My New Curate

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This evening we let ourselves out bravely. It was a great occasion; we
were all proud of the success of my brave young confrere; and when
Father Duff rose to propose his health, the table rang and rocked with
our applause. The westering sun threw a soft glory over the beautiful
flowers and plants that decorated the table, and lingered long in the
ruby flames of the glasses; the room was filled with a hundred odors
from plant and shrub, and the blood of grapes that were crushed in the
wine-presses of Languedoc and Dauphiny; and from afar through the open
window came the scented June air and the murmurs of the ever restless
sea. Father Duff spoke well, and feelingly, and generously, and wound up
a fine, eloquent speech with the words:--

"And whilst we heartily wish him many years of increased utility in
wider and loftier spheres of action, and, with successful work, the
laurels and the prizes that should follow it, may we be tempted to
follow his noble initiative, and to learn that the very war against
difficulties, and their conquest, is one of the richest prizes of labor
and effort, and that toil and battle, even of themselves, have the
faculty of ennobling and refining."

Then we all stood up, with our glasses poised, and sang: "For he's a
right good fellow." There were greetings of "Ad multos annos," etc.; and
just then there came across the fields from the direction of the pier a
low, wailing sound, so thin and faint that we almost doubted the
testimony of our ears. Presently it was renewed, in increased volume,
then died away again as the land breeze caught it and carried it out to
sea. We looked at one another in surprise, and Father Letheby, somewhat
disturbed, said:--

"I did not know that any of our people was dead."

"You expected no funeral this evening?"

"No! I got no intimation that any one was to be buried."

Then he rose to respond to the toast of his health. He spoke well, and
with a good deal of grateful feeling; and he seemed to appreciate mostly
the generous congratulations of the younger clergy, whom he had gathered
around him. But ever and anon, that wail for the dead broke over the
moorland, and interrupted his glowing periods, until it came quite close
to the village, and appeared to be circling round the house in dismal,
funereal tones of agony and distress.

"I must bring my remarks to an abrupt conclusion, gentlemen," he said
anxiously; "something is seriously wrong in the village, and I must go
and see."

He had not far to go. For now a tumultuous throng had burst into the
village, as we could feel by the hurried tramp of feet, and the sound of
many voices, and the awful accents of hysterical women raising that
chant for the dead that is so well known in Ireland. The crowd gathered
in thick masses around the door and we went out.

"She's gone, your reverence, and they are all drowned."

"Sunk by a steamer--"

"Struck her foreships--"

"No! abaft--"

"The captain's drowned--"

"Can't you let the min spake for theirselves?" said Jem Deady, who
assumed at once the office of Master of Ceremonies. "Bring these fellows
for'ard, and let them tell the priest."

They were brought forward, the four fishermen, but were not too well
able to sustain conversation, much less to detail a thrilling narrative
of events; for the poor fellows had been filled up to the epiglottis
with whiskey, and were in momentary peril of asphyxia. By piecing and
patching their ejaculations together, however, it was ascertained that
the "Star of the Sea" had a glorious run to the fishing-fleet, was
welcomed cheerily by the Manx boats, and even more enthusiastically by
the Cherbourg fleet; had made all arrangements for the sale of her fish;
and then, with renewed vigor, was making for home. The haze that had
hung over the sea all the morning had deepened, however, into a thick
fog; and one wary old fisherman had ventured to warn Campion that he had
too much way on, and to keep a good lookout. He laughed at the notion of
their meeting any vessel in those desolate waters, and had freed the
helm for a moment whilst he lit a cigar, when just then there was a
shout, and a large steamer loomed out of the fog, running at right
angles with the fishing-craft. Screams of warning came from the steamer,
her fog-whistle was sounded, but Campion took it coolly.

"He thought it was the wather-witch, the 'Halcyonia,' he had, your
reverence, and she swung to the touch of a baby's finger."

But the heavy craft was not so obedient, and Campion's attempt to show
his seamanship was disastrous. He ran right under the steamer's nose,
and had just almost cleared her when her prow struck the boat, six or
eight feet from the stern, sheared off her helm and steering apparatus
as if cut with a knife, and struck Campion as he fell. Then in a moment
the boat filled and careened over, throwing her crew into the sea. The
four fishermen were saved, two by clinging to the suspended anchors of
the steamer, two by ropes flung from the deck. Campion went down.

"The last we saw of him was his black head bobbing in the wather; and,
faith, it wasn't his prayers he was sayin'."

