HOLLY AND IVY
The progress of my curate and myself in our study of the Greek authors
is not so steady or so successful as we had anticipated. Somehow or
other we drift away from the subject-matter of our evening lessons, and
I am beginning to perceive that his tastes are more modern, or, to speak
more correctly, they tend to less archaic and more interesting studies.
Then again I have read somewhere that the Hebrew characters, with their
minute vowel-points, have driven blind many an enthusiastic scholar, and
I fear these black Greek letters are becoming too much for my old sight.
There now, dear reader, don't rush to the conclusion that this is just
what you anticipated; you knew, of course, how it would be. You never
had much faith in these transcendental enterprises of reviving Greek at
the age of seventy-five, and you shook your incredulous head at the
thought of an Academia of two honorary members at Kilronan. Now we
_have_ done a little. If you could only see the "Dream of Atossa" done
into English pentameters by my curate, and my own "Prometheus"--well,
there, this won't do--_Vanity of vanities_, said the Preacher.
But this much I shall be pardoned. I cannot help feeling very solemn and
almost sad at the approach of Christmas time. Whether it is the long,
gloomy tunnel that runs through the year from November to April,--these
dark, sad days are ever weeping,--or whether it is the tender
associations that are linked with the hallowed time and the remembrance
of the departed I know not; but some indescribable melancholy seems to
hover around and hang down on my spirits at this holy season; and it is
emphasized by a foreboding that somewhere in the future this great
Christian festival will degenerate into a mere bank holiday, and lose
its sacred and tender and thrice-sanctified associations. By the way, is
it not curious that our governments are steadily increasing the number
of secular holidays, whilst the hands of Pharisees are still uplifted in
horror at the idleness and demoralization produced amongst Catholics by
the eight or ten days that are given in the year to the honor of God's
elect?
Well, we shall stand by the old traditions to the end. And one of my
oldest habits has been to read up at Christmas time every scrap of
literature that had any bearing whatever on the most touching and the
most important event in all human history. And so, on the Sunday evening
preceding the celebration of Father Letheby's first Christmas in
Kilronan, I spoke to him at length on my ideas and principles in
connection with this great day; and we went back, in that rambling,
desultory way that conversation drifts into,--back to ancient prophecies
and forecastings, down to modern times,--tales of travellers about
Bethlehem, the sacrilegious possession of holy places by Moslems, etc.,
etc., until the eyes of my curate began to kindle, and I saw a possible
Bernard or Peter in his fine, clear-cut face, and a "Deus vult" in the
trembling of his lips. Ah me! what a glorious thing is this enthusiasm
of the young,--this noble idealism, that spurns the thought of
consequences, only sees the finger of God beckoning and cares not
whither!
"Hand me down that Virgil," I said, to avert an explosion, for when he
does break out on modern degeneracy he is not pleasant to hear.
"Now spare my old eyes, and read for me, with deliberation, those lines
of the Fourth Eclogue which forecast the coming of our Lord!"
He read in his fine sonorous voice, and he did full justice to the noble
lines:--
"Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis ætas;
Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo.
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
Jam nova progenies cælo demittitur alto,"--
down to the two lines which I repeated as a prayer:--
"O mihi tam longæ maneat pars ultima vitæ
Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta."
"No wonder," he said, at length, "that the world of the Middle Ages,
which, by the way, were _the_ ages of enlightenment, should have
regarded Virgil as a magician and even as a saint."
"But," he said, after a pause, "the 'Dream of the Dead Christ' would be
almost more appropriate nowadays. It is terrible to think how men are
drifting away from Him. There's Ormsby now, a calm, professed infidel;
and absolutely nothing in the way to prevent his marriage with Miss
Campion but his faith, or want of faith."
"Ormsby!" I cried. "Infidel! Marriage with Miss Campion!--want of
faith!!! What in the world is this sudden discharge of fireworks and
Catherine-wheels upon your pastor? Or where has all this gunpowder been
hitherto stored?"
