Part 7

About four o'clock, the expected guests began to assemble at Denis's; and about the same hour one might perceive Susan O'Shaughnessy running out to a stile a little above the house, where she stood for a few minutes, with her hand shadingher eyes, looking long and intensely towards the direction from which she expected her brother to return. Hitherto, however, he could not be discovered in the distance, although scarcely five minutes elapsed during the intervals of her appearance at the stile to watch him. Some horsemen she did notice; but after straining her eyes eagerly and anxiously, she was enabled only to report, with a dejected air, that they were their own friends coming from a distant part of the parish, to be present at the dinner. At length, after a long and eager look, she ran in with an exclamation of delight, saying--

“Thank goodness, he's comin' at last; I see somebody dressed in black ridin' down the upper end of Tim Marly's boreen, an' I'm sure an' certain it must be Denis, from his dress!”

“I'll warrant it is, my colleen,” replied her father; “he said he'd be here before the dinner would be ready, an' it's widin a good hour of that. I'll thry myself.”

He and his daughter once more went out; but, alas! only to experience a fresh disappointment. Instead of Denis, it was Father Finnerty; who, it appeared, felt as anxious to be in time for dinner, as the young candidate himself could have done. He was advancing at a brisk trot, not upon the colt which had been presented to him, but upon his old nag, which seemed to feel as eager to get at Denis's oats, as its owner did to taste his mutton.

“I see, Susy, we'll have a day of it, plase goodness,” observed Denis to the girl; “here's Father Finnerty, and I wouldn't for more nor I'll mention that he had staid away: and I hope the coidjuther will come as well as himself. Do you go in, aroon, and tell them he's comin', and I'll go and meet him.”

Most of Denis's friends were now assembled, dressed in their best apparel, and Raised to the highest pitch of good humor; no man who knows the relish with which Irishmen enter into convivial enjoyments, can be ignorant of the remarkable flow of spirits which the prospect of an abundant and hospitable dinner produces among them.

Father Finnerty was one of those priests who constitute a numerous species in Ireland; regular, but loose and careless in the observances of his church, he could not be taxed with any positive neglect of pastoral duty. He held his stations at stated times and places, with great exactness, but when the severer duties annexed to them were performed, he relaxed into the boon companion, sang his song, told his story, laughed his laugh, and occasionally danced his dance, the very _beau ideal_ of a rough, shrewd, humorous divine, who, amidst the hilarity of convivial mirth, kept an eye to his own interest, and sweetened the severity with which he exacted his “dues” by a manner at once jocose and familiar. If a wealthy farmer had a child to christen, his reverence declined baptizing it in the chapel, but as a proof of his marked respect for its parents, he and his curate did them the honor of performing the ceremony at their own house. If a marriage was to be solemnized, provided the parties were wealthy, he adopted the same course, and manifested the same flattering marks of his particular esteem for the parties, by attending at their residence; or if they preferred the pleasure of a journey to his own house, he and his curate accompanied them home from the same motives. This condescension, whilst it raised the pride of the parties, secured a good dinner and a pleasant evening's entertainment for the priests, enhanced their humility exceedingly, for the more they enjoyed themselves, the more highly did their friends consider themselves honored. This mode of life might, one would suppose, lessen their importance and that personal respect which is entertained for the priests by the people; but it is not so--the priests can, the moment such scenes are ended, pass, with the greatest aptitude of habit, into the hard, gloomy character of men who are replete with profound knowledge, exalted piety, and extraordinary power. The sullen frown, the angry glance, or the mysterious allusion to the omnipotent authority of the church, as vested in their persons, joined to some unintelligible dogma, laid down as their authority, are always sufficient to check anything derogatory towards them, which is apt to originate in the unguarded moments of conviviality.

“Plase your Reverence, I'll put him up myself,” said Denis to Father Finnerty, as he took his horse by the bridle, and led him towards the stable, “and how is my cowlt doin' wid you, sir?”

“Troublesome, Denis; he was in a bad state when I got him, and he'll cost me nearly his price before I have him thoroughly broke.”

