Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  He’ll do it, Scothine said, and, pushing Brenainn before him up the stairs, he called to the girls to light the censers. What are the censers for? Brenainn asked. We will pray together that strength may be given to you, and no sooner were these words out of his mouth than the girls came up the stairs singing a psalm, as was their wont when Scothine was the penancer, and after seeing that the bed was easy if Brenainn should escape from his tormentors in sleep, which might happen, for he had come a long way on foot, Scothine bade them all good-night and closed the door behind him, rejoicing, good man though he was, at the suffering and the trouble would be put on Brenainn that night.

  But he wasn’t more than half-way down the first flight of stairs when he was stopped by a sudden little whisper in his ear. It was his good angel come to tell him that he had been listening to his bad angel all the time, taking one for the other, as you can easily do if you’re not careful, for the bad one puts on the whisper of the good one at times, and after listening for a while Scothine thought he ought to go and offer his peaceful bed to Brenainn and lie himself in the hot place, he being better able to bear the temptation. But there seemed to be a hand in the darkness keeping him back, pushing him down the stairs, and down he went step by step saying to himself that after all he wasn’t putting anything on the man that he hadn’t borne with himself; and asking himself why should he be patting himself on the back and thinking that he was a grander man than Brenainn. It is the evil angel surely putting these evil thoughts into my mind, he said; and it wasn’t long before he was asking himself whether it was because he wanted to get the better of Brenainn that he had shoved him into danger. Get the better of Brenainn! Scothine cried out as he stood by his bed-side. Why should I want to do the like? But there’s no help for it now, what is done is done, and there’s the end of it, he said, and he lay down in the bed. But his thoughts kept him awake, tumbling over each other all the night like waves in the bay, so afraid was he that he might have done the wrong thing in landing Brenainn into the midst and middle of temptation, a thing which is permitted to no man to do, for no one knows another man’s strength, only God knows that. But if the devil should worst him in the battle my prayers and fastings will be wasted, and it will be an easy job for him to lose the game with a girl like Dare lying alongside of him. But is that sure? She’ll tell him if he gets wild that he must lift up the window and stand in the cistern till he gets cool; but if Dare should fall asleep the devil may get hold of the little one, who would put her arms about Brenainn’s neck and tempt him to sin with her, for she’s but a child, and has no more than a smattering of religion as yet, and if Lalloc falls asleep Dare may stick a temptation on to poor Brenainn which his strength is not great enough to resist. We’re all liable to strong weaknesses, Dare like the rest, like her mother Eve.

  If I was wrong, O great and merciful God, in whose girdle is the key of purgatory’s gate, tell me if I’ve done wrong in letting Brenainn lie in my place to-night. There’s no key to hell’s gate, I know, for it’s always open; wide it is, and gaping, but it isn’t hell that I’ve been deserving, for my act wasn’t heinous, but only a while in purgatory, and out of that dismal place thou wilt give me a free pass. Well I’ve earned it by my fastings and prayers which are written down in the Great Book, and the days I spent on the crags picking up a gull’s egg out of the nest or a clutch of dulce from the shore.

  And when Scothine had come to the end of the prayers and his lamentations he gave a great cry out of him, and, unable to bear with his fears any longer, he jumped out of the bed, saying: I can stick it no longer. I must find out whether God or the devil got the best of it in the next room or if nobody won yet. But no sooner was he on his legs than a weakness fell upon him which he couldn’t understand, for there was little strength in him and he couldn’t as much as walk away from the bed. It seemed to him that it must be the devil was holding him back. Gripped I am and held I am, he said, and he was shaken with a great fear and a squeamy feeling in the insides, so that he did not know whether he ought to go back to his bed or what to do. I’ll pray, said he. I’ll pray, for that’s the last resource of the sinner, and falling on his knees he began praying, without knowing what he was praying about, and his prayers went on and on, himself all in the dark about them. He didn’t feel his knees under him, though the hours of the night were going by, nor the cold of the morning, though he was in his pelt.

  CHAPTER 25.

