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CHAPTER VI.
Of course there was a wake; respectability required it, and the social habits of the neighbours would have gathered them into the house of mourning, even if there had not been tobacco and tea to get by the going. And all who had the gift uttered the doleful Irish “keen” for a minute or two before entering. But the Manuscript Man and his daughter came in without any public exhibition of grief. “God save all here,” he said, gravely, as he removed his hat. “Mrs. Connor, ma’am, b’lieve me, we’re all sorry for yer trouble.”
Maureen was crying silent but heartfelt tears for her young companion, of whose cruel fate in purgatory she could not bear to think. Her whole possessions in money amounted to little more than half-a-crown, with which she had intended to buy a bright-coloured cotton kerchief to wear over her hair, (the sole head-gear known to country girls is such a snood,) and mayhap a white apron besides. But now she would give the half-crown to Father Devenish, to say a mass for the repose of Eily’s soul, that sum being the standard price of a mass.
“She was always a good child,” observed the Manuscript Man, looking at the quiet face laid out upon the table. Eily had been one of his scholars. “An’ she had a great taste for the learnin’! May all the blessed saints rest her soul!”
Every body on entering the cabin went to have a look at the dead girl, and utter a prayer on her behalf. Maureen could not speak. She took refuge in a corner of the inner room; and presently as her sobs grew stiller, she distinguished the voice of her mother, who had come up two hours ago to render service as one of the best professional “keeners” in the district, and was now resting from her labours amid a knot of similar old women. She had been to the blessed well at Roonard the day before, and was telling about its recent discovery. A holy man had dreamed that a spring at the bottom of a field near the new convent was endowed with the power of working miracles; and lo! a child brought hither with eyes all but blind, had been restored to sight; the specialty of this water must be the curing of eye disease. Forthwith a wall was built around the sacred spot, which had hitherto endured much trampling of cattle; a little shrine with images and artificial flowers was erected behind it; worshippers trooped in from all parts; bottles of the water were sold at a profit.
“An’ they do say there’s a power ov miracles doin’ on lame an’ blind people that gets well out of it; though I can’t state I seen any just wid my own eyes. But if I was you, Mrs. Nelson, I’d try it on that dark boy of yours.”
“Ah!” sighed the youngest woman of the group, thus addressed, “sure didn’t I break meself wid traveling off to the patthern of Kilmacow, to what they say is the blessedest well in all Munster; an’ ‘twasn’t no manner of use, no more than a drop of sea-water itself.”
“May be you forgot a prayer,” said Mrs. Clare. “It’s wonderful what a little thing will destroy all the good. But indade it takes powerful dale of faith and patience for a miracle.”
“Here’s Misther Devlin to say the litany.”
Now in this parish the zeal of the coadjutor priest had set up a “Wake Society,” the members of which attended wakes far and near, for the purpose of praying for the souls of the departed, and also of superseding the unprofitable conversation that usually took place, by the repeating of Romish hymns and the reading of such books as Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints. Mr. Devlin was a little, black, close-shaven person, the curate’s messenger and right-hand man, and prime mover in both the Wake and Rosary Societies of Rienvella parish.
Would the reader like to know some of the prayers used in the Romish litany for the dead?
“From that dreadful prison, whence there is no release till they have paid the uttermost farthing—deliver them, O Lord!
“From all their torments, incomparably greater than the sharpest arrows of this life—deliver them, O Lord!
“That it would please thee, through the prayers and alms of thy Church, and especially the inestimable sacrifice of the holy altar, to recieve them into the tabernacle of rest—we beseech thee, hear us.
“That the glorious Queen of saints may present them before thy throne—we beseech thee, hear us.”
When the service was over, Mr. Devlin read aloud a selected portion of “The Glories of Mary.” During which time Maureen went back to the inner room, with the children too young for comprehension of that remarkable book, and occupied herself in hearing them repeat what is called the “Christian Doctrine,” and “The Commandments of the Church.” The last-named being a rude rhyme, beginning thus:
“Sundays and holidays, mass
thou shalt hear;
All Saints’ days sanctify,
throughout the year;”
and ending with the line,
“And to the Church forget not
tithes to pay;”
where the principal word was invariably pronounced “tides” by the unsophisticated. Some of the children had also hymns to the Virgin, learned from the “Key of Paradise,” and “Garden of the Soul,” two very popular books of prayers. A verse from the former will suffice as a specimen:
“Bright Mother of our Maker,
hail!
