought it wouldn’t be no harm to read a spell of it at poor Eily Connor’s wake, instead of some ballad or story about Conan Maol, or Ailvè the daughter of Cormac, or somethin’ else that would only make ‘em discontented, thinkin’ of the fine times long ago.”
“You have legends of the saints also.”
“Sir, sure there couldn’t be any history half so good as of the blessed Lord himself?”
“I believe you, Donat. Only they might take it up wrong. That’s the reason the Church forbids it to the laity.”
“Yer honor’s reverence,” he exclaimed, eagerly, “might I ax lave to show you a little piece I came on the other day, an’ I put a dog’s ear to the place, lest I’d forget?”
The priest nodded.
With some pains, the Manuscript Man found and read the passage in Deuteronomy where the command is given to lay up God’s word in the heart and soul: to teach them dilligently to children: to talk of them under all circumstances, sitting in the house, walking by the way, lying down, rising up: to let them guide the hand and govern even the glances of the eyes: “to write them upon the posts of the house and on the gates.”
Mr. Devenish would easily have spoken some sophistry to set aside the force of this remarkable command, if indeed he had listened to it at all from the lips of a mere peasant layman. But Father Eusebius could not do so; looking at the earnest, deeply-marked face, it was utterly impossible for him to trifle with or overbear the conviction struggling in this human heart. He heaved a half-involuntary sigh.
“Donat, you’ve gone very far indeed.”
“How so, sir?”
Instead of replying, the old man turned to gaze out over that vast ocean which is our correctest symbol for eternity. It was a wearied, aged face which gazed. Clare a foot or two nearer presently.
“I can’t bear to see yer reverence vexed an’ fretted in yerself. I’d be sorry to the heart to be the occasion.”
Still no reply.
“Sir, I’ll tell ye what I’ll do; if yer reverence says out plain this book is a wrong translation, that’ll misled me entirely, I’ll give it up, an’ read it no more.”
“I cannot tell you any such thing, Donat: I’ve never examined it closely enough.”
“Then I’ll lend yer reverence the book, for I’m sure the Major, whose name’s in it, would give yer honor a loan of it in a minit. That is, barrin’ yer reverence has it at home already, in which case I humbly ax yer pardin.”
What singular pernacity the man displayed! It occured to Father Eusebius that he himself would scarcely make such a fight to keep possession of his own Vulgate.
“Sir, you mustn’t think it’s only obstinate I am. In all my life nothin’ ever gave me the comfort an’ happiness of this book. It showed me my Saviour, simple and humble like one of ourselves, takin’ away all our sins. I declare to yer reverence, I never rightly believed in him before!”
A long pause ensued.
“Donat, there was a time when you weren’t likely to get or to take much from the Major or any of his family!”
The Manuscript Man flushed painfully under the steady gaze of the old priest. He stammered something, but was interrupted.
“Never mind; I don’t want to remember things that are better buried. And now I’ll tell you what I think. I can’t quarrel with the result of Bible reading in your own heart, as you’ve been telling it to me. So I’ll give you license to read the book yourself in Irish, because you’re a more knowledgeable man than the commonalty; but I forbid your reading it about the houses. Help me up on the car now; the Fairy-Gun is finished for to-day, I think.”
The puffs of spray had been growing shorter, the iris paler and more fitful, as the opening far below in the side of the cliff was gradually closed by the rising level of the tide: the water could be heard surging and swelling beneath in its dark cavern, a mighty imprisoned force, which would some stormy night burst asund its barriers, and thus make an end of the Fairy-Gun.
“Home by the Glashen-glora pass, Lanty,” said Mr. O’Donnell to his driver, an elderly brother of Parrah’s, promoted to the immensely superior post of “own man.” “Not a word more, Donat; I’ve given you my decision.”
