There used to be two distinct sorts of priests; of whom the elder, who had probably been abroad, was the better educated; whereas the younger, who was home-nurtured, had less to say for himself on general topics. He was generally the more zealous2 in his religious duties, but the elder was the better read in doctrinal theology. As to the political question of the day, they were both apt to be on the list against the Government, though not so with such violence as to make themselves often obnoxious3 to the laws. It was natural that they should be opposed to the Government, as long as the Protestant Church claimed an ascendency over them. But their feelings and aspirations4 were based then on their religious opinions. Now a set of men has risen up, with whom opposition5 to the rulers of the country is connected chiefly with political ideas. A dream of Home Rule has made them what they are, and thus they have been roused into waking life, by the American spirit, which has been imported into the country. There is still the old difference between the elder and the younger priests. The parish priest is not so frequently opposed to the law, as is his curate. The parish priest is willing that the landlord shall receive his rents, is not at least anxious, that he shall be dispossessed of his land. But the curate has ideas of peasant proprietors6; is very hot for Home Rule, is less obedient to the authority of the bishops8 than he was of yore, and thinks more of the political, and less of the religious state of his country.
This variance9 of feeling might be seen in the three priests who have been already mentioned in our story. Father Giles was the parish pastor10 of Headford, in which position he had been for nearly forty years. He was a man seventy years of age, in full possession of all his faculties11, very zealous in the well-being12 of his people, prone13 to teach them that if they would say their prayers, and do as they were bid by their betters, they would, in the long run, and after various phases of Catholic well or ill-being, go to heaven. But they would also have enough to eat in this world; which seemed to be almost more prominent in Father Giles's teaching than the happy bliss14 of heaven. But the older Father Giles became the more he thought of the good things of this world, on behalf of his people, and the less he liked being troubled with the political desires of his curate. He had gone so far as to forbid Father Brosnan to do this, or to do that on various occasions, to make a political speech here, or to attend a demonstration15 there;—in doing which, or in not doing it, the curate sometimes obeyed, but sometimes disobeyed the priest, thereby16 bringing Father Giles in his old age into infinite trouble.
But Father Malachi, in the neighbouring parish of Ballintubber, ran a course somewhat intermediate between these two. He, at the present moment, had no curate who interfered17 with his happiness. There was, indeed, a curate of Ballintubber—so named; but he lived away, not inhabiting the same house with Father Malachi, as is usual in Ireland; having a chapel18 to himself, and seldom making his way into our part of the country. Father Malachi was a strong-minded man, who knew the world. He, too, had an inclination19 for Home Rule, and still entertained a jealousy20 against the quasi-ascendency of a Protestant bishop7; but he had no sympathy whatever with Father Brosnan. Ireland for the Irish might be very well, but he did not at all want to have Ireland for the Americans. Father Giles and Father Malachi certainly agreed on one thing—that Brosnan was a great trouble.
If the conversion21 of Florian Jones was to be attributed to any clerical influence, Father Brosnan was entitled to claim the good or the evil done; but in truth very few polemical arguments had been used on the occasion. The boy's head had been filled with the idea of doing something remarkable22, and he had himself gone to the priest. When a Protestant child does go to a priest on such a mission, what can the priest do but accept him? He is bound to look upon the suppliant23 as a brand to be saved from the burning. "You stupid young ass1!" the priest may say to himself, apostrophising the boy; "why don't you remain as you are for the present? Why do you come to trouble me with a matter you can know nothing about?" But the priest must do as his Church directs him, and the brands have to be saved from the burning. Father Brosnan sent the boy to Father Malachi, and Father Malachi told the lad to go to his terrestrial father. It was this that Mr. Jones had expected, and there the boy was received as a Catholic.
But to Father Brosnan the matter was much more important in its political view. Father Brosnan knew the application as to his rent which had been made by Pat Carroll to his landlord. He was of opinion that no rent ought to be paid by any Irish tenant24 to any landlord—no rent, at least, to a Protestant landlord. Wrath25 boiled within his bosom26 when he heard of the answer which was given, as though Mr. Jones had robbed the man by his refusal. Mr. Brosnan thought that for the present a tenant was, as a matter of course, entitled to abatement27 in his rent, as in a short time he must be entitled to his land without paying any. He considered not at all the circumstances, whether, as had been the case on certain properties in Mayo, all money expended28 had been so expended by the tenant, or by the landlord, as had been the case with Pat Carroll's land. That was an injustice29, according to Mr. Brosnan's theory; as is all property in accordance with the teaching of some political doctors who are not burdened with any.