“He was pretty well broke wid me, I know,” replied Denis, “and I'm afear'd you've given him into the hands of some one that knows little about horses. Mave,” he shouted, passing the kitchen door, “here's Father Finnerty--go in, Docthor, and put big Brian Buie out o' the corner; for goodness sake Exltimnicate him from the hob--an' sure you have power to do that any way.”

The priest laughed, but immediately assuming a grave face, as he entered, exclaimed--

“Brian Buie, in the name of the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid's Elements--in the name of the cube and square roots--of Algebra, Mathematics, Fluxions, and the doctrine of all essential spirits that admit of proof--in the name of Nebuchadanezar the divine, who invented the convenient scheme of taking a cold collation under a hedge--by the power of that profound branch of learning, the Greek Digemma--by the authority of true Latin, primo, of Beotian Greek, secundo, and of Arabian Hebrew, tertio; which is, when united by the skill of profound erudition, primo, secundo, tertio; or, being reversed by the logic of illustration, _tertio, secundo, primo. Commando te in nomine botteli potheeni boni drinkandi his oedibus, hac note, inter amicos excellentissimi amici mei, Dionissii O'Shaughnessy, quem beknavavi ex excellentissimo colto ejus, causa pedantissimi filii ejus, designali eccleseae, patri, sed nequaquam deo, nec naturae, nec ingenio;--commando te inquam, Bernarde Buie, surgere, stare, ambulare, et decedere e cornero isto vel hobbo, qua nunc sedes!_ Yes, I command thee, Brian Buie, who sit upon the hob of my worthy and most excellent friend and parishioner, Denis O'Shaughnessy, to rise, to stand up before your spiritual superior, to walk down from it, and to tremble as if you were about to sink into the earth to the neck, but no further; before the fulminations of him who can wield the thunder of that mighty Salmoneus, his holiness the Pope, successor to St. Peter, who left the servant of the Centurion earless--I command and objurgate thee, sinner as thou art, to vacate your seat on the hob for the man of sancity, whose legitimate possession it is, otherwise I shall send you, like that worthy archbishop, the aforesaid Nebuchadanezar, to live upon leeks for seven years in the renowned kingdom of Wales, where the leeks may be seen to this day! Presto!”

These words, pronounced with a grave face, in a loud, rapid, and sonorous tone of voice, startled the good people of the house, who sat mute and astonished at such an exordium from the worthy pastor: but no sooner had he uttered Brian Buie's name, giving him, at the same time, a fierce and authoritative look, than the latter started to his feet, and stepped down in a kind of alarm towards the door. The priest immediately placed his hand upon his shoulder in a mysterious manner, exclaiming--

“Don't be alarmed, Brian, I have taken the force of the anathema off you; your power to sit or stand, or go where you please, is returned again. I wanted your seat, and Denis desired, me to excommunicate you out of it, which I did, and you accordingly left it without your own knowledge, consent, or power; I transferred you to where you stand, and you had no more strength to resist me than if you were an infant not three hours in the world!”

“I ax God's pardon, an' your Reverence's,” said Brian, in a tremor, “if I have given offince. Now, bless my soul! what's this? As sure as I stand before you, neighbors, I know neither act nor part of how I was brought from the hob at all--neither act nor part! Did any of yez see me lavin' it; or how did I come here--can you tell me?”

“Paddy,” said one of his friends, “did you see him?”

“The sorra one o' me seen him,” replied Paddy: “I was lookin' at his Reverence, sthrivin' to know what he was sayin'.”

“Pether, did you?” another inquired. “Me! I never seen a stim of him till he was standin' alone on the flure! Sure, when he didn't see or find himself goin', how could another see him?”

“Glory be to God!” exclaimed Mave; “one ought to think well what they say, when they spake of the clargy, for they don't know what it may bring down upon them, sooner or later!”

“Our Denis will be able to do that yet,” said Susan to her elder sister.

“To be sure he will, girsha, as soon as he's ordained--every bit as well as Father Finnerty,” replied Mary.

The young enthusiast's countenance brightened as her sister spoke: her dark eye became for a minute or two fixed upon vacancy, during which it flashed several times; until, as the images of her brother's future glory passed before her imagination; she became wrapt--her lip quivered--her cheek flushed into a deeper color, and the tears burst in gushes from her eyes.