Thou Virgin ever blest:
The shining Star by which we sail,
And gain the port of rest.”
Also prayers, containing such astonishing words as these, (taken from a manual of devotion to “The Sacred Heart of B.V. Mary:”) “Hail, Mary, lady and mistress of the world, to whom all power has been given both in heaven and in earth!”
And thus the same identical lesson of creature-worship was taught by Mr. Devlin in the outer room, and by Maureen Clare in the inner. It was one of the duties imposed on her by her confessor.
“Now, Mr. Clare, it’s your turn,” said Devlin, when he had ended his chapter. “Read more of this, if you like.”
“No,” answered the deep tones of the Manuscript Man: “I have a book of my own.”
Many a time had he told and read from his “auncient papers,” on these occasions, histories like that of St. Brendan, who lived a long space in the Arran isles, and then undertook a voyage toward the sunset, in search for Hy-Brasail, the Enchanted Island. Long and stormy was the voyage, in his little boat of ox-skins stretched over a wooden frame, and made water-proof with pitch; and the wild gannets flying in swarms from the north would pierce his solitary sail with their strong beaks, as happens sometimes even now to a fisher far outside the Heads. But at last he came to summer seas, and was borne along without sail or oar for many a day, till he landed on a shore with strange trees and flowers; and for fifteen days he marched into the country, till he came to a great river that he had no means of crossing; a majestic figure issued from the woods, and told him to go back—this land was not for him. So he returned to Ireland, and founded the great monastery for three thousand monks (or missionaries) at Clonfort, about 550 A.D. “And they do say,” added the Manuscript Man, “that it was a peep at America he had, without knowing it.”
Clare’s common-sense revolted from the senseless legends of miracles wrought by saints and hermits; but no one had more lore about such personages. He would tell of Cormac, Bishop of Cashel and King of Munster, the descendant of King Engus, who had been baptized by Patrick himself; a royal saint and poet, who has left behind him “the Psalter of Cashel,” an inestimable parchment. Or of Adamnam, eighth in descent from Nial, King of all Ireland, and fifth abbot of the celebrated Culdee monastery; he was sent as an embassador to Alfred the Great, and wrote a life of Saint Columbkill. In that golden age of Irish history our Manuscript Man believed firmly; it was his great source of pride in the past.
And now he had in his bosom the book whose truths had made Columbkill and Adamnan the holy men, and successful preachers of the Gospel, that they were; the secret of a golden age of this world, and universal saintliness. “A book in the Irish,” he said, drawing it forth, wrapped in a piece of old newspaper; “so it will be a dale easier to understand than the English. An’ the stories in it is beautiful.”
During the short time that he had had the volume he had read the narrative portions through more than once; and the place where he chose to begin, an appropriate to the present scene, was the eleventh of St. John. And because human nature loves a story, all gathered to listen, and all faces brightened at sound of the tongue familiar to their thoughts. Whispers were heard—“That’s St. Lazarus, that’s St. Martha,” as names they knew from the Romish litanies were mentioned; and when the exquisite simple story of sorrow and love was ended, there arose a clamor that it should be read again.
The Manuscript Man saw that Devlin was watching him and his book narrowly. But he had so fixed his seat purposely by the chimney-jamb that he could not be overlooked, and much was not discoverable from a newspaper wrapper.
“The little Misthress up at the great house—God ever bless an’ reward her purty kind face an’ kind heart!” began Eily’s widowed mother, fervently——“tould her,” with a jerk of her finger over her shoulder toward the coffin, “a story much like that one day to encourage her. But I couldn’t understand the Englified talk well, so I kept never mindin’, but thinkin’ me own thoughts to meself; only Eily spoke of it afterward, and how the good Lord would open the grave some day for her too. My poor lamb that she was!” and the mother wept again. “But sure she wint through as much pain an’ sorrow as would wipe out mostly all her little sins!”
“That’s a sure story,” said Devlin. “Purgatory comes light to them that had bad sickness. Misther Clare, would you give us a look at that nice book you has?”
“I’d sooner not let it into any body’s hands,” was the reply. “It’s only a loan to meself; but I’ll go an’ read another turn if ye like.”
So the mass-server could impart nothing to his master except suspicions.
