by George Moore
It seemed to me sad that the pretty litter of red animals should all be struggling in traps before the end of the week, and to rid myself of the doleful spectacle I began to ask questions about the ruin; a famous convent it was, no doubt, in the years back. You’ve heard of it, Alec? I’ve heard of it surely, he muttered, and we walked on in silence through wet stones and tussocks and juniper bushes. A poor country, I said, grey lake and gaunt shores, naked everywhere save whence we have come. But Ireland was once called the island of woods. I’ve always heard it was here, he said, interrupting my meditation; and I found myself beside an ivied ruin. “Ruin” seems an exaggerated expression, for there was little more than heap of stones covered with a thick mane of ivy, but a closer examination of the ground disclosed traces of ancient walls that the earth had not yet overgrown. Yes, it was in this place, he repeated, that one of Ireland’s greatest sons was done out.
The story is coming, I said, but dared not ask Alec to continue it lest he might take fright. He came here from the wilderness when he was getting a bit too old to live on water-grass and cockles. You remember Scothine, your honour? He that put the great trial on Brenainn, making him lie between two virgins with round breasts and after dining him on a fine trout. Well, Moling was another such a saint as himself before he came to the convent, and there’s no saying that he wouldn’t be as high in heaven to-day if it hadn’t been — ah, well, ’tis true what they do be saying, that no man is safe from temptation till he’s dead.
There’s a story on his mind without doubt, I said to myself, and I could listen to it with more comfort in these woods than on a gusty bog trying to keep my hat from blowing away. Don’t you think, Alec, that we’re going too far? I asked, and tea waiting for us in the house beyond. Faith, a cup of tea would be better than a blow of a stick, he answered cheerfully; but I thought your honour might like to see one more twist of the lake.
I’ve heard of the view beyond that hill — There are few things, I interrupted, more beautiful than a fine evening after the rain. Whatever your honour likes. Perhaps the tea would be better, I answered, and as soon as we came to the ruined wall on our way back I began to examine it, without, however, putting any questions to him. I’m slow to go beyond this spot, said Alec, without getting down on my two knees, wet and all as the ground is.
An ill-judged word might stop the story on his lips, and to say nothing at all might allow it to pass away.
All but that corner wall has disappeared, I mentioned casually. True for you, Alec murmured, the ground has grown over most of the convent, all but her grave and the clay will never climb over that, for wherever there’s been a great wickedness done there’s a scar left. The story is coming, he will tell it, and how suitable these woods are for the telling of a story, these quiet, almost soundless woods, only the raindrops falling from the leaves, I said, and began to admire the architecture of the trees — tall boles of elm and beech with the hills showing through the top branches, and, I said to myself, the misted lake through the lower. A beautiful wood whose monotony is relieved by a rough pine — that one making a break in the pale greenery.
But the story Alec was cherishing of the saint who came out of the wilderness in search of temptations, like Scothine, but who, unlike Scothine, failed to conquer them, diverted my attention from the trees to Alec’s anxious face, and putting together all my knowledge of Alec, gathered, it is true, in a week’s intimacy, and adding to it my instinctive comprehension of what is lowly and remote, I concluded, rightly or wrongly, I know not which, but I concluded that outside of his gift of story-telling he differed in no essential fact from any casual peasant picked out at Westport on market day; and that if I pressed the analysis a little further, we should come to this: that very little of his gift of storytelling is personal to him — to himself. But can anyone say: this much belongs to me and to no one else? Is not all reflection and derivation? My refusal, however, was firm not to be led into this blind alley, and fixing my thoughts firmly on Alec, striving to see him steadily and to see him whole, as a good mid-Victorian should, I said: his gift of story-telling amuses me because it is new to me, but it is as old as the hills themselves, flowing down the generations since yonder hills were piled up. Sheep paths worn among the hills. His grandfather or granduncle, whichever the Dublin scholar was, trimmed these paths a little. Sheep paths, nothing else. Alec is a creature of circumstance, and like myself can be accounted for. He tells stories against the priests and nuns of the twelfth century, for these are not far removed, in his knowledge and imagination, from druids and druidesses. It was only a few centuries before the twelfth that the druids began to discard the oak leaves for the biretta; but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they were full-bellied Roman priests; by that time the word had become flesh; it is just touch and go if he tells me the story he is brooding over or refrains from telling it. I can do nothing.