The mother, who was now engaged in welcoming Father Finnerty--a duty which the priest's comic miracle prevented her from performing sooner--did not perceive her daughter's agitation, nor, in fact, did any one present understand its cause. Whilst the priest was taking Brian Buie's seat, she went once more to watch the return of Denis; and while she stood upon the stile, her father, after having put up the horse, entered the house, “to keep his Reverence company.”

“An' pray, Docthor,” he inquired, “where is Father Molony, that he's not wid you? I hope he won't disappoint us; he's a mighty pleasant gintleman of an evenin', an', barrin' your Reverence, I don't know a man tells a better story.”

“He entreated permission from me this morning,” replied Father Finnerty, “and that was leave to pay a visit to the Bishop, for what purpose I know not, unless to put in a word in season for the first parish that becomes vacant.”

“Throth, an' he well desarves a parish,” replied Denis; “an' although we'd be loath to part wid him, still we'd be proud to hear of his promotion.”

“He'll meet Denis there,” observed Susan, who had returned from the stile: “he'll be apt to be present at his trial wid the Bishop; an' maybe he'll be home along wid him. I'll go an' thry if I can see them agin;” and she flew out once more to watch their return.

“Now, Father Finnerty,” said an uncle of Denis's, “you can give a good guess at what a dacent parish ought to be worth to a parish priest?”

“Mrs. O'Shaughnessy,” said the priest, “is that fat brown goose suspended before the fire, of your own rearing?”

“Indeed it is, plase your Reverence; but as far as good male an phaties could go for the last month, it got the benefit of them.”

“And pray, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, have you many of the same kidney? I only ask for information, as I said to Peery Hacket's wife, the last day I held the Station in Peery's. There was just such another goose hanging before the fire; but, you must know, the cream of the joke was, that I had been after coming from the confessional, as hungry as a man could conveniently wish himself; and seeing the brown fat goose before the fire just as that is, why my teeth, Mave, began to get lachrymose. Upon my Priesthood it was such a goose as a priest's corpse might get up on its elbow to look at, and exclaim, 'avourneen machree, it's a thousand pities that I'm not living to have a cut at you!'--ha, ha, ha! God be good to old Friar Hennessy, I have that joke from him.

“'Well, Mrs. Hacket,' says I, as I was airing my fingers at the fire, 'I dare say you haven't another goose like this about the house? Now, tell me, like an honest woman, have you any of the same kidney?--I only ask for information.'

“Mrs. Hacket, however, told me she believed there might be a few of the same kind straggling about the place, but said nothing further upon it, until the Saturday following, when her son brings me down a pair of the fattest geese I ever cut up for my Sunday's dinner. Now, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, wasn't that doing the thing dacent?”

“Well, well, Docthor,” said Denis, “that was all right; let Mave alone, an' maybe she'll be apt to find out a pair that will match Mrs. Hacket's. Not that I say it, but she doesn't like to be outdone in anything.”

“Docthor, I was wishin' to know, sir,” continued the uncle of the absent candidate, “what the value of a good parish might be.”

“I think, Mave, there's a discrepancy between the goose and the shoulder of mutton. The fact is, that if it be a disputation between them, as to which will be roasted first, I pronounce that the goose will have it. It's now, let me see, half past four o'clock, and, in my opinion, it will take a full half hour to bring up the mutton. So Mave, if you'll be guided by your priest, advance the mutton towards the fire about two inches, and keep the little girsha basting steadily, and then you'll be sure to have it rich and juicy.”

“Docthor, wid submission, I was wantin' to know what a good parish might be--”

“Mike Lawdher, if I don't mistake, you ought to have good grazing down in your meadows at Ballinard. What will you be charging for a month or two's grass for this colt I've bought from my dacent friend, Denis O'Shaughnessy, here? And, Mike, be rasonable upon a poor man, for we're all poor, being only tolerated by the state we live under, and ought not, of course, to be hard upon one another.”

“An' what did he cost you, Docthor?” replied Mike, answering one question by another; “what did you get for him, Denis?” he continued, referring for information to Denis, to whom, on reflection, he thought it more decorous to put the question.