"I thought I had told you, sir," he said, timidly, "but I have so many
irons in the fire. You know that Ormsby's marriage is only a question of
weeks but for one thing."
"And, if I am not trespassing too much on the secrecy of your
confidential intercourse with these young people," I said (I suppose I
was a little huffed), "may I ask how long is all this matrimonial
enterprise in progress, and how does Campion regard it?"
"I am afraid you are offended, sir," he said, "and indeed quite
naturally, because I have not spoken about this matter to you before;
but really it appears so hopeless, and I hate speaking of things that
are only conjectural. I suppose you had set your heart on Miss Campion's
becoming a nun?"
"God forbid!" I said fervently. "We don't want to see all our best girls
running into convents. I had set my heart on her being married to some
good, excellent Catholic Irishman, like the Chief over at Kilkeel."
"Neil Cullen? Campion wouldn't listen to it. His name is a red rag to a
bull. He never forgave Cullen for not firing on the people at that
eviction over at Labbawally, some two or three years ago."
"And what does the person most interested think of the matter?" I asked.
"Well, I think she is quite in favor of it," he said. "Her father likes
him, he will live in the old house, and she likes him,--at least, she
asked me to do all in my power to bring him into the Church."
"The little puss," I could not help saying. "Who would ever have thought
it? And yet, would it not be best? I pity her living with that old
sea-dog,--that Viking in everything but his black mane of hair. But now,
look here; this matter is important; let us talk it over quietly. Who or
what is Ormsby? You have met him?"
"Several times. He is a young Trinity man, good-looking, gentlemanly,
correct, moral. He has a pension of two hundred a year, his salary as
Inspector of Coast Guards, and great expectations. But he has no faith."
"And never had any, I suppose. That's the way with all these fellows--"
"On the contrary, he was brought up a strict Evangelical, almost a
Calvinist. Then he began to read, and like so many others he has drifted
into unfaith."
"Well, lend him some books. He knows nothing, of course, about us. Let
him see the faith, and he'll embrace it."
"Unfortunately, there's the rub. He has read everything. He has
travelled the world; and reversing the venerable maxim, _Cœlum, non
animum mutant_, he has taken his faith from his climate. He has been a
Theosophist in London, a 'New Light' in 'Frisco, as he calls it, a
Moslem in Cairo (by the way, he thinks a lot of these Mussulmans,--fine,
manly, dignified fellows, he says, whose eloquence would bring a blush
almost to the cheek of a member of Parliament). Then he has been hand in
glove with Buddhist priests in the forests of Ceylon, and has been
awfully impressed with their secret power, and still more with their
calm philosophy. I believe," said my curate, sinking his voice to a
whisper of awe and mystery, "_I believe--he has
kissed--the--tooth--of--Buddha!_"
"Indeed," I replied, "and what good did that operation do him?"
"Not much, I suppose, except to confirm him in that gospel of the
sceptic: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in our philosophy!'"
"Humph! Here, then, stands the case. Our most interesting little
parishioner has set her heart on this globe-trotter. There is a big wall
in the way, and it won't do to repeat the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe.
Now, what is to be done to make the young fellow a Catholic? Has he any
prejudices against us?"
"Not one? On the contrary, he rather likes us. He has received all kinds
of hospitality from Catholic priests the wide world over, and he thinks
us a right honest, jolly lot of fellows."
"H'm! I am not sure that that is exactly what St. Liguori or Charles
Borromeo would fancy. But never mind! Now does he know what we hold and
believe?"
"Accurately. He has read our best books."
"Has he had any intercourse with Catholics?"
"A good deal. They have not impressed him. Look at Campion now. Would
any man become a Catholic with his example before him?"
"Hardly indeed, though we must speak kindly of him now, since you
converted him. Had you any chat with him about his difficulties?"
"Yes, several. I walked home with him a few evenings from Campion's. You
know that path over the cliff and down to the coast-guard station?"
"Well. And what is his special trouble? Does he think he has an immortal
soul?"
