Читать книгу My New Curate - Patrick Augustine Sheehan - Страница 7

Table of Contents

A NIGHT CALL

It must have been about two o'clock on Sunday morning, when the house bell was pulled violently and a rapid series of fierce, sharp knocks woke up the house. What priest does not know that tocsin of the night, and the start from peaceful slumbers? I heard the housekeeper wake up Father Letheby; and in a short time I heard him go down stairs. Then there was the usual hurried colloquy at the hall door, then the retreating noises of galloping feet. I pulled the blankets around my shoulders, lifted the pillow, and said, "Poor fellow!" He had to say last Mass next day, and this was some consolation, as he could sleep a few hours in the morning. I met him at breakfast about half past one o'clock. There he was, clean, cool, cheerful, as if nothing had happened.

"I was sorry you had that night call," I said; "how far had you to go?"

"To some place called Knocktorisha," he replied, opening his egg; "'t was a little remote, but I was well repaid."

"Indeed," said I; "the poor people are very grateful. And they generally pay for whatever trouble they give."

He flushed up.

"Oh, I didn't mean any pecuniary recompense," he said, a little nettled. "I meant that I was repaid by the extraordinary faith and fervor of the people."

I waited.

"Why, Father," said he, turning around and flicking a few invisible crumbs with his napkin, "I never saw anything like it. I had quite an escort of cavalry, two horsemen, who rode side by side with me the whole way to the mountain, and then, when we had to dismount and climb up through the boulders of some dry torrent course, I had two linkmen or torchbearers, leaping on the crest of the ditch on either side, and lighting me right up to the door of the cabin. It was a picture that Rembrandt might have painted."

He paused and blushed a little, as if he had been pedantic.

"But tell me, Father," said he, "is this the custom in the country?"

"Oh yes," said I; "we look upon it as a matter of course. Your predecessors didn't make much of it."

"It seems to me," he said, "infinitely picturesque and beautiful. It must have been some tradition of the Church when she was free to practise her ceremonies. But where do they get these torches?"

"Bog-oak, steeped in petroleum," I said. "It is, now that you recall it, very beautiful and picturesque. Our people will never allow a priest, with the Blessed Sacrament with him, to go unescorted."

"Now that you have mentioned it," he said, "I distinctly recall the custom that existed among the poor of Salford. They would insist always on accompanying me home from a night sick-call. I thought it was superfluous politeness, and often insisted on being alone, particularly as the streets were always well lighted. But no. If the men hesitated, the women insisted; and I had always an escort to my door. But this little mountain ceremony here is very touching."

"Who was sick?"

"Old Conroy—a mountain ranger, I believe. He is very poorly; and I anointed him." "By Jove," said he after a pause, "how he did pray—and all in Irish. I could imagine the old Hebrew prophets talking to God from their mountains just in that manner. But why do they expect to be anointed on the breast?"

"I do not know," I replied, "I think it is a Gallican custom introduced by the French refugee priests at the beginning of the century. The people invariably expect it."

"But you don't?" he asked in surprise.

"Oh dear, no. It would be hardly orthodox. Come, and if you are not too tired, we'll have a walk."

I took him through the village, where he met salaams and genuflections enough; and was stared at by the men, and blessed by the women, and received the mute adoration of the children. We passed along the bog road, where on either side were heaps of black turf drying, and off the road were deep pools of black water, filling the holes whence the turf was cut. It was lonely; for to-day we had not even the pale sunshine to light up the gloomy landscape, and to the east the bleak mountains stood, clear-cut and uniform in shagginess and savagery, against the cold, gray sky. The white balls of the bog cotton waved dismally in the light breeze, which curled the surface of a few pools, and drew a curlew or plover from his retreat, and sent him whistling dolefully, and beating the heavy air, as he swept towards mountain or lake. After half an hour's walking, painful to me, the ground gently rose, and down in the hollow a nest of poplars hid from the western gales. I took Father Letheby through a secret path in the plantation. We rested a little while, and talked of many things. Then we followed a tiny path, strewn with withered pine needles, and which cut upward through the hill. We passed from the shelter of the trees, and stood on the brow of a high declivity. I never saw such surprise in a human face before, and such delight. Like summer clouds sweeping over, and dappling a meadow, sensations of wonder and ecstasy rolled visibly across his fine mobile features. Then, he turned, and said, as if not quite sure of himself:—

"Why! 't is the sea!"

So it was. God's own sea, and his retreat, where men come but seldom, and then at their peril. There the great ball-room of the winds and spirits stretched before us, to-day as smooth as if waxed and polished, and it was tessellated with bands of blue and green and purple, at the far horizon line, where, down through a deep mine shaft in the clouds, the hidden sun was making a silent glory. It was a dead sea, if you will. No gleam of sail, near or afar, lit up its loneliness. No flash of sea bird, poised for its prey, or beating slowly over the desolate waste, broke the heavy dulness that lay upon the breast of the deep. The sky stooped down and blackened the still waters; and anear, beneath the cliff on which we were standing, a faint fringe of foam alone was proof that the sea still lived, though its face was rigid and its voice was stilled, as of the dead.

Father Letheby continued gazing in silence over the solemn scene for some time. Then lifting his hat he said aloud:—