"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 pecuniary6 recompense," he said, a little nettled7. "I meant that I was repaid by the extraordinary faith and fervor8 of the people."
I waited.
"Why, Father," said he, turning around and flicking9 a few invisible crumbs10 with his napkin, "I never saw anything like it. I had quite an escort of cavalry11, 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 boulders12 of some dry torrent13 course, I had two linkmen or torchbearers, leaping on the crest14 of the ditch on either side, and lighting15 me right up to the door of the cabin. It was a picture that Rembrandt might have painted."
"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 predecessors17 didn't make much of it."
"It seems to me," he said, "infinitely18 picturesque19 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?"
"Bog20-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 superfluous21 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 touching22."
"Who was sick?"
"Old Conroy,—a mountain ranger23, 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 salaams24 and genuflections enough; and was stared at by the men, and blessed by the women, and received the mute adoration25 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 bleak26 mountains stood, clear-cut and uniform in shagginess and savagery27, against the cold, gray sky. The white balls of the bog cotton waved dismally28 in the light breeze, which curled the surface of a few pools, and drew a curlew or plover29 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 gales30. I took Father Letheby through a secret path in the plantation31. We rested a little while, and talked of many things. Then we followed a tiny path, strewn with withered32 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 declivity33. I never saw such surprise in a human face before, and such delight. Like summer clouds sweeping34 over, and dappling a meadow, sensations of wonder and ecstasy35 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 peril36. 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 shaft37 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, poised38 for its prey39, or beating slowly over the desolate40 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 standing41, a faint fringe of foam42 alone was proof that the sea still lived, though its face was rigid43 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:—
"Mirabiles elationes maris;
Mirabilis in altis Dominus!"
"Not very many 'upliftings' to-day," I replied. "You see our great friend at a disadvantage. But you know she has moods: and you will like her."
"Like her!" he replied. "It is not liking44. It is worship. Some kind of Pantheism which I cannot explain. Nowhere are the loneliness and grandeur45 of God so manifested. Mind, I don't quite sympathize with that comparison of St. Augustine's where he detects a resemblance between yon spectra46 of purple and green and the plumage of a dove. What has a dove to do with such magnificence and grandeur? It was an anti-climax, a bathos, of which St. Augustine is seldom guilty. 'And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' There's the sublime47!"
"Quite so," he replied. "It is limitless and unconditioned. There is its grandeur. If that sea were ploughed by navies, or disfigured by the hideous49 black hulks of men-of-war, it would lose its magnificence. It would become a poor limited thing, with pygmies sporting on its bosom50. It is now unlimited51, free, unconditioned, as space. It is the infinite and the eternal in it that appeals to us. When we were children, the infinite lay beyond the next mountain, because it was the unknown. We grew up and we got knowledge; and knowledge destroyed our dreams, and left us only the commonplace. It is the unknown and unlimited that still appeals to us,—the something behind the dawn, and beyond the sunset, and far away athwart the black line of that horizon, that is forever calling, calling, and beckoning52 to us to go thither53. Now, there is something in that sombre glory that speaks to you and me. It will disappear immediately; and we will feel sad. What is it? Voiceless echoes of light from the light that streams from the Lamb?"
"I hope," I said demurely54, for I began to fear this young enthusiast55, "that you don't preach in that tone to the people!"
"Oh dear, no," he said, with a little laugh, "but you must forgive my nonsense. You gave me such a shock of surprise."
"But," he said, after a pause, "how happy your life must have been here! I always felt in Manchester that I was living at the bottom of a black chimney, in smoke and noise and fetor, material and spiritual. Here, you have your holy people, and the silence and quiet of God. How happy you must have been!"
"What would you think if we returned," I said. "It's almost our dinner hour."
It was not so late, however, but that I was able to take a ten minutes' stroll through the village, and bid "good day" to some of my parishioners.
I suppose there was a note of interrogation hidden away somewhere under my greeting, for I was told in different tones and degrees of enthusiasm:—
"Yerra, we never saw his likes before."
"He spakes almost as plain and common as yourself."
"They say, your reverence, that he's the son of a jook."
Some old cronies, who retained a lingering gratitude57 for Father Laverty's snuff, diluted58 their enthusiasm a little.
"He is, indeed, a rale nice man. But God be with poor Father Tom wherever he is. Sure 't was he was kind to the poor."
