CHAPTER XVIII.
It was on the first of those days of devotion “to the Sacred Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” set going for the repression of heresy, that the Manuscript Man was surprised by the shadow of Parrah More, the priest’s red-headed and fleet-footed Mercury, falling across his threshold. Only the shadow; for the head merely looked in, and when it saw Maureen, he beckoned her father forth. “Come hither, Misther Clare.”
Nothing did he say till he had withdrawn some yards beyond all possible earshot. Then—“Himself wants to see you,” was uttered in that strong whisper which would really penetrate farther than a loud voice, accompanied with the gesture of the thumb over the shoulder.
“’Himself?’ Who’s that?” knowing it was one of the priests, and doubting which.
“Father Euseby. Come quick, while they are all at the chapel.” And Parrah instantaneously ran away, uttering a sort of wild, shrill whistle, keen as any curlew’s over the wandering foam, according to the lad’s usual fashion of travel.
So Maureen was set to keep school with the half-dozen children who yet were sent to the Manuscript Man’s suspected teaching. “Now may God help me be steadfast,” he thought, as he went along the road; “for it’s a dale aisier to be stout against a storm than against fair words.”
Parrah opened the kitchen door of the priest’s house for the visitor, as demurely as if he had never run a message in his life. Evidently the sour-looking housekeeper, his aunt, was gone likewise to the chapel, and had left him deputy in all capacities. “His reverence is in there,” with the same jerk of his thumb. The Manuscript Man knocked at the right door, after he had knocked at a wrong one, and was told to enter.
At a glance he saw how greatly changed was the old priest who sat in the arm-chair. The firm brown cheek had become flaccid and pale; deep lines and seams crossed and recrossed the features; the shrewd gray eyes had grown duller, and yet wistful.
“Take a seat, Donat.” He motioned to a chair, and the Manuscript Man, after a deep bow, hat in hand, sat down on the edge.
“It goes to me heart to see yer reverence so poorly.” Though the day was warm in August, he was inclined to cower over a red fire on the hearth.
“It’s the will of God, Donat,” he answered, raising himself; “and no religion is worth any thing that doesn’t teach a man to be satisfied with that.”
“True for yer reverence.”
“Donat, I believe he loves us, and the thread of our life is in his hand, and he will put no knots or crosses on it more than he can help; but he wont let us be spoiled for want of a reminder, Donat.”
“True for yer reverence agin.”
The old priest rubbed his pale hands near the flames.
“Donat, you’ve chosen your own course; don’t blame me for whatever may follow,” he said, looking up. “You wrote me a letter—“
“If there was any thin’ hot or disrespectful in it, I’d be the last man to intind it to yer reverence,” said Clare, breaking the pause. “May be I was angered at the time—the day afther they bate meself an’ burnt me little books. But sure you know, sir, if I couldn’t give up the Bible for right, I couldn’t doubly for wrong! Why, if our blessed Saviour was in the world himself, would yer reverence forbid our goin’ to hear him spake? An’ aren’t his very own words in the Testament? Disn’t he spake ‘em all, mostly, to the common people like ourselves?”
A little smile grew on Father Eusebius’s face as he sat back now in his arm-chair, gazing at the Manuscript Man.
“Yer reverence, St. Paul didn’t hold back the Bible; for he says to Timothy,”—eagerly his hands turned over the familiar pages to 2 Tim. iii, 15, “’Tá eólus na Scriptuirídhe naomhtha agad ó bhí tu ad leanh.’ Even the young childher learned it, sir, ye see—an’ why? Because it could make ‘em wise unto salvation—‘tridh chreidiomh a n’ Iosa Criosd’—through faith in Christ Jesus!”
“Very good, Donat. And they tell me you don’t believe in purgatory now, either?”
“Well, sir, the truth is, purgatory is a very severe place be all accounts, an’ it’s hard to think any poor soul will be sent there for sins which our blessed Saviour died to forgive!”
“And you don’t pray for the intercession of the saints, Donat?”
“The Lord himself bid me come to himself,” said he.
“It was the quarest thing, when I thought of it afther,” observed the Manuscript Man, subsequently; “but Father Euseby drew out of me all the faults I had to find wi’ the ould Church, an’ never offered a word agin it, but smiled-like very gentle, an’ bowed his head as quiet, as you’d think he was agreed in the same. Moreover, they tried to persuade me afther, that he was taken wid a weakness in his brain that day he sind for me, an’ never got the better of it; but meself never heard him spake clearer in his life. ‘Donat,’ says he, ‘Almighty God has a bigger heart than men will allow, an’ his mercy is as high as the blue sky; an’ if you trust in your Saviour, an’ follow his ways, no harm will happen to you. An’ don’t mind the crossness of men,’ says he. ‘Father Devenish has a dale of zeal, an’ you Bible readers can’t have any thing but a hard time of it, an’ it’s out of my power to help ye,’ says he, quite kindly, ‘so you mustn’t take it ill of me; for, indeed, Donat, my heart is with the ould place an’ the ould people, an’ we have all too short to live to be fightin’ one another. An’ I’ve been lookin’ into yer Irish translation,’ says he, ‘an’ there’s no manner o’ faut to be found wid it.’ And sure enough he had it open atop another big book he called the Vulgar.
“’Many’s the bit of Irish learnin’ you an’ I have been over together,’ says he. (An’ will again, yer reverence,’ says I; but he shook his head.) ‘Legends,’ says he, ‘an’ songs of bards, an’ histories of colonies, an’ lake-irruptions, an’ battles, an’ churches; but I can’t say you ever had any manuscript of them all half so valuable as this book that cost three shillings, Donat, and even to mention the Tain Bo Chuailgne itself.’ That’s a skin roll I have in the real ould auncient writin’; an’ they tell me it’s worth a dale o’ money. ‘I needn’t say to you,’ he went on, ‘after all that has come an’ gone, not to be frightened out of keepin’ the book of God; but, Donat, you may be obliged to go across the sea to enjoy it in peace, you, an’ them like you.’
“’Is it America yer reverence is thinkin’ of?’ says I, feelin’ my heart give a jump; an’ he says, ‘Yes,’ but didn’t talk any more about that. ‘I’m too near the other world now,’ says he, ‘to be much concerned about this one. It’s wonderful, Donat, how small everything looks when one is near the presence of the Lord himself; an’ how a man wishes he had led a different life, only the blood of our blessed Saviour takes away all sin,’ an’ a deep sigh came out of his heart. ‘An’ I just thought I’d like to see you once again, to say it wasn’t my anger that would be down upon ye all; but to give you my blessing, Donat, for as much as it’s worth.’
“I was fairly cryin’ by this time; for though I told him not to spake of dyin’, sure I see the bespoke look in his face! He went away to Dublin to the doctors the very next day; an’ that was the last I see of Father Euseby.”