Here, indeed, was the dread descent of the sword on Damocles. And all
looked to Father Letheby to know what he would say. He received the
dread intelligence, which foreboded ruin to himself and others, like a
man, and merely turned to the expectant crowd and said:--

"Get these poor fellows home as soon as possible. Their clothes are
dripping wet, and they'll catch their death of cold."

True, indeed, there were little pools of water in the hall where the
shipwrecked fishermen were standing.

As we turned to go in, whilst the crowd dispersed, Jem Deady took
occasion to whisper:--

"Look here, your reverence, 't was all dhrink."

Jem had kept his pledge for six weeks, and by virtue thereof assumed all
the privileges of a reformer.

It was a dread ending of the day's business, and it came with crushing
effect on the soul of Father Letheby. They were bad omens,--the revolt
at the factory and the destruction of the boat. We remained for hours
talking the thing over, whilst my thoughts ran away to the happy girl
who was just then speeding from Kingstown on her bridal tour. I followed
her in imagination through smoky England to sunny France. I saw her,
leaning on her husband, as he led her from church to church, from
gallery to gallery, in the mediaeval cities of the Continent; I saw her
cross from the Riviera into Italy, and I realized her enthusiasm as she
passed, mute and wonder-stricken, from miracle to miracle of art and
faith, in that happy home of Catholicism. I could think of her even
kneeling at the feet of the Supreme Pontiff whilst she begged a special
blessing on her father, and he, rolling with the tide, a dead mass in
ooze and slime, and uncouth monsters swimming around him in curiosity
and fear, and his hands clutching the green and purple _algae_ of the
deep.

Some one asked:--

"Was the boat insured?"

"No," said Father Letheby. "We were but waiting the result of her trial
trip to make that all right."

"Then the committee are responsible for the whole thing?"

"I suppose so," said Father Letheby, gloomily.

"I should rather think not," said Father Duff, who was quietly turning
over the leaves of an album. "Depend upon it, the Board of Works never
allowed her to leave her wharf without having her fully insured, at
least for the amount payable by the Board!"

"Do you think so?" said Father Letheby, as the cloud lifted a little at
these words.

"I know it," said Father Duff, emphatically.

After a little time, and ever so many expressions of sympathy, the
guests departed and left us alone. In a few minutes a knock came to the
door, and Lizzie summoned Father Letheby.

"You're wanting just for a minute, sir."

He went out, leaving the door ajar. I heard Father Duff saying with
emphasis:--

"I am deputed to tell you, Letheby, that we are all determined to stand
by you in this affair, no matter what it costs. As for myself, I want
to assure you that if you are good enough to trust me, I can see my way
to tide you over the crisis."

"Ten thousand thanks, Duff," Father Letheby replied. "I shall show you
my friendship for you by demanding your assistance should I need it."

He came in to tell me.

"Never mind," I said; "I heard it all, God bless them!"

I then regretted, for the first time in my life, that I had not loved
money; I would have given a good deal for the luxury of drawing a big
check with these brave young fellows.

I remained till twelve o'clock, debating all possibilities, forecasting,
projecting all manner of plans. Now and then a stifled wail came up from
the village. We agreed that Bittra should be allowed to proceed on her
wedding trip, and that when she returned we would break the dreadful
news as gently as possible.

"No chance of seeing the dread accident in the London papers?"

"None! It cannot reach London before to-morrow night. They will then be
in Paris."

CHAPTER XXVIII

SUB NUBE

Glorious summer weather, gold on sea and land, but gloom of death and
dole on our hearts, and dark forebodings of what the future has in
store. I could hardly believe it possible that one night's agony could
work such a change in the appearance; but when, next morning, I saw the
face of Father Letheby, white and drawn, as if Sorrow had dragged his
rack over it, and the dark circles under his eyes, and the mute despair
of his mouth, I remembered all that I had ever read of the blanching of
hair in one night, and the dread metamorphoses that follow in the
furrows where Anguish has driven his plough. It appeared, then, that
between the buoyancy of the day's success, and the society of friends,
and the little excitements of the evening, he had not realized the
extent of his losses and responsibilities. But in the loneliness of
midnight it all came back; and he read, in flaming letters on the dark
background of his future, the one word: _Ruin_! And it was not the
financial and monetary bankruptcy that he dreaded, but the shame that
follows defeat, and the secret exultation that many would feel at the
toppling over of such airy castles and the destruction of such ambitious
hopes. He was young, and life had looked fair before him, holding out
all kinds of roseate promises; and now, at one blow, the whole is
shattered, and shame and disgrace, indelible as the biting of a burning
acid, was his for all the long years of life. It was no use to argue:
"You have done nothing wrong or dishonorable"; here was defeat and
financial ruin, and no amount of whitewashing by reason or argument
could cover the dread consequences.