"There you struck it. That's his trouble; and how to convince him of
that beats me. I asked him again and again whether he was not
self-conscious, that is, perfectly cognizant of the fact that there was
a something, an Ego, outside and beyond the brain and inferior powers
that commanded both? Was there not some intellectual entity that called
up memory, and bade it unseal its tablets? And did he not feel and know
that he could command and control the action of his brain, and even of
every part of it? Now, I said, if the brain is only dumb matter, which
you admit, and cannot create thought, where is this volition, or what is
it? It is not cerebral, for then matter would create thought; that is,
be the creator and the created at the same time."
"Well?"
"He listened attentively and then said quietly: 'Quite true. But if the
Ego is different from the brain and is self-conscious, where does the
self-consciousness go when the brain becomes anæmic and sleeps, or when
the faculties are chloroformed?' 'Oh,' I said, 'the organ is shut down,
the stops are closed.' 'Yes,' he said, 'but where goes the performer?'
By Jove, I was stranded. I tell you what it is, Father Dan, though
you'll call it treason, I'll pitch Æschylus to the mischief, and study
what is of human and vital interest to us priests."
"That little objection needn't alarm you," I said, "you'll find the
answer in every handbook of Catholic philosophy."
"What manual of Catholic philosophy in English could I get for Ormsby?"
asked my curate.
"Alas! my dear young friend, I don't know. There is the great hiatus.
You cannot put a folio calf-bound volume of Suarez in his hands,--he may
not understand Latin. I know absolutely no book that you can put into
the hands of an educated non-Catholic except Balmez's 'Letters to a
Sceptic.'"
"_He has read it_," said my curate.
We were both silent.
"Now, you know," he continued, after a long pause, "I don't attach the
least importance to these objections and arguments. I lived long enough
in England to know that faith is a pure, absolutely pure gift of the
Almighty, not to be acquired by learning or study, but possibly by
prayer. I see, therefore, only one hope, and that is, in our Lord and
His Blessed Mother."
"A profound and true remark," I replied, as he rose up to depart. "Get
these mites of children to pray, and to say the Rosary for that
particular purpose. I can't understand how God can refuse them
anything."
"By the way," he said, as he put on his great coat, "it is a curious
fact that, with all his incredulity, he is exceedingly superstitious.
You can hardly believe how troubled he is about some gibberish of that
old hag that sets charms for lame horses, etc. I'm not at all sure but
that she set charms in the other way for my little mare."
"Well, what has she told Ormsby?"
"Her language was slightly oracular. Out of a joke, he crossed her palm
with a sixpence. She looked him all over, though she knew well what he
had in his mind, examined the lines of his hand minutely, and then
delivered three Sibylline sentences:--
'Set a stout heart to a steep brae.'
That did not disconcert him. Then she said:--
'He that tholes, overcomes.'
He quite agreed with her. It was a naval simile, and it pleased him.
'But a white cloth and a stain never agree.'
He was struck as if by a blow. 'Mind you,' he said,'I am very candid. I
have had my own faults and human weaknesses; but I never did anything
immoral or dishonorable. What did she mean?' 'She meant,' I said, to
reassure him, 'that you have kept her carefully out of the coast-guard
station; that you have not allowed her to interfere with the men, or
their wives, or their servants; that therefore you have put many a
sixpence out of her pocket; and that she must have her revenge. Dismiss
her jargon from your mind as soon as you can.' 'More easily said than
done, Father,' he replied, and he then began to mutter: 'A white cloth
and a stain never agree.' What _does_ she mean?"
"The old story of Voltaire," I said, when my curate had finished. "Don't
forget the children's prayers."
* * * * *
On Christmas eve he called at noonday, just as we were going out to the
midday confessional. He had nothing new to tell. He was rather gloomy.
"You'll meet Miss Campion in the church," he said; "she'll tell you
all."
"I don't think," I said, to cheer him--for where is the use of fretting
in this queer world?--"there was so much need for Ormsby to go as far as
Ceylon to find Buddha and the Nirvana. Look there."
