by George Moore
Father Maguire felt that his temper had got the better of him, but it was too late to go back on what he said. Marry them for two pounds with the architect’s letter in the pocket of his cassock! And if he were to accept two pounds, who would pay five to be married? If he did not stand out for his dues the marriage fee would be reduced from five pounds to one pound ... And if he accepted Ned’s two pounds his authority would be weakened; he would not be able to get them to subscribe to have the church made safe. On the whole he thought he had done right, and his servant was of the same opinion.
“They’d have the cassock off your back, your reverence, if they could get it.”
“And the architect writing to me that the walls can’t be made safe under two hundred pounds, and the whole lot of them not earning less than thirty shillings a week, and they can’t pay the priest five pounds for marrying them.”
In the course of the day he went to Dublin to see the architect; and next morning it occurred to him that he might have to go to America to get the money to build a new church, and as he sat thinking the door was opened and the servant said that Biddy M’Hale wanted to see his reverence.
She came in curtseying, and before saying a word she took ten sovereigns out of her pocket and put them upon the table. The priest thought she had heard of the architect’s report, and he said: —
“Now, Biddy, I am glad to see you. I suppose you have brought me this for my church. You have heard of the money it will cost to make the walls safe.”
“No, your reverence, I did not hear any more than that there were cracks in the walls.”
“But you have brought me this money to have the cracks mended?”
“Well, no, your reverence. I have been thinking a long time of doing something for the church, and I thought I should like to have a window put up in the church with coloured glass in it.”
Father Maguire was touched by Biddy’s desire to do something for the church, and he thought he would have no difficulty in persuading her. He could get this money for the repairs, and he told her that her name would be put on the top of the subscription list.
“A subscription from Miss M’Hale — L10. A subscription from Miss M’Hale.”
Biddy did not answer, and the priest could see that it would give her no pleasure whatever to subscribe to mending the walls of his church, and it annoyed him to see her sitting in his own chair stretching out her hands to take the money back. He could see that her wish to benefit the church was merely a pretext for the glorification of herself, and the priest began to argue with the old woman. But he might have spared himself the trouble of explaining that it was necessary to have a new church before you could have a window. She understood well enough it was useless to put a window up in a church that was going to fall down. But her idea still was St. Joseph in a red cloak and the Virgin in blue with a crown of gold on her head, and forgetful of everything else, she asked him whether her window in the new church should be put over the high altar, or if it should be a window lighting a side altar.
“But, my good woman, ten pounds will not pay for a window. You couldn’t get anything to speak of in the way of a window for less than fifty pounds.”
He had expected to astonish Biddy, but she did not seem astonished. She said that although fifty pounds was a great deal of money she would not mind spending all that money if she were to have her window all to herself. She had thought at first of only putting in part of the window, a round piece at the top of the window, and she had thought that that could be bought for ten pounds. The priest could see that she had been thinking a good deal of this window, and she seemed to know more about it than he expected. “It is extraordinary,” he said to himself, “how a desire of immortality persecutes these second-class souls. A desire of temporal immortality,” he said, fearing he had been guilty of a heresy.
“If I could have the whole window to myself, I would give you fifty pounds, your reverence.”
The priest had no idea she had saved as much money as that.
“The hins have been very good to me, your reverence, and I would like to put up the window in the new church better than in the old church.”
“But I’ve got no money, my good woman, to build the church.”
“Ah, won’t your reverence go to America and get the money. Aren’t our own kith and kin over there, and aren’t they always willing to give us money for our churches.”
The priest spoke to her about statues, and suggested that perhaps a statue would be a more permanent gift, but the old woman knew that stained glass was more permanent, and that it could be secured from breakage by means of wire netting.
“Do you know, Biddy, it will require three or four thousand pounds to build a new church. If I go to America and do my best to get the money, how much will you help me with?”
“Does your reverence mean for the window?”
“No, Biddy, I was thinking of the church itself.”
And Biddy said that she would give him five pounds to help to build the church and fifty pounds for her window, and, she added, “If the best gilding and paint costs a little more I would be sorry to see the church short.”
“Well, you say, Biddy, you will give five pounds towards the church. Now, let us think how much money I could get in this parish.”
He had a taste for gossip, and he liked to hear everyone’s domestic details. She began by telling him she had met Kate Kavanagh on the road, and Kate had told her that there had been great dancing last night.
“But there was no wedding,” said the priest.
“I only know, your reverence, what Kate Kavanagh told me. There had been great dancing last night. The supper was ordered at Michael Dunne’s, and the cars were ordered, and they went to Enniskerry and back.”
“But Michael Dunne would not dare to serve supper to people who were not married,” said the priest.
“The supper had been ordered, and they would have to pay for it whether they ate it or not. There was a pig’s head, and the cake cost eighteen shillings, and it was iced.”
“Never mind the food,” said the priest, “tell me what happened.”