"Come out," I cried, after we had talked and reasoned to no purpose;
"sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Let us have a walk; and the
sea air will clear the cobwebs off our brains."

We strolled down by the sea, which to-day looked so calm and beautiful,
its surface fluted with grooves where the sunlight reposed, and the
colored plaits of the waves weaving themselves lazily until they broke
into the white lace-work of sandy shoals. Nothing was there to show the
pitiless capacity or the deep revenge it takes from time to time on its
helpless conquerors. As we passed down by the creek, the "Great House"
came into sight, all its blinds drawn and the white windows staring
blankly at the sea.

"This poor child has a heavier cross before her than you," I said.

"Yes, but hers shall be healed in time. But who will wipe out
dishonor?"

"I cannot see where the dishonor comes in," I replied. "You have neither
robbed nor embezzled."

"I am a hopeless insolvent," he said. "I am security, sole security, for
those men over at Kilkeel, whom I promised and guaranteed to safeguard.
That I am bound to do on every principle of honor."

"Well, looking at it in its worst aspect," I replied, "insolvency is not
dishonorable--"

"It is the very acme of dishonor in a priest," he said.

Then I saw the inutility of reason in such a case.

We dined together that evening; and just as the Angelus bell rang, we
heard the hootings and derisive shouts of the villagers after the new
hands that had been taken on at the factory. In a few minutes these poor
girls came to the door to explain that they could not return to work. It
was the last straw. For a moment his anger flamed up in a torrent of
rage against these miscreants whom he had saved from poverty. Then it
died down in meek submission to what he considered the higher decree.

"Never mind, girls," he said; "tell Kate Ginivan to close the room and
bring me the key."

That was all, except that a certain listener treasured up all this
ingratitude in his heart; and the following Sunday at both Masses, the
walls of Kilronan chapel echoed to a torrent of vituperation, an
avalanche of anger, sarcasm, and reproach, that made the faces of the
congregation redden with shame and whiten with fear, and made the ladies
of the fringes and the cuffs wish to call unto the hills to cover them
and the mountains to hide them.

* * * * *

Nothing on earth can convince the villagers that the shipwreck was an
accident and not premeditated.

"They saw us coming, and made for us. Sure we had a right to expect it.
They wanted to make us drunk at the fishing-fleet; but the cap'n wouldn't
lave 'em."

"You don't mean to say they dreaded your poor boat?"

"Dreaded? They don't want Irishmen anywhere. Sure, 't was only last
year, whin they wanted to start a steamer between Galway and
Newfoundland--the shortest run to America--the captain was bribed on his
first trip, and tho' there isn't nothing but ninety fathoms of blue
say-wather betune Arran and Salthill, he wint out of his way to find a
rock, three miles out av his coorse, and--he found it. The Liverpool min
settled Galway."

"And didn't the cap'n cry: 'Port! d--n you, port!' and they turned her
nose right on us."

"But they were kind when they picked you up?"

"So far as talking gibberish and pouring whiskey into us, they were; but
whin they landed us, one dirty frog-eater sang out:--

"It's addiyou, not O revwar!"

* * * * *

Just a week after these events, that is, the Wednesday after my great
sermon, which is now a respectable landmark, or datemark, at Kilronan, I
got the first letter from Bittra. Here it is, brief and pitiful:--

Hotel Bristol, Paris, Sunday.

Rev. dear Father Dan:--Here we are in the world's capital. The air
is so light that you should sift the heavy atmosphere of Kilronan a
hundred times to make it as soft and exhilarating. We ran through
London, seeing enough to make one wish to escape it; and we are
boulevarding, opera-seeing, picture-gallery-visiting, church-going
since. The churches are superb; but--the people! Fancy only two men
at Mass at Ste. Clotilde's, and these two leaned against a pillar
the whole time, even during the Elevation. I had a terrible
distraction; I couldn't help saying all the time: "If Father Dan
was here, he'd soon make ye kneel down;" and I fancied you standing
before them, and making them kneel down by one look. But the women
are pious. It's all beautiful; but I wish I were home again! Rex is
all kindness; but he's a little shocked at our French customs.
"Are these Catholics?" he says, and then is silent. How is dear
father? I fear he'll be lonesome without his _petite mignonne_.
Mind, you are hereby invited and commanded to dine every evening
with papa, and also Father Letheby. Love to St. Dolores! Tell Mrs.
Darcy I inquired for her. What havoc she would make of the cobwebs
here!