Leaning against the blank wall opposite my house were three silent
figures. They were a little distance apart, and they leaned against
their support with the composure of three cabinet ministers on their
green benches on the night of a great debate. Their feet were slightly
parted, and they gazed on the road with a solemn, placid expression, as
of men to whom the Atlantean weight of this weary world was as the down
on a feather. Calmly and judicially, as if seeing nothing, yet weighing
all things, they looked on pebble and broken limestone, never raising
their heads, never removing their hands from their pockets. They had
been there since breakfast time that morning, and it was now past noon.
"My God," said Father Letheby, when I told him, "'t is awful!"
"'T is the sublime," I said.
"And do you mean to tell me that they have never stirred from that
posture for two long hours?"
"You have my word for it," I replied; "and you know the opinion
entertained about my veracity,--'he'd no more tell a lie than the parish
priest.'"
"I notice it everywhere," he said, in his impetuous way. "If I drive
along the roads, my mare's head is right over the car or butt, before
the fellow wakes up to see me; and then the exasperating coolness and
deliberation with which he draws the reins to pull aside. My boy, too,
when waiting on the road for a few minutes whilst I am attending a
patient, falls fast asleep, like the fat boy in Pickwick; down there,
under the cliffs, the men sleep all day in, or under, their boats. Why
does not Charcot send all his nervous patients to Ireland? The air is
not only a sedative, but a soporific. 'T is the calm of the eternal
gods,--the sleep of the immortals."
"'T is the sleep of Enceladus in Etna," I replied. "When they wake up and
turn, 't is hot lava and ashes."
"That's true, too," he said, musingly; "we are a strange people."
My own voice again echoing out of the dead past.
* * * * *
Miss Campion and "her friend from Dublin," Miss Leslie, were very busy
about the Christmas decorations. Mrs. Darcy helped in her own way. I am
afraid she did not approve of all that was being done. Miss Campion's
and Mrs. Darcy's ideas of "the beautiful" were not exactly alike. Miss
Campion's art is reticent and economical. Mrs. Darcy's is loud and
pronounced. Miss Campion affects mosaics and miniatures. Mrs. Darcy
wants a circus-poster, or the canvas of a diorama. Where Mrs. Darcy, on
former occasions, put huge limbs of holly and a tangled wilderness of
ivy, Miss Campion puts three or four dainty glistening leaves with a
heart of red coral berries in the centre. Mrs. Darcy does not like it,
and she thinks it her duty to art and religion to remonstrate.
"Wisha, Miss, I wouldn't be sparin' the holly if I was you. Sure 't is
chape."
"Ah, well, now, Mrs. Darcy, don't you think this looks neat and pretty?"
"As nate and purty as yourself, Miss; but sure the parish priest won't
mind the expinse. 'T is Christmas times, and his heart is open."
This wasn't too kind of Mrs. Darcy; but it does not matter. She looked
ruefully at the fallen forest of greenery that strewed the chapel floor.
Miss Campion saw her distress, and said, kindly:--
"Now, Mrs. Darcy, is there any improvement you would kindly suggest
before we conclude?"
"Wisha, Miss, there isn't much, indeed. You have made it lovely. But I'd
like to see a little bit of holly in the Blessed Virgin's crown, and
just a weeshy little bit in her Child's fingers. Sure, whatever is going
these Christmas times, them have the best right to it."
Miss Campion smiled, and yielded to the pious wishes of the chapel
woman, and then said:--
"Now, Mrs. Darcy, we'll put a few noble branches around the front porch,
and whatever is left you must take it home, and let Jemmy decorate the
dresser."
The first suggestion met Mrs. Darcy's tastes to perfection; the second
went straight to her mother's heart.
"May God bless you, Miss; and may it be many a long day till throuble or
sorrow crass the thrishol' of your dure."
The neighbors flocked in on Christmas eve to see Mrs. Darcy's cabin.
Jemmy had risen to the occasion. The polished pewter vessels and the
brass candlesticks shone resplendent from the background of black holly
and veined ivy, and the red pearls of the berries. The comments, like
all human criticisms, varied according to the subjectivity and
prejudices of the visitors.