Denis, however, felt the peculiar delicacy of his situation, and looked at the priest, whilst the latter, under a momentary embarrassment, looked significantly at Denis. His Reverence, however, was seldom at a loss.

“What would you take him to be worth, Mike?” he asked; “remember he's but badly trained, and I'm sure it will cost me both money and trouble to make anything dacent out of him.”

“If you got him somewhere between five and twenty and thirty guineas, I would say you have good value for your money, plase your Reverence. What do you say, Denis--am I near it?”

“Why, Mike, you know as much about a horse as you do about the Pentateuch or Paralipomenon. Five and twenty guineas, indeed! I hope you won't set your grass as you would sell your horses.”

“Why, thin, if your Reverence ped ready money for him, I maintain he was as well worth twenty guineas as a thief's worth the gallows; an' you know, sir, I'd be long sorry to differ wid you. Am I near it now, Docthor?”

“Denis got for the horse more than that,” said his Reverence, “and he may speak for himself.”

“Thrue for you, sir,” replied Denis; “I surely got above twenty guineas for him, an' I'm well satisfied wid the bargain.”

“You hear that now, Mike--you hear what he says.”

“There's no goin' beyant it,” returned Mike; “the proof o' the puddin' is in the atin,' as we'll soon know, Mave--eh, Docthor?”

“I never knew Mave to make a bad one,” said the priest, “except upon the day Friar Hennessy dined with me here--my curate was sick, and I had to call in the Friar to assist me at confession; however, to do Mave justice, it was not her fault, for the Friar drowned the pudding, which was originally a good one, with a deluge of strong whiskey.”

“'It's too gross,' said the facetious Friar, in his loud, strong voice--'it's too gross, Docthor Finnerty, so let us spiritualize it, that it may be Christian atin, fit for pious men to digest,' and then he came out with his thundering laugh--oigh, oigh, oigh, oigh! but he had consequently the most of the pudding to himself, an' indeed brought the better half of it home in his saddle-bags.”

“Faix, an' he did,” said Mave, “an' a fat goose that he coaxed Mary to kill for him unknownst to us all, in the coorse o' the day.”

“How long is he dead, Docthor?” said Denis; “God rest him any way, he's happy!”

“He died in the hot summer, now nine years about June last; and talking about him, reminds me of a trick he put on me about two years before his death. He and I had not been on good terms for long enough before that time; but as the curate I had was then sickly, and as I wouldn't be allowed two, I found that it might be convenient to call in the Friar occasionally, a regulation he did not at all relish, for he said he could make far more by questing and poaching about among the old women of the parish, with whom he was a great favorite, in consequence of the Latin hymns he used to sing for them, and the great cures he used to perform--a species of devotion which neither I nor my curate had time to practise. So, in order to renew my intimacy, I sent him a bag of oatmeal and a couple of flitches of bacon, both of which he readily accepted, and came down to me on the following day to borrow three guineas. After attempting to evade him--for, in fact, I had not the money to spare--he at length succeeded in getting them from me, on the condition that he was to give my curate's horse and mine a month's grass, by way of compensation, for I knew that to expect payment from him was next to going for piety to a parson.

“'I will,' said he, 'give your horses the run of my best field'--for he held a comfortable bit of ground; 'but,' he added, 'as you have been always cutting at me about my principle, I must insist, if it was only to convince you of my ginerosity, that you'll lave the choosing of the month to myself.'

“As I really wanted an assistant at the time, in consequence of my curate's illness, he had me bound, in some degree, to his own will. I accordingly gave him the money; but from that till the day of his death, he never sent for our horses, except when there was a foot and a half of snow on the ground, at which time he was certain to despatch a messenger for him, 'with Father Hennessy's compliments, and he requested Doctor Finnerty to send the horses to Father Hennessy's field, to ate their month's grass.'”

“But is it true, Docthor, that his face was shinin' after his death?”

“True enough, and to my own knowledge, long before that event.”

“Dear me,” exclaimed Mave, “he was a holy man afther all!”

“Undoubtedly he was,” said the priest; “there are spots in the sun, Mrs. O'Shaugh-nessy--we are not all immaculate. There never was one sent into this world without less or more sin upon them. Even the saints themselves had venial touches about them, but nothing to signify.”