Dear Father Dan,
Always your affectionate child,
Bittra Ormsby.

P. S. Remember you dine with papa every day. No ceremony. He likes
to be treated _en bon camarade_! Isn't that good French?

"You never know what a pitiful thing human wisdom is," said Father
Letheby, one of these dismal days of suspense, "until you come to test
it in sorrow. Now, here's a writer that gives me most intense pleasure
when I have been happy; and I say to every sentence he writes: 'How
true! How beautiful! What superb analysis of human emotion and feeling!'
But now, it's all words, words, words, and the oil of gladness is dried
up from their bare and barren rhetoric. Listen to this:--

"'A time will come, must come, when we shall be commanded by
mortality not only to cease tormenting others, but also ourselves.
A time must come, when man, even on earth, shall wipe away most of
his tears, were it only from pride. Nature, indeed, draws tears out
of the eyes, and sighs out of the breath so quickly, that the wise
man can never wholly lay aside the garb of mourning from his body;
but let his soul wear none. For if it is ever a merit to bear a
small suffering with cheerfulness, so must the calm and patient
endurance of the worst be a merit, and will only differ in being a
greater one, as the same reason, which is valid for the forgiveness
of small injuries, is equally valid for the forgiveness of the
greatest.... Then let thy spirit be lifted up in pride, and let it
contemn the tear, and that for which it falls, saying: "Thou art
much too insignificant, thou every-day life, for the
inconsolableness of an immortal,--thou tattered, misshapen,
wholesale existence!" Upon this sphere, which is rounded with the
ashes of thousands of years, amid the storms of earth, made up of
vapors, in this lamentation of a dream, it is a disgrace that the
sigh should only be dissipated together with the bosom that gives
it birth, and that the tear should not perish except with the eye
from which it flows.'"

"It sounds sweetly and rhythmically," I replied, "but it rests on human
pride, which is a poor, sandy foundation. I would rather one verse of
the 'Imitation.' But he seems to be a good man and an eloquent one."

"He apologizes for the defects of philosophy," said Father Letheby. "He
says:--

"'We must not exact of philosophy that, with one stroke of the pen,
it shall reverse the transformation of Rubens, who, with one stroke
of his brush, changed a laughing child into a weeping one. It is
enough if it change the full mourning of the soul into
half-mourning; it is enough if I can say to myself, "I will be
content to endure the sorrow that philosophy has left me; without
it, it would be greater, and the gnat's bite would be the wasp's
sting."'

"Now, this is a tremendous admission from a philosopher in love with his
science. It shows that he cares for truth more than for mere wisdom--"

"Look here, young man, something has brightened you up; this is the
first day for the fortnight that you have condescended to turn your
thoughts away from the luxury of fretting."

"Ay, indeed," he said, and there was a faint halo around his face.
"Three things--work, Dolores, and my weekly hour. I have trampled all my
bitterness under the hoofs of hard work. I have my first chapter of 'The
Cappadocians' ready for the printer. I tell you work is a noble tonic.
It was the best thing Carlyle wrote,--that essay on Work. Then this
afflicted child shames me. She takes her crucifixion so gloriously. And
last, but not least, when I pass my hour before the Blessed
Sacrament--an hour is a long time, Father Dan, and you think of a lot of
things--and when all the Christian philosophy about shame, and defeat,
and suffering, and ignominy comes back to me, I assure you I have been
angry with myself, and almost loathe myself for being such a coward as
to whimper under such a little trial."

"Very good! Now, that's common sense. Have you heard from the Board?"

"Yes; that's all right. They are going to hold an investigation to try
and make that French steamer responsible, as I believe she is, for two
reasons: she was going full speed in the fog; and she should have
observed the rule of the road, or of the sea, that a steamer is always
bound to give way to a sailing vessel. And I am becoming thoroughly
convinced now, from all that I can hear, that it was no accident. I
should like to know what took that steamer away from the fleet, and five
miles out of her ordinary course. I'm sure the Board will mulct her
heavily."