  THE SUN HAD risen above the mountains and he was still praying that Brenainn might come out of the fiery furnace a better man than he went in. Dear God, let him not be tempted too much, he was saying to himself; not above his strength, dear God, for I’ve been thy faithful servant this many a year, and the temptation of pointed breasts and smooth limbs is great to a man of his years, although he be but a roll of lard to look at; he’s young, dear God, he is young and unprepared for the temptation by a long diet of water-grass and nuts. Another long cry burst from him, and he was starting off on another prayer, when a knock come on the door. Scothine rose to his feet, and, thinking it was the girls come to give him news of Brenainn, he went to meet them. But it was Brenainn himself come to tell him that the girls had gone home an hour ago and that Scothine ought to be dressing himself if he was going to say Mass.

  I’ve stayed on a bit, he continued, so that I may be serving your Mass for you. You had a fine easy night of it, Scothine, he said, and have overslept yourself. Overslept myself! said Scothine. Why shouldn’t you be oversleeping yourself, and you lying quiet in the comfortable bed? said Brenainn, and he turned away gloomily. The thought was in Scothine that the gloom on Brenainn’s face might be the shadow of the sin he had committed during the night, but he said nothing about that, only: I’ll be with you presently. Brenainn hadn’t been out of the room long before Scothine fell on his knees again to pray to God that any sin Brenainn had committed might not be visited upon him. But what’s done cannot be undone, he said to himself: there’s the end of that, he said, whatever way it went, and rising from his knees, and beginning to dress himself, he shouted over the banisters to Brenainn that he wouldn’t be delaying long and that Brenainn might start off to the chapel and ring the bell.

  CHAPTER 26.

  THE PEOPLE UP from the village, as they watched Scothine reading the Mass to the right and to the left, thought that his face was pale and full of weakness, and they feared he would be overcome and that Brenainn would have to finish the Mass for him. But he stuck it out and went right on. And when he came to the Communion it was a relief to him to put the Host on the tongues of Dare and Lalloc, for he didn’t think they’d have taken it if there had been sin, and he continued to put his trust in God till the end of the Mass. And after the Mass the two priests went into the house and ate their breakfast without a word passing, until Scothine said: and what message will you be taking back to the Bishop about me? You’re the greatest saint in Ireland, Brenainn answered, and that’s what I’ll tell the Bishop. I’ll tell him that same. I hope that some part of what you say is the truth, Scothine answered, and he ate two or three mouthfuls of oatcake. In those days oatcakes was the breakfast fare, with a noggin of ale or milk, for not a drop of tea was in Ireland, as your honour knows, till centuries after. Scothine only drank water himself, but he had a noggin of milk to offer Brenainn, who seemed glad of it. He may be a saint after all, Scothine said to himself; and my innocence must be plain to him by the maidenheads of the girls; but he didn’t like to ask Brenainn about the thing, though his heart was sick, and his thoughts were teasing him like bees, one stinging him here and another there till he was stung all over. At last Brenainn said: well, I must be going; the day wastes after midday and I’ve a long way before me. I’ll take a cake along with me. Take two; take three or four; you won’t be at your door till dark, and now the thought is upon me that your way through the forest is full of danger. You may be overtaken by the evening wolves, or you may fall in with robbers. What do you say to preparing yourself for your death by kneeling down the
re and making your confession?

  Faith, he said, I will; and down he plumped on his two knees. Wait a bit, Scothine cried, till I get my stole, and when he had it on he was sure of knowing the truth. Now tell me, how did things pass with you last night?

  I didn’t know, Brenainn answered, till the door was shut upon myself and the girls that I would have to lie with them and keep myself from temptation the best I could. Nor did I know if I’d be able, and when they were stripped, I said: glory be to God, will I get out of this, or will my soul be roasted on me for the pleasure of a night? It wasn’t so much the little one.

  I understand that, Scothine said; I understand that; get on with your confession.