“Docthor,” said the uncle, pertinaciously adhering to the original question, “you have an opportunity of knowin' what a good parish might be worth to a smart, active priest? For the sake of a son of mine that I've some notion of--”

“By the by, I wonder Denis is not here before now,” exclaimed his Reverence, lending a deaf ear to Mike O'Shaughnessy's interrogatory.

Old Denis's favorite topic had been started, and he accordingly launched out upon it with all the delight and ardor of a fond father.

“Now, Docthor dear, before us all--an' sure you know as well as I do, that we're all friends together--what's your downright opinion of Denis? Is he as bright as you tould me the other mornin' he was?”

“Really, Denis O'Shaughnessy,” replied his Reverence, “it's not pleasant to me to be pressed so often to eulogize a young gintleman of whose talents I have so frequently expressed my opinion. Is not once sufficient for me to say what I've said concerning him? But, as we are all present, I now say and declare, that my opinion of Denis O'Shaughnessy, jun., is decidedly _peculiar_--decidedly.

“Come, girsha, keep basting the mutton, and never heed my boots--turn it about and baste the back of it better.”

“God be thanked,” exclaimed the delighted father, “sure it's comfort to hear that, any how--afther all the pains and throuble we've taken wid him, to know it's not lost. Why, that boy was so smart, Docthor, that, may I never sin, when he went first to the Latin, but--an' this no lie, for I have it from his own lips--when he'd look upon his task two or three times over night, he'd waken wid every word of it, pat off the book the next mornin'. And how do you think he got it? Why, the crathur, you see, used to dhrame that he was readin' it off, and so he used to get it that way in his sleep!”

At this moment Darby Moran, Denis's old foe entered, and his reception was cordial, and, if the truth were known, almost magnanimous on the part of Denis.

“Darby Moran,” said he, “not a man, barrin' his Reverence here, in the parish we sit in, that I'm prouder to see on my flure--give me your hand, man alive, and Mave and all of ye welcome him. Everything of what you know is buried between us, and you're bound to welcome him, if it was only in regard of the handsome way he spoke of our son this day--here's my own chair, Darby, and sit down.”

“Throth,” said Darby, after shaking hands with the priest and greeting the rest of the company, “the same boy no one could spake ill of; and, although we and his people were not upon the best footin', still the sarra one o' me but always gave him his due.”

“Indeed, I believe you, Darby,” said his father; “but are you comfortable? Draw your chair nearer the fire--the evenin's gettin' cowld.”

“I'm very well, Denis, I thank you;--nearer the fire! Faix, except you want to have me roasted along wid that shoulder of mutton and goose, I think I can't go much nearer it.”

“I'm sorry, you wasn't in sooner, Darby, till you'd hear what Docthor Finnerty here--God spare him long among us--said of Denis a while ago. Docthor, if it wouldn't be makin' too free, maybe you'd oblage me wid repatin' it over again?”

“I can never have any hesitation,” replied the priest, “in repeating anything to his advantage--I stated, Darby, that young Misther O'Shaughnessy was a youth of whom my opinion was decidedly _peculiar_--keep basting; child, you're forgetting the goose now; did you never see a priest's boots before?”

“An' nobody has a better right to know nor yourself, wherever larnin' and education's consarned,” said the father.

“Why, it's not long since I examined him myself; I say it sitting here, and I believe every one that hears me is present; and during the course of the examination I was really astonished. The translations, and derivations, and conjugations, and ratiocinations, and variations, and investigations that he gave, were all the most remarkably original I ever heard. He would not be contented with the common sense of a passage; but he'd keep hunting, and hawking, and fishing about for something that was out of the ordinary course of reading, that I was truly struck with his eccentric turn of genius.”

“You think he'll pass the Bishop with great credit, Docthor?”

“I'll tell you what I think, Denis--which is going further than I went yet--I think that if he were the Bishop, and the Bishop the candidate for Maynooth, that his lordship would have but a poor chance of passing. There's the pinnacle of my eulogium upon him; and now, to give my opinion on another important subject; I pronounce both the goose and mutton done to a turn. As it appears that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy has every other portion of the dinner ready, I move that we commence operations as soon as possible.”