There was a deputation of young men waiting at my house. I have been pestered59 from deputations and speeches since the Land League. A shaggy giant stepped forward and said:—
"We have preshumed, your reverence, to call upon you to ascertain60 whether you'd be agreeable to our what I may call unanimous intinsion of asking the new cojutor to be prisident of the Gaelic association of Kilronan, called the 'Holy Terrors.'"
I said I was agreeable to anything they wished: and Father Letheby became president of the "Holy Terrors."
After dinner something put me into better humor. I suppose it was the mountain mutton, for there's nothing like it in Ireland,—mutton raised on limestone61 land, where the grass is as tender to the lips of the sheep, as the sheep to the lips of men. I thought I had an excellent opportunity of eliciting62 my curate's proficiency63 in his classics. With a certain amount of timidity, for you never know when you are treading on a volcano with these young men, I drew the subject around. I have a way of talking enigmatically, which never fails, however, to reveal my meaning. And after a few clever passes, I said, demurely, drawing out my faded and yellow translation, made nearly thirty years ago:—
"I was once interested in other things. Here is a little weak translation I once made of a piece of Greek poetry, with which you are quite familiar. Ah me! I had great notions at the time, ideas of corresponding with classical journals, and perhaps, sooner or later, of editing a classic myself. But Cui bono? paralyzed everything. That fatal Cui bono? that is the motto and watchword of every thinking and unthinking man in Ireland. However, now that you have come, perhaps—who knows? What do you think of this?"
I read solemnly:—
"I have argued and asked in my sorrow
What shall please me? what manner of life?
At home am I burdened with cares that borrow
The seas are sown with the dead,
With never a hand of a priest to assoil
A soul that in sin hath fled.
I have children: they darken the pale sunlight;
I have none: I'm in nature's debt.
The young lack wisdom; the old lack life;
I have brains; but I shake at the knees;
Give me peace in this life's surcease!"
"What do you think of this? It is a loose translation from Posidippus."
"It swings well," said Father Letheby. "But who was he?"
"One of the gnomic, or sententious poets," I replied.
"Greek or Latin?" he asked.
"You never heard his name before?" I said.
"Never," said he emphatically.
I paused and reflected.
"The Bishop71 told me," said I, "that you were a great Greek scholar, and took a medal in Greek composition?"
"The Bishop told me," said he, "that you were the best Greek scholar in Ireland, with the exception, perhaps, of a Jesuit Father in Dublin."
We looked at each other. Then burst simultaneously72 into a fit of laughter, the likes of which had not been heard in that room for many a day.
"I am not sure," said I, "about his Lordship's classical attainments73; but he knows human nature well."
Father Letheby left next morning to see after his furniture. He had taken a slated74, one-storied cottage in the heart of the village. It was humble75 enough; but it looked quite aristocratic amongst its ragged76 neighbors.
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1
slumbers
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| 睡眠，安眠( slumber的名词复数 ) | |
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2
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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colloquy
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| n.谈话，自由讨论 | |
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4
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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6
pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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nettled
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| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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flicking
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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11
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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12
boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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13
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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15
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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16
pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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17
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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18
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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20
bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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21
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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22
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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23
ranger
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| n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员 | |
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24
salaams
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| （穆斯林的）额手礼，问安，敬礼( salaam的名词复数 ) | |
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25
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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26
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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27
savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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29
plover
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| n.珩，珩科鸟，千鸟 | |
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30
gales
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| 龙猫 | |
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31
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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32
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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33
declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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34
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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40
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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41
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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42
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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43
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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44
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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45
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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46
spectra
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| n.光谱 | |
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47
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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48
gull
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| n.鸥；受骗的人；v.欺诈 | |
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49
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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50
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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51
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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52
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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53
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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54
demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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55
enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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56
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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57
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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58
diluted
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| 无力的，冲淡的 | |
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59
pestered
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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61
limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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62
eliciting
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| n. 诱发, 引出 动词elicit的现在分词形式 | |
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63
proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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64
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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65
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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66
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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67
fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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68
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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69
covet
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| vt.垂涎；贪图(尤指属于他人的东西) | |
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70
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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71
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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72
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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73
attainments
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| 成就，造诣； 获得( attainment的名词复数 )； 达到； 造诣； 成就 | |
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74
slated
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| 用石板瓦盖( slate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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76
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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