  It was the big one that perplexed me and drove me as wild as a puckaun for the first half-hour. But the backside, the red hair, the round eyes shining like stars can be overcome by prayer, said Scothine. It’s true, indeed, Scothine, but she was at me all the while, saying: for the temptation thou resistest to-night thou shalt receive a great reward in heaven. That’s where you should have meditated on the cross, Scothine whispered. I did that, you may be sure, Scothine, and she, knowing my great torment, said: keep on saying your prayers, or turn to my little sister, for she won’t be stirring you up as I seem to do. But the little sister was asleep — She was asleep, was she? Scothine cried out. She was that, and every moment I thought that I was a lost man. Such restlessness, Dare said, is not in the bond. If you’re as bad as this in the first hour, what will you be later on when I wake my sister and we begin the greater temptations? Are there greater ones than these? I asked. There are, surely, she said, and you must prepare for them by the tub, the way Scothine does when he’s hard hit. The tub! I cried. Yes, she said; up with you and I’ll show it to you. And taking me to the window she told me to climb into the cistern, and I stood in the cistern up to my neck for the best part of half-an-hour. It wasn’t till then I was let back into the room, and the pipes were given to me. You can play them? Dare said. I can that, I said.

  And you stood the test of the dancing, did you? Scothine asked.

  For a while; but I had to make a lep for the cistern to prepare myself for the game of leap-frog, and the greater temptations.

  And you withstood them all without incontinence, voluntary or involuntary? I did so. Well, then, let us pray together, and let us thank God that you were able to keep the devil out of the bed, for I was afeared for you, and on my knees I prayed all the night long that you might be swung up to heaven in a golden scarf and not let down into hell on a black pulley. Brenainn, it may be that my prayers saved you. Why should you be taking all the credit to yourself, Scothine, believing, in your vanity, that you’re the only man in Ireland that can lie with two young women without sinning with them, if you be not on your knees in the next room praying that strength may be given unto him? A sore place this would be for God to rest his eyes on if I were the only one, Scothine answered, and Brenainn turned his eyes on Scothine, trying to understand him. Then why were you praying for me? Hadn’t you been with the girls yourself and didn’t you know all their tricks? I’ve only dared the temptations after a diet of water-grass and acorns, but you overcame the temptation of the thighs and the temptation of the breasts, and the feast of the eyes that the dancing affords, and the game of leap-frog, with a full belly, for I’m not forgetful, though I was at the moment, of the great big trout that we ate for our dinner. It was the thought of the trout kept you awake all night praying for me? Brenainn asked. It was that and nothing else, for why should you not succeed where I have succeeded? Scothine continued. And your thought all the time, my poor friend, was that I might lose my soul through you. That is so. I was asking myself all last night what would happen to me at all if my share of the thing had lost your soul, Brenainn. But let us say no more about it. You threw out the temptation after eating the trout, and it weighing two and a half pounds if it weighed an ounce. I couldn’t get that trout off my mind, and my conscience was sorely stricken that I should have led you into temptation after eating the trout, and all the night on my knees my entrails were wambling, and my head so light that I hardly knew what kind of prayers I was saying, the way they were coming and going like sparks from a smith’s anvil. But I’m talking too much. Tell me at once that there was no incontinence. There was none, Brenainn replied. Then you’re a great man and a holy man indeed, a great glory to Ireland herself; you’re all that, and I’ll shrive you this instant of the venial sins you’ve committed, for there are always venial sins, and it were better that the earth and sun, moon and stars should fall out of their places, and the skies be for ever empty, than that the least sin should be committed, so great is the least of these in God’s sight. And Scothine began the Latin prayer, mumbling through it quickly, his voice getting clear at the words “absolvo te”. And these being pronounced, Brenainn rose from his knees. And now, Scothine, one last question: tell me, when we’re in heaven together, will these two girls be given to me or will they be given to you? If they’re given to anyone, Scothine answered, his face clouding a little, they should be given to me. But you didn’t resist them with a trout weighing two and a half pounds in your belly! Didn’t you eat half the trout yourself, so there was only a pound and a quarter after all. Don’t let us be arguing about what’s going to happen to us in heaven, but do you be looking out and searching in your own parish for two other girls that may tempt you as mine have tempted you, and get you up into the front row. I’ll do that if the Bishop lets me, but, Scothine, in heaven there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage. We’ve read that in the scriptures. You’re a great story-teller, Alec, and I fell to thinking that the priests departed from each other in happiness, and with a little regret at the back of the happiness which neither could understand, so entirely without cause did it seem to both of them.

