CHAPTER VIII
So the Manuscript Man’s first essay at bespeaking Irish pupils was very successful.
“I’ll give you a cast in the cart, most of yer way home,” whispered Mickey Malt when they were breaking up. “‘Tis waiting at the end of the bohreen”—the short by-road leading to the farm-house. He had failed in bargaining for the barley, and took Donat Clare for his load instead.
“That’s a deep book you have,” he remarked, when they were jogging along in the moonlight. “You did not come a purpose across that little piece about me, tonight?”
“About you? Troth an’ I didn’t read a line about you. What put that in yer head?” asked the Manuscript Man, unfeignedly. “The book is hundreds an’ hundreds of years old, an’ more.”
“Never mind,” quoth Mickey, administering a cut to his inoffensive horse. “Only I thought you weren’t the backhanded sort to hit a man slap in the face the very minit he come into a neighbour’s kitchen. What call is it of any body’s whether I works in daylight or dark, so long as the gauger doesn’t find me out?”
But the deeper significance was in the man’s mind also, though he would fain to have cast off the impression.
“If you’d like to learn to read the book for yerself—“ and, true to his mission, the Manuscript Man made him the offer of teaching.
“I don’t know,” answered Mickey Malt, shuffling on the shaft which was his driving-seat. A man don’t like them slaps in the face. Moreover, I haven’t the time. But maybe I’d slope over to Glashen-glora next week when you come.”
During the week the Manuscript Man was by no means idle in his new vocation. He threw himself into it with characteristic ardour, and had good progress to report to the Major. Reading the Testament thoroughly and frequently, the more beautiful it seemed to him—the more hold its stories and sentences took upon his mind. No annals of the olden kings or saints had ever been half so interesting, or left thus the seeds of thought behind: to his heart the book bore its own divine communication, as the word of God. But as yet, he did not see its antagonism to the old superstitions.
Father Devenish had heard from his clerk of the suspicious reading at the wake in Rienvella, and concluded that he would learn other particulars from Mrs. Clare in one of her monthly confessions. Then he could inquire further, in the secret but authoritative way his soul loved. She was a regular penitent, being earnest in the effort “to make her soul;” so he had not long to wait. The chapel was a large bare building, perfectly empty except at the end, where stood an altar of much gilding, and at the side, where stood a tall case resembling a wardrobe of painted wood; the doors grated at the top to permit air. Within were two partitions, one for the confessor, furnished with a bench, and pierced with an opening level to his ear, through which the confession flowed from the lips of the person who kneeled at the other side. Truly, if human breath laden with evil left a stain, that orifice would have been foul to intensest blackness.
What had Father Devenish and other priests heard from this confessional throne? Sins of deed, word, thought, intention: from crimes which made the hearer’s cheek blench to the petty family squabble, to the omission of an ave or a bead-roll. The heart must be laid open in every fold by the penitent who would derive benefit from the “Sacrament of Penance;” any reserve, nay, even a forgetfullness in a confession, makes null the absolution. Great agony has many a scrupulous poor soul suffered for this reason. Never was a mightier machine of power invented. How easy to govern a man or woman, when you know certainly the ruling passion, the chief weakness, the drift of thought and of desire! But if, in addition, you have the secret of their sins, and are believed to possess the power of pardon and salvation, your despotism has far deeper foundation than that of Domitian or Timour: it enslaves the soul.
Mr. Devenish knew this well, and relished the exercise of his authority. “The tribunal,” as the country people called it, became in his hands an agent of government that it never had been under the gentle rule of Father Eusebius.
Mrs. Clare was very careful to hold little converse with anybody on the morning that she was going to “her duty.” “I must be remimbering my offinses,” she said, “till the priest’s blessed hand is over me for good;” so she kept the beads in her fingers, and worked away at aves and paters as she went along the road at a wonderful pace for a woman of her age; but she was wiry as a wild bird. And while she waited her turn in the chapel for his reverence’s readiness to hear her, she found congenial emloyment in executing some of the “stations of the holy cross.”
A series of coloured wood-cuts in black frames, fourteen in number, hung on the walls at intervals, representing the principal scenes of our Lord’s crucifiction; among them several traditionary incidents, not found in Scripture, such as that concerning Veronica, reputed saint. Rude in execution and violent in colouring, these prints were suited to the vulgar eye, though very offensive to correct taste in art; and a favourite form of worship was to go round them on the knees, praying before each.
“He’s callin’ for you now, Molly Clare;” and she went into the well known box, and assembled her wits to the work of clearing her conscience. First she repeated the confiteor, which declared that confession was made not only to “God the Omnipotent,” but also to “the blessed Mary always a virgin, the blessed Michael the archangel, the blessed John Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints; and to thee, father”—being the priest present. This was the formal portion, often gabbled over indistinguishably, as far as the three blows on the breast accompanying the words—“My sin, my sin, my very great sin!” Then should the take of offenses follow without pause.
Mrs. Clare had finished hers, and was waiting rather comfortably for the customary absolution and benediction, when she was chilled by an ominous silence. The tones were not dulcet which broke it, after an impressive interval, and a portentious clearing of his throat.
“Mrs. Clare, you were the last woman living I would expect to find out in any crookedness or double dealing, more especially with your clergy.”
“Is it me, your reverence?”
“Very little would make me rise and leave the tribunal this minute. To think you’d be having reservation in yer thought! and keeping it moreover so sinfully from the eye of yer priest! Didn’t you ever hear the fate of them that try to impose on their confessor?”
She was so terrified as only faintly to repeat, “Is it me, yer reverence?”
“Ay, you. Good care you have taken not to tell me of the book yer husband has got, and is poisoning the country with!”
“Wurrah, dheelish, but sure yer reverence can’t mane my Donat? Sure he don’t ever read a book barrin’ in Irish; an’ it’s I that wishes ‘em bad enough, for oul’ papers an’ stories to be turnin’ his head an’ makin’ an idle man of him, an’ the pratie garden a spectacle for weeds.”
Father Devenish cross-questioned her closely.
“He do be comin’ an’ goin’, through an’ fro, like a wind among the bane fields. He do be out all hours, an’ I dunno the half of his doin’s, an’ that’s the truth, yer reverences honor; he was always a dark man in himself, by rason of the books an’ papers, an’ sure it’s hard if a dacent woman like me is to be denied the priest’s blessed hand over me on his account.” The poor creature began to cry.
“Don’t be rebellious against your clergy, Mrs. Clare; they always act for yer good. I’m notgoing to stop the absolution this time, but remember for the future it’s no confession that keeps back any thing your priest ought to know.”
She broke out into abject blessings.
“There’s one condition. You must bring me this book your husband reads so much. I must see for myself what it is, and judge whethet it is proper he should be reading it for my flock. The wolf in sheep’s clothing must not be admitted into the fold, Mrs. Clare.”
“No, sure, yer reverence,” she echoed, with but a dim idea of what he meant; wolves being beyond her experience.
“I wouldn’t like to be coming down on him with the judgments of the Church if I could help it,” added Father Devenish, as a crowning motive for diligence in the execution of his behest. Much Mrs. Clare pondered during her bare-footed trot homeward whether it were better to do open battle with the Manuscript Man for his book, or privately to get hold of it. The latter plan promised most success, and also suited her natural craftiness; but many days passed before she had the desired opportunity.