On this thought I raised my eyes for another look at him, and as I did so Alec said: mind he must have been one of the greatest saints that ever fell out in Ireland, for it was the great deed he did, saving a soul from the devil himself. I told your honour, as I should have done, that it was at the end of his life; he came out of the wilderness where he had been along with the hermits, since he was a bit of a gossoon living on cress and gulls’ eggs. It was after twenty years of the tough eating that he came to rest his bones in the convent that you saw this day. A man between fifty and sixty, yet the diet did not seem to have taken a feather out of him, for his hair was as black as you like, and it hung down on his shoulders in fine curls, and the pair of eyes in his head were as shiny as a young cat’s. A spare, wiry little man that no one would believe to be so old. But it was just as I’m telling you. He came out of the wilderness between fifty-five and sixty to hear the confessions of nuns by the lake beyond; he came down from the crags above Old Head. You know Old Head, your honour. Mr. Ruttledge goes there every summer with the children to swim. It was there Moling had been living many a year the way I told you. A queer place it is too, and he thought that his rest was well-earned anyhow. But there was no rest for him in this world, poor man, from the day he waved his hat at the crags above Old Head, and came down at the trot to Loch Conn to confess the nuns of Cuthmore. And then didn’t the bad luck start up in the most unlikely place, in the mind of Sister Ligach, as pious a one as ever wore out a pair of knees on the top of this earth. I’ve come, Father, she said, dropping down on the same bones, I’ve come with a great sin stuck in my conscience; but I’ve faith in the sacrament to relieve me. Well you might, said Moling, for you are the one got well instructed. On these words, he settled his stole and cocked his ear, and wasn’t it a relief to him to learn that the only thing that was wrong with her was this, that she wasn’t able to pray to the saints to put in a word for herself and the sisters in the convent. A light sin, surely, but being a priest he had to blame her, and tell her she’d be better off remembering the saints that stand by us when the word of death is in our throats, singing and praying round the throne of God to spare them that do be passing away from the world, or if that cannot be owing to mortal sin, getting their share of purgatory a bit easy.
After saying all this he thought he had done with her and that she would get up from her knees, but there wasn’t a move out of her. My child, said he, what are you waiting for? Well, Father, said herself, what good would it be for me to be leaving you and I not making a clean breast of it? I confessed that I can’t pray to the saints any longer, but I’ve worse than that in my head. Well the priest puckered up his lips and a thoughtful look came into his eyes. No more than to the saints am I able to pray to the holy virgin to succour us. Are you telling me that you can’t pray to the holy virgin, the mother of the blessed God! said the priest, and he in a fright. Not to herself who bore the son of God in her womb? It is like that, Father, indeed. The priest next to jumped out of his skin at that, and the chair he’d been sitting on fell behind him. Pick up your chair, Father, and hear me out, said Ligach, or y
ou’ll be sorry afterwards. I can pray to no one but to Jesus himself, said she. To no better could you nor anyone else be praying, said the priest; but don’t forget that there is no one could put in a word better or quicker for you and for us all than his own mother. Tell me, my child, who would he be likely to be listening to more than to his own mother? To which Ligach replied: the truth indeed, Father, but I’ve no thought for anybody but himself, and there’s no use giving a prayer when your thoughts aren’t in it. I wouldn’t say so far as that, said the priest, for by saying the prayers themselves the sinner brings himself under the rule of the Church, and the frozen waters of his heart will loosen and burst. It is as you say, Father, but you haven’t heard all yet. I can’t say a prayer at Mass; my thoughts aren’t on the Mass that you’re saying, but out in the garden.