"But has the Board jurisdiction over foreign vessels ten or twelve miles
from shore?"

"That I don't know. I wish Ormsby were home."

"So do I, except for the tragedy we'll have to witness with that poor
child."

"Have you heard lately?"

"Not since she wrote from Paris."

"Alice had a letter from Florence yesterday. Such a pitiful letter, all
about her father. There was a good deal that Alice did not
understand,--about Dante, and Savonarola, and the Certosa,--but she said
I'd explain it. Clearly she knows nothing as yet."

But the revelation was not long delayed, and it came about in this wise.
I had a letter--a long letter--from Bittra from Rome, in which she wrote
enthusiastically about everything, for she had seen all the sacred
places and objects that make Rome so revered that even Protestants call
it home and feel lonely when leaving it. And she had seen the Holy
Father, and got blessings for us all,--for her own father, for Daddy
Dan, for Dolores, for Father Letheby. "And," she wrote, "I cannot tell
you what I felt when I put on the black dress and mantelletta and veil,
which are _de rigueur_ when a lady is granted an audience with the Pope.
I felt that this should be my costume, not my travelling bridal dress;
and I would have continued to wear it but that Rex preferred to see me
dressed otherwise. But it is all delightful. The dear old ruins, the
awful Coliseum, where Felicitas and Perpetua suffered, as you often told
us; and here Pancratius was choked by the leopard; and there were those
dreadful emperors and praetors, and even Roman women, looking down at the
whole horrible tragedy. I almost heard the howl of the wild beasts, and
saw them spring forward, and then crouch and creep onwards towards the
martyrs. Some day, Rex says, we'll all come here together again--you,
and papa, and Father Letheby,--and we'll have a real long holiday, and
Rex will be our guide, for he knows everything, and _he'll charge
nothing_." Alas! her presentiment about the mourning dress was not far
from verification. They travelled home rapidly, up through Lombardy,
merely glancing at Turin and Milan and the Lakes. At Milan they caught
the Swiss mail, and passed up and through the mountains, emerging from
the St. Gothard tunnel just as a trainful of passengers burst from the
refreshment rooms at Goschenen and thronged the mail to Brindisi. Here
they rested; and here Bittra, anxious to hear English or Irish news,
took up eagerly the "Times" of a month past, that lay on a side table,
and, after a few rapid glances, read:--

"A sad accident occurred off the Galway coast, on Monday, June----.
The 'Star of the Sea,' a new fishing-smack, especially built for
the deep-sea fisheries, was struck on her trial trip by a French
steamer and instantly submerged. Her crew were saved, except
Captain Campion, the well-known yachtsman, who had taken charge of
the boat for the occasion. He must have been struck insensible by
the prow of the steamer, for he made no effort to save himself, but
sank instantly. As the disaster occurred ten miles from land, there
is no hope that his body will be recovered."

How she took the intelligence, her blank stare of horror, when Ormsby
entered the dining-room, whilst she could only point in mute despair to
the paper; how, the first shock over, she fell back upon the sublime
teachings of religion for consolation; and how the one thing that
concerned her most deeply manifested itself in her repeated exclamations
of prayer and despair: "His soul! his soul! poor papa!"--all this Ormsby
told us afterwards in detail. They hurried through Lucerne to Geneva,
from Geneva to Paris, from Paris home, travelling night and day, his
strong arm supporting her bravely, and he, in turn, strengthened in his
new-born faith by the tenderness of her affection and the sublimity of
her faith.

Of course, we knew nothing of all this whilst the days, the long days,
of July drew drearily along with cloudless skies, but, oh! such clouded
hearts! Suspense and uncertainty weighed heavily on us all. We did not
know what to-morrow might bring. Occasionally a visitor came over
through curiosity to see the theatre of the accident, shrug his
shoulders, wonder at the folly of young men, and depart with an air of
smug self-satisfaction. There were a few letters from the factory at
Loughboro', complaining and then threatening, and at last came a bill
for L96.0.0, due on the twelve machines, and an additional bill for
L30.0.0, due on material. Then I wrote, asking the proprietor to take
back machines and material, and make due allowance for both. I received
a courteous reply to the effect that this was contrary to all business
habits and customs. There the matter rested, except that one last letter
came, after a certain interval, peremptorily demanding payment and
threatening law proceedings.

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