“Kate said that after coming back from Enniskerry, Michael Dunne said: ‘Is this the wedding party?’ and that Ned jumped off the car, and said: ‘To be sure. Amn’t I the wedded man.’ And they had half a barrel of porter.”
“Never mind the drink,” said the priest, “what then?”
“There was dancing first and fighting after. Pat Connex and Peter M’Shane were both there. You know Pat plays the melodion, and he asked Peter to sing, and Peter can’t sing a bit, and he was laughed at. So he grabbed a bit of stick and hit Pat on the head, and hit him badly, too. I hear the doctor had to be sent for.”
“That is always the end of their dancing and drinking,” said the priest. “And what happened then, what happened? After that they went home?”
“Yes, your reverence, they went home.”
“Mary Byrne went home with her own people, I suppose, and Ned went back to his home.”
“I don’t know, your reverence, what they did.”
“Well, what else did Kate Kavanagh tell you?”
“She had just left her brother and Mary, and they were going towards the Peak. That is what Kate told me when I met her on the road.”
“Mary Byrne would not go to live with a man to whom she was not married. But you told me that Kate said she had just left Mary Byrne and her brother.”
“Yes, they were just coming out of the cabin,” said Biddy. “She passed them on the road.”
“Out of whose cabin?” said the priest.
“Out of Ned’s cabin. I know it must have been out of Ned’s cabin, because she said she met them at the cross roads.”
He questioned the old woman, but she grew less and less explicit.
“I don’t like to think this of Mary Byrne, but after so much dancing and drinking, it is impossible to say what might not have happened.”
“I suppose they forgo
t your reverence didn’t marry them.”
“Forgot!” said the priest. “A sin has been committed, and through my fault.”
“They will come to your reverence to-morrow when they are feeling a little better.”
The priest did not answer, and Biddy said: —
“Am I to take away my money, or will your reverence keep it for the stained glass window.”
“The church is tumbling down, and before it is built up you want me to put up statues.”
“I’d like a window as well or better.”
“I’ve got other things to think of now.”
“Your reverence is very busy. If I had known it I would not have come disturbing you. But I’ll take my money with me.”
“Yes, take your money,” he said. “Go home quietly, and say nothing about what you have told me. I must think over what is best to be done.”
Biddy hurried away gathering her shawl about her, and this great strong man who had taken Pat Connex by the collar and could have thrown him out of the school-room, fell on his knees and prayed that God might forgive him the avarice and anger that had caused him to refuse to marry Ned Kavanagh and Mary Byrne.
“Oh! my God, oh! my God,” he said, “Thou knowest that it was not for myself that I wanted the money, it was to build up Thine Own House.”
He remembered that his uncle had warned him again and again aginst the sin of anger. He had thought lightly of his uncle’s counsels, and he had not practised the virtue of humility, which, as St. Teresa said, was the surest virtue to seek in this treacherous world.
“Oh, my God, give me strength to conquer anger.”
The servant opened the door, but seeing the priest upon his knees, she closed it quietly, and the priest prayed that if sin had been committed he might bear the punishment.
And on rising from his knees he felt that his duty was to seek out the sinful couple. But how to speak to them of their sins? The sin was not their’s. He was the original wrong-doer. If Ned Kavanagh and Mary Byrne were to die and lose their immortal souls, how could the man who had been the cause of the loss of two immortal souls, save his own, and the consequences of his refusal to marry Ned Kavanagh and Mary Byrne seemed to reach to the very ends of Eternity.
He walked to his uncle’s with great swift steps, hardly seeing his parishioners as he passed them on the road.
“Is Father Stafford in?”
“Yes, your reverence.”
“Uncle John, I have come to consult you.”
The priest sat huddled in his arm-chair over the fire, and Father Maguire noticed that his cassock was covered with snuff, and he noticed the fringe of reddish hair about the great bald head, and he noticed the fat inert hands. And he noticed these things more explicitly than he had ever noticed them before, and he wondered why he noticed them so explicitly, for his mind was intent on a matter of great spiritual importance.
“I have come to ask you,” Father Tom said, “regarding the blame attaching to a priest who refuses to marry a young man and a young woman, there being no impediment of consanguinity or other.”
“But have you refused to marry anyone because they couldn’t pay you your dues?”
“Listen, the church is falling.”
“My dear Tom, you should not have refused to marry them,” he said, as soon as his soul-stricken curate had laid the matter before him.
“Nothing can justify my action in refusing to marry them,” said Father Tom, “nothing. Uncle John, I know that you can extenuate, that you are kind, but I do not see it is possible to look at it from any other side.”
“My dear Tom, you are not sure they remained together; the only knowledge you have of the circumstances you obtained from that old woman, Biddy M’Hale, who cannot tell a story properly. An old gossip, who manufactures stories out of the slightest materials ... but who sells excellent eggs; her eggs are always fresh. I had two this morning.”
“Uncle John, I did not come here to be laughed at.”