It would have been unfair to Mr. Brosnan to say that he sympathised with murderers, or that he agreed with those who considered that midnight outrages30 were fair atonements; he demanded rights. He himself would have been hot with righteous indignation, had such a charge been made against him. But in the quarrel which was now beginning all his sympathies were with the Carrolls at large, and not with the Jones's at large. At every victory won by the British Parliament his heart again boiled with indignation. At every triumphant31 note that came over the water from America—which was generally raised by the record of the dollars sent—he boiled, on the other hand, with joy. He had gleams in his mind of a Republic. He thought of a Saxon as an evil being. The Queen, he would say, was very well, but she was better at a distance. The Lord-Lieutenant was a British vanity, and English pomp, but the Chief Secretary was a minister of the evil one himself. He believed that England was enriched by many millions a year robbed from Ireland, and that Ireland was impoverished32 to the same extent. He was a man thoroughly33 disloyal, and at the same time thoroughly ignorant, altogether in the dark as to the truth of things, a man who, whatever might be his fitness for the duties of the priesthood, to which he had been educated, had no capability34 of perceiving political facts, and no honesty in teaching them. But it would have been unjust to him to say that he was a murderer, or that he countenanced35 murder. To him it was that young Florian now betook himself, and found him seated alone in the back parlour in Father Giles's house. The old priest was out, and Father Brosnan was engaged on some portion of clerical duties. To give him his due, he performed those duties rigidly36, and the more rigidly when, in doing them, he obeyed the letter of the law rather than the spirit. As Father Giles, in his idea of his duties, took altogether the other side of the question, and, in thinking of the spirit, had nearly altogether ignored the letter, it may be imagined that the two men did not agree together very well. In truth, Father Giles looked upon Father Brosnan as an ignorant, impertinent puppy, whereas Father Brosnan returned the compliment by regarding Father Giles as half an infidel, and almost as bad as a Protestant.
"Well, Master Florian," said the priest, "and how are things going with you?"
"Oh! Father Brosnan, I'm in terrible throuble."
"What throuble's up now?"
"They're all agin me at home, and father's nearly as bad as any of them. It's all along of my religion."
"I thought your father had given his consent?"
"So he has; but still he's agin me. And my two sisters are dead agin me. What am I to do about Pat Carroll?"
"Just hould your tongue."
"They do be saying that because what Pat and the other boys did was agin father's interest, I am bound to tell."
"You've given a promise?"
"I did give a promise."
"And you swore an oath," said the priest solemnly.
"I did swear an oath certainly."
"Then you must hould your tongue. In such a case as this I cannot absolve37 you from your word. I don't know what it is that Pat Carroll did." Here it must be admitted Father Brosnan did not stick to the absolute truth. He did know what Pat Carroll had done. All Headford knew that Mr. Jones's meadows had been flooded, and the priest must have known that the present cause of trouble at Castle Morony, was the injury thus done. Father Brosnan knew and approved of Pat Carroll's enmity to the Jones family. But he was able to justify38 the falsehood of his own heart, by stumbling over the degree of knowledge necessary. There was a sense in which he did not know it. He need not have sworn to it in a Court of Law. So he told himself, and so justified39 his conscience. "You need not tell me," he went on to say when the boy was proceeding40 to whisper the story, "I am not bound to know what it is that Pat Carroll does, and what it is that your father suffers. Do you go home, and keep your toe in your pump, as they say, and come to me for confession41 a day or two before Christmas. And if any of them say anything to you about your religion, just sit quiet and bear it."
The boy was then dismissed, and went home to his father's home, indifferent as to who might see him now, because he had come from the priest's house. But the terror of that man in the mask still clung to him; and mingled42 with that was the righteous fear, which still struck cold to his heart, of the wicked injury which he was doing his father. Boy though he was, he knew well what truth and loyalty43, and the bonds which should bind44 a family together, demanded from him. He was miserable45 with a woe46 which he had not known how to explain to the priest, as he thought of his terrible condition. At first Pat Carroll and his friends had recommended themselves to him. He had, in truth, only come on the scene of devastation47 down by the lough, by mere48 accident. But he had before heard that Pat was an aggrieved49 man in reference to his rent, and had taken it into his boyish heart to sympathise with such sorrows. When Pat had got hold of him on the spot, and had first exacted the promise of secrecy50, Florian had given it willingly. He had not expected to be questioned on the subject, and had not attributed the importance to it which it had afterwards assumed. He had since denied all knowledge of it, and was of course burdened with a boy's fear of having to acknowledge the falsehood. And now there had been added to it that awful scene in the cabin at Headford, and on the top of that had come the priest's injunction. "In such a case as this I cannot absolve you from your word." It was so that the priest had addressed him, and there was something in it that struck his young mind with awe51. There was the man in the mask tendering to him the oath upon the cross; and there had been Pat Carroll assuring him of that man's wrath. Then there had come the other stranger, speaking out angrily, and promising52 to him all evil, were he to divulge53 a word.
Nevertheless, his conscience was so strong within him, that when he reached the Castle he had almost made up his mind to tell his father everything. But just as he was about to enter the Lodge54 gate, he was touched on the arm by a female. "Master Florian," said the female, "we is all in your hands." It was now dark night, and he could not even see the woman's face. She seemed indeed to keep her face covered, and yet he could see the gleam of her eyes. "You're one of us now, Master Florian."
"I'm a Catholic, if you mean that."