At the words “out in the garden” Moling’s brow blackened, and maybe it was the quiet drawl of the girl got him on the raw as much as anything else. Is it that your thoughts are out gallivanting in the garden when I’m calling down God into the bread and wine? But, Father, isn’t it much of a much? Isn’t it the same thing? Jesus gave us the sacrament, and if I’m thinking of him I’m thinking of what is going on at the altar too. It is of the upper chamber in which he ordered the sacrament, cried the priest, that you should be thinking; and it would be better still if your thoughts were on the miracle and me at it. My child, I’m afraid I don’t understand you. I haven’t got the rights of it yet. Well, it’s like this, Father; all the time you’re saying your Mass I’m thinking of Jesus on the cross, and he suffering great torments for me. A very good thought that is, Moling answered; a holy thought indeed; but you ought to be thinking too that it was himself ordered the apostles to celebrate Mass when he was gone. I believe all that, said Ligach, but it’s the way that his suffering on the cross puts every other thing out of my head, for am I not his bride whom he will take in his arms? That’s true for you, said the priest, but you mustn’t be thinking too much of your meeting with him in heaven. It is well enough for you, Father, to say that, but ’tis of our meeting in heaven I’m thinking all the time, and there’s nothing will ever get that thought out of my mind.
All the same I won’t be refusing you absolution, said he. But, Father, will you be hearing me out first, for I’ve not told you the lot of it yet? A great part of my prayers to Jesus is that he will be giving me a sign, a nod of the head or the like. Faith, said the priest, I do not come to this place to listen to nonsense and rameis. Say your prayers and obey the rule, and let me be hearing the rest of the parish. How many more are there waiting to come in to me? Three of us, Father. And now, Ligach, if you want my absolution, bend your head; for you see, your honour, Moling was a hot-tempered man, and Ligach one of those that would work up a passion in the greatest saint in heaven. All the same, said she, I’d be glad of a sign. But what would the like of you be wanting a sign for? Haven’t you heard that humility is the top of the virtues? Be off with you. But Ligach wasn’t to be outdone. I’m afraid, Father, without a sign — Without a sign of what? snapped out Moling. The day may come, Ligach continued, when I shall not feel as sure as I do now that he suffered all those torments for me. I want to believe always and to be sure of it, never thinking of anything but my belief in the son of God our redeemer. You’re wanting a lot and plenty, said the priest — to live on earth as we shall live hereafter in heaven. But it’s not a bit too much, surely, when we remember the death he died, which I never can let out of my thoughts. You’re a good little nun, said the priest; I used to be like that myself in the years back. You’ll give me absolution, Father? Faith, I will, said the priest, startled, for he’d been away.
Other penitents were waiting; he shrove them all without giving much of his mind to their sins, for he was thinking of Ligach all the time, and on leaving the chapel who did he meet but Ligach and the Mother Abbess coming in from the garden, Ligach dripping like a spaniel that had been in the river. Father, cried Mother Abbess, I’ll ask you to refuse her absolution if she doesn’t give in and be biddable. Look at the way she is in, and you wouldn’t guess where I found her in three guesses — in front of the cross kneeling down in a pool of water. See the way she’s in — out there in the teeming rain, catching her death of cold. Go and change your clothes at once, my child, and remember that the first duty of a nun is to give in to her superiors. To back up the Mother Abbess, Moling said he never remembered so severe a winter, and when Ligach came to confess to him he wasn’t a bit surprised to hear a bad cough. The cough was followed up by another, and before she could confess one of her sins, she was taken with such a fit of coughing and sneezing that Moling said: my child, that’s the bad cold you’ve got, and a cough on the top of it. Yes, I suppose I got it in the garden, for it’s been wet enough there lately. But didn’t I hear the Mother Abbess tell you that you weren’t to go there? You did, Father. But it was for a sign I was praying, and if I do not get one I may fall into a worse sin than that of disobedience. Now what sign are you wanting? asked Moling. A sign that he is waiting for me in heaven. You’ve got a bad cold, a very bad one, the priest repeated. Faith, I have, but a cold is a small matter compared to what he suffered on the cross. ’Tis true for you, said Moling, but a cold may put an end to you just as well as a thrust of a spear. You wouldn’t be comparing myself to himself, would you? said the nun. Of course not, the priest snapped out, and began to speak hard and stiff about her folly in wanting God to grant her special favours. You’re sinning in the sight of God, said he, by endangering your life in the way you’re doing. Be off with you now; and Ligach just bowed her head, and her cough was so bad as she left the chapel that the priest would have taken his words back if he could, and not being able to do that, he rang the parlour bell as soon as he had had dinner and asked for herself.