“I am not laughing at you, my dear Tom; but really you know very little about this matter.”
“I know well enough that they remained together last night. I examined the old woman carefully, and she had just met Kate Kavanagh on the road. There can be no doubt about it,” he said.
“But,” said Father John, “they intended to be married; the intention was there.”
“Yes, but the intention is no use. We are not living in a country where the edicts of the Council of Trent have not been promulgated.”
“That’s true,” said Father John. “But how can I help you? What am I to do?”
“Are you feeling well enough for a walk this morning? Could you come up to Kilmore?”
“But it is two miles — I really—”
“The walk will do you good. If you do this for me, Uncle John—”
“My dear Tom, I am, as you say, not feeling very well this morning, but—”
He looked at his nephew, and seeing that he was suffering, he said: —
“I know what these scruples of conscience are; they are worse than physical suffering.”
But before he decided to go with his nephew to seek the sinners out, he could not help reading him a little lecture.
“I don’t feel as sure as you do that a sin has been committed, but admitting that a sin has been committed, I think you ought to admit that you set your face against the pleasure of these poor people too resolutely.”
“Pleasure,” said Father Tom. “Drinking and dancing, hugging and kissing each other about the lanes.”
“You said dancing — now, I can see no harm in it.”
“There is no harm in dancing, but it leads to harm. If they only went back with their parents after the dance, but they linger in the lanes.”
“It was raining the other night, and I felt sorry, and I said, ‘Well, the boys and girls will have to stop at home to-night, there will be no courting to-night.’ If you do not let them walk about the lanes and make their own marriages, they marry for money. These walks at eventide represent all the aspiration that may come into their lives. After they get married, the work of the world grinds all the poetry out of them.”
“Walking under the moon,” said Father Tom, “with their arms round each other’s waists, sitting for hours saying stupid things to each other — that isn’t my idea of poetry. The Irish find poetry in other things except sex.”
“Mankind,” said Father John, “is the same all the world over. The Irish are not different from other races; do not think it. Woman represents all the poetry that the ordinary man is capable of appreciating.”
“And what about ourselves?”
“We are different. We have put this interest aside. I have never regretted it, and you have not regretted it either.”
“Celibacy has never been a trouble to me.”
“But, Tom, your own temperament should not prevent you from sympathy with others. You are not the whole of human nature; you should try to get a little outside yourself.”
“Can one ever do this?” said Father Tom.
“Well, you see what a difficulty your narrow-mindedness has brought you into.”
“I know all that,” said Father Tom. “It is no use insisting upon it. Now will you come with me? They must be married this morning. Will you come with me? I want you to talk to them. You are kinder than I am. You sympathise with them more than I do, and it wasn’t you who refused to marry them.”
Father John got out of his arm-chair and staggered about the room on his short fat legs, trying to find his hat. Father Tom said: —
“Here it is. You don’t want your umbrella. There’s no sign of rain.”
“No,” said his uncle, “but it will be very hot presently. My dear Tom, I can’t walk fast.”
“I am sorry, I didn’t know I was walking fast.”
“You are walking at the rate of four miles an hour at the least.”
“I am sorry, I will walk slower.”
At the cross rods inquiry wa
s made, and the priests were told that the cabin Ned Kavanagh had taken was the last one.
“That’s just another half-mile,” remarked Father John.
“If we don’t hasten we shall be late.”
“We might rest here,” said Father John, “for a moment,” and he leaned against a gate. “My dear Tom, it seems to me you’re agitating yourself a little unnecessarily about Ned Kavanagh and his wife — I mean the girl he is going to marry.”
“I am quite sure. Ned Kavanagh brought Mary back to his cabin. There can be no doubt.”
“Even so,” said Father John. “He may have thought he was married.”
“How could he have thought he was married unless he was drunk, and that cannot be put forward as an excuse. No, my dear uncle, you are inclined for subtleties this morning.”
“He may have thought he was married. Moreover, he intended to be married, and if through forgetfulness—”
“Forgetfulness!” cried Father Maguire. “A pretty large measure of forgetfulness!”
“I shouldn’t say that a mortal sin has been committed; a venial one .... If he intended to be married—”
“Oh, my dear uncle, we shall be late, we shall be late!”
Father Stafford repressed the smile that gathered in the corner of his lips, and he remembered how Father Tom had kept him out of bed till two o’clock in the morning, talking to him about St. Thomas Aquinas.
“If they’re to be married to-day we must be getting on.” And Father Maguire’s stride grew more impatient. “I’ll walk on in front.”
At last he spied a woman in a field, and she told him that the married couple had gone towards the Peak. Most of them had gone for a walk, but Pat Connex was in bed, and the doctor had to be sent for.
“I’ve heard,” said Father Tom, “of last night’s drunkenness. Half a barrel of porter; there’s what remains,” he said, pointing to some stains on the roadway. “They were too drunk to turn off the tap.”