"What else should I main? Would ye be unthrue to your own people? Do ye know what would happen you if ye commit such a sin as that? I tould them up there that you'd never bring down hell fire upon yer head, by such a deed as that. It isn't what ye can do to him he'll mind, I said, but the anger o' the Blessed Virgin55. Worn't it thrue for me what I said, Master Florian?" She held him in the dark, and he could see the glimmer56 of her eyes, and hear the whisper of her voice, and she frightened him with the fear of the world to come. As he made his way up to the hall door, it was not the dread57 of the man in the mask, so much as the fear inspired by this woman which made him resolve that, come what come might, he must stick to the lie which he had told.
After breakfast the next morning, his father summoned him into his room. "Now," said Flory to himself, as he followed his father trembling,—"now must I be true." By this he meant that he must be true to his co-conspirators. If he were false to them, he would have to incur58 the anger of the Blessed Virgin. How this should be made to fall upon him, he did not in the least understand; but he did understand that the Virgin as he had thought her, should be kind, and mild, and gracious. He had never stopped to think whether the curse as uttered by the woman, might or might not be true. Of loyalty to his father he had thought much; but now he believed that it behoved him to think more of loyalty to the Virgin, as defined by the woman in the dark.
He followed his father into the magistrates59' room, leaving his brother and two sisters in the parlour. He was glad that none of them were invited to accompany him, for he felt that his father was more prone to believe him, than were either his sisters or even his brother. "Florian," said his father, "you know, do you not, the trouble to which I have been put about this man, Pat Carroll?"
"Yes, father; I know you have."
"And the terrible loss which I have incurred60! Eighty acres are under water. I suppose the miscreant61 will have cost me between ￡400 and ￡500."
"As much as that?" said Florian, frightened by the magnitude of the sum named.
"Indeed he will. It is hard to calculate the extent of the malignity62 of a wicked man. Whether the barony will share the loss with me I cannot yet say; but in either case the wickedness will be the same. There is no word bad enough for it. It is altogether damnable; and this is done by a man who calls me in question because of my religion." Here the father paused, but Florian stood by without an answer. If Pat Carroll was right in his religion, his father must be wrong; and Florian thought that Pat Carroll was right. But he did not see how the two things were joined together,—the opening of the sluices63, and the truth of Pat Carroll's religious convictions. "But bad as the matter is as regards Pat Carroll, it is all as nothing in reference to the accusation64 made against you." Here the father came up, and laying his two hands on the boy's shoulders looked sadly into his face. "I cannot believe that my own boy, my darling boy, has joined in this evil deed against me!" Here the father ceased and waited for his son to speak.
The son remembered the determination to which he had come, and resolved to adhere to it. "I didn't," he said after a pause.
"I cannot believe it of you; and yet, your sisters who are as true as steel, who are so good that I bless God morning and night that He in His mercy has left me such treasures,—they believe it."
"They are against me because of my religion."
"No, Florian, not so; they disapprove65 of your change in religion, but they are not brought to accuse you by such a feeling. They say that they see it in your face."
"How can they see all that in my face?"
"That though you are lying persistently66, you cannot hide from them that you are lying. They are not only good girls, but they have very sharp wits. A cleverer girl than Edith, or one better able to read the truth of a boy's head, or even a man's, I have never known. I hardly dare to put my own judgment67 against hers."
"In this case she knows nothing about it."
"But to me it is of such vital importance! It is not simply that your evidence is needed to punish the man; I would let the man go and all the evil that he has done me. But not for any money that I could name would I entertain such an opinion of my son. Were I convinced at this moment that you are innocent, I should be a happy man."
"Then you may, father."
"But your manner is against you. You do not answer me with that appearance of frankness which I should have expected."
"Of course it all makes me very miserable. How can a fellow be frank when he's suspected like this?"
"Florian, do you give me your most solemn assurance that you saw nothing of this evil work while it was being perpetrated?"
"Yes, father."
"You saw nothing, and you knew nothing?"
"No, father."
"You have no reason to accuse Pat Carroll, except by what you have heard?"
"No, father."
"Nor anyone else?"
"No, father." Then Mr. Jones stood silent, looking at his son. And the more he looked the more he doubted him. When the boy had uttered "No, father," for the last time, Mr. Jones felt almost convinced—almost convinced that Edith was right. "You may go now, Florian," he said. And the boy departed, fully68 convinced that his father had disbelieved him.
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1
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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obnoxious
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| adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的 | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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15
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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suppliant
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| adj.哀恳的；n.恳求者，哀求者 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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25
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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abatement
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| n.减(免)税，打折扣，冲销 | |
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28
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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capability
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| n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等 | |
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countenanced
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| v.支持，赞同，批准( countenance的过去式 ) | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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absolve
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| v.赦免，解除（责任等） | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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devastation
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| n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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53
divulge
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| v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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incur
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| vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇 | |
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magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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miscreant
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| n.恶棍 | |
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malignity
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| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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63
sluices
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| n.水闸( sluice的名词复数 )；（用水闸控制的）水；有闸人工水道；漂洗处v.冲洗( sluice的第三人称单数 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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64
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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65
disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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66
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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67
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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68
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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