Now, said he to herself, Ligach has as bad a cough as I’ve ever heard in my born days, and the Mother Abbess answered: true for you, Father; it keeps us all awake at night. We can hear her all over the convent barking, and now there are three other sisters and the lot almost as bad as Ligach, and there will be more laid up, for be it wet or cold, they’re all kneeling round the cross catching their full of cramps. Well, I was like that myself once; and Moling began to tell of the years he spent among the gulls on the crags above Old Head, and the twenty-three years in the woods living on water-grass. For thirty years I didn’t sleep under a roof, but as the years go by we begin to weary of the things that we hung on to in our youth. But our lives are in God’s hand; we belong to God, who has given life into our keeping, and expects us to look after it. I’m altogether of the same idea as yourself, the Mother Abbess replied, but it will be no change while that same cross is left in the garden. A better place for it, said the priest, would be in the chapel. Now you’ve said it, Father, and as soon as we can get a little help we will have the cross — Put up in one of the side chapels, the priest interjected. I’ll show you the place.
And it was a fortnight after the shifting of the cross that Sister Ligach crawled out of her cell more dead than alive; the others were well before her. And what did she do? Out with her into the garden to kneel down in front of the cross that had nearly cost her her life, and finding it gone out of the garden, she cried: how are we to keep our thoughts from wandering from him who died for our sins and waits for us in heaven? Do we know that he got the best of health always when he lived on this earth? Not a word in the scripture; not a word. And such was her canter till Mother Abbess had to say: now, Ligach, obedience is the first rule in a convent. But, Mother, think what he suffered for me and I not allowed into the garden for his sake. Well, that is my rule, said herself, but to make matters lighter for Ligach, she gave the young nun permission to rise out of her bed at eleven o’clock and go into the chapel and do an hour’s devotion before the nuns rose out of their beds for matins. At which indulgence the tears came into Ligach’s eyes, and she said: may the Lord have mercy upon you for that. It is all I can give you, the Abbess answered; make the best of i
t, Ligach. Faith and troth I will, and you won’t be left out of the prayers, Mother Abbess. And every night Ligach was on her knees before the cross praying for a sign. But not the sign of a sign nor the ghost of a sign came near her, and when she next went to confession, she said: no sign has come to me, Father, and the temptation is always pushing me from behind. What temptation is that one, my child? the priest asked. The devil himself and not one of his bailiffs either, telling me always that if I can’t get a sign from Jesus, I must be getting one from himself, which would do me as well. My child, my child, do you know what you’re saying? I do indeed, she answered, and I cannot help myself much longer. Every time the thought comes into my head I shake it and say: Hail Mary, but it doesn’t help me at all. If I were you I’d give myself a pinch in some soft spot, said the priest, or a pin I’d stick into me when the temptation came around; here’s one for Satan, you will be saying, as the pin goes into your thigh or your bosom; and if you aren’t hurt enough push the pin into the sorest place you can find, under one of your nails, and if that doesn’t stop the black fellow I’ll have to put on my considering cap and think it out, but do what I tell you first.