  CHAPTER 27.

  WE HAD LEFT Westport in plenty of sunshine, but as soon as we came to the great bog, lying between Westport and Loch Conn, squalls, charged with stinging rain, rushed down upon us from the hills, dun-coloured hills frowning under their cloud caps; and the road we were following seemed so unlikely to lead us towards woods filled with rhododendrons (now in their decline, my host said, as we started, the flush of June being over; a sort of evening hour of beauty gone, I cried back to him) that when I found myself crouching behind a turf stack for shelter, the suspicion rose up quite naturally that we were being befooled. Alec, I said, do you think Mr. Ruttledge is putting a joke upon us? Mr. Ruttledge isn’t the man would make it a joke to send you off to Loch Conn for a wetting, Alec answered. I’ve never been in this part of the country myself, but I’ve heard of the rhododendrons, and we shall be among them soon if your honour will have patience; you see the weather is mending, the clouds are lifting from the tops of the hills yonder. But the bog, I said. It seems as if it was going on for ever. That is the way with a bog, your honour; it ends and begins without any warning. I’ve remarked the same thing myself, I answered, and we trudged for two miles more, weary travellers at last rewarded by the sight of green hill-sides. Now wouldn’t this be the domain Mr. Ruttledge was talking about? Alec asked, and my surprise was great, for the woods seemed to me to become more beautiful as we proceeded into them, rising steeply from the shores of the lake, and full, as my host had told me, with declining bloom, white, pink, purple and mauve, with one great tree flaunting so insolently over the ruin of the gate lodge, or steward’s house or cabin (it matters not which, once a human habitation) that it was pleasant to pass into the demure woods; the world we live in being a green one, our eyes return to green eagerly after too much colour.

  We had been told that we should find the Royal Osmunda by the lake-side, and the owner conducted us from terrace to terrace till we came to a plank bridge, a crazy structure that had been built out into the marsh; there were gaps in it, but with the aid of stepping-stones we reached the corner in which the great fern grew, but alas, it grew in such profusion that we took little pleasure in it and returned inland disappoint
ed, depressed perhaps tells my feelings better. I shall expect you back at tea-time, the owner said, after giving us leave to roam his woods whither it might please our fancy, calling us back to advise an excursion to a ruin. We should find it, he said, if we followed the lake shore for about half-a-mile. But I do not know that it’s worth visiting, he added on consideration; very little of the original convent remains. But the evening looks like clearing, and if you meet an old peasant ask him to tell you the story of a nun who is buried there. I’ve only heard it hinted at. A saint it appears she was. You may be more successful than I have been; you see I’m a stranger, an Englishman living on good terms with the people but looked upon as an alien. We’ll try, I said, turning my eyes towards Alec. A moment before it seemed to me that I had described an awakening of interest in his face. He knows the saint’s story, I said to myself, and hoping to hear it from him, I thanked the owner and entered his woods again; a beautiful and silent domain, I said, not a bird singing in it, for the rain is threatening still; a strange day, not a wave on the beach nor patter of hare or rabbit among the leaves. Sorra one, said Alec. And we walked idly to the little pier, almost forgetful of the ruin we had been invited to go in search of. A boatless pier, I said. What has become of the owner’s boats? Alec was unable to answer me and we stood gazing across the lake. Not a gull, nor a sand-piper, nothing but the gaunt shores yonder. A lake famous for its trout, I added, hoping to tempt Alec into an observation. It was once the finest water in Ireland for trout, he answered, but it is no good since they got rid of the pike. But the pike ate the trout, I said. All the same, Alec replied, where there are no pike there are no trout: they’ve ruined the lake. He nudged me and pointed to a great heap of stones by the little pier. Stoats, he whispered, and in response to an imitation given with his lips of a rabbit wounded or in distress, four little red heads peeped out. The gamekeeper will be able to get them all by the end of the week; catch the bitch first and then the young ones will come looking after her and trot into the trap.