"Wisha, 't is purty, indeed. God bless those that gave it to the poor
widow."
"Wisha, Jemmy, agra, there's no knowing what you'll be when you grows
up."
"Wisha, thin, Mrs. Darcy, you wor always the good nabor. Would it be
asking too much, ma'am, to give us thim few kippeens on the floor? Sure
Abby says she'd like to have a little bit of holly to stick round the
Infant Jesus this holy and blessed night."
"'T is aisy for some people to be proud. Aisy got, aisy gone. But 't is
quare to be taking what ought to go to the house of God to make a
babby-show for ourselves."
"Yerra, whisht, 'uman, we must hould our heads as high as we can while
we have it. It may go soon, and Mary Darcy may wish to be no betther
thin her nabors."
Ah me! Here is the great world in miniature.
"There is not a word of news going?" I said to Miss Campion, as we
walked up and down the moss-covered walk that lay to the south side of
the little church.
"Nothing, Father," she said, "except, indeed, that father makes his
Christmas Communion in the morning; and oh! I am so thankful to God and
to Father Letheby."
"It is really good news, Beata," I replied. I sometimes called her
Beata, for Bittra sounds horrid. I intend to compromise on her wedding
morn by calling her Beatrix. "Really good news. It will add considerably
to the happiness of one, whose only object in life appears to be to make
every one around her happy. But there is no other news that may be
supposed to interest in a far-off way the old pastor, who gave Beata her
First Communion, and--?"
She blushed crimson, and held down her head.
"Now," I said, "give your old parish priest your arm, for I am getting
more and more feeble every day, and tell him all. Perhaps he could help
you too."
"Oh, Father, if you could; but it is almost too much to expect from God.
Perhaps I'd forget Him."
"Not much fear of that," I exclaimed fervently; "but now let us
calculate the chances."
"But oh, Father, if you only knew Rex,--he is so good, so gentle, he
takes so kindly to the poor, ("the clever rascal," I ejaculated under my
breath,) and he likes us so much, I'm sure it needs but little to make
him an excellent Catholic."
Well, now, what is a poor old man to do? Here am I, prepared to
calculate and balance chances of this young man's conversion,--the
_pros_ and _cons_ of a serious matter; and here this young lady
branches off into a magnificent apotheosis of her young demigod! What
has the cold yellow candle light of reason to do in the _camera obscura_
of the human heart? Let us fling open the shutters, and let in the
golden sunshine.
"So I've heard," I said. "And I also know this, Beata, that is, I've
read something like it in good books, written by holy and thoughtful
men, that the gift of faith is given freely by the Holy Spirit to those
who, like your _fiancé_, have led pure and unsullied lives."
She started at the word _fiancé_, and the smile on her face was a study.
Poor old Dante! no wonder you walked on air, and lightly spurned the
stars, when your lady beckoned.
"Beatrice in suso, ed io in lei guardava."
So shall it be to the end.
Well, we talked the whole thing over; debated all possibilities, laughed
at difficulties, cut through obstacles, leaped over obstructions, and,
at last, saw in imagination, written on the cold, frosty air of
December, the mystic legend, I WILL, surrounded by a gorgeous corona of
orange blossoms.
Then, of course, the superb unreason of women. Beata began to cry as I
handed her over to Miss Leslie, who looked daggers at me, and I am quite
sure called me, in her own mind, "A horrid old thing!"
Father Letheby, after his unusually heavy confessional, was jubilant.
Nothing exhilarates him like work. Given a scanty confessional, and he
is as gloomy as Sisyphus; given a hard, laborious day, and he is as
bright as Ariel. He was in uncommonly good spirits to-day.
"By Jove, Father Dan," he said, as we walked home together to our little
bit of fish, "I have it. I'll try him with the _Kampaner Thal!_"
"The very thing," I replied.
"Don't you think it would do? You know he regards all our arguments as
so much special pleading, and he discounts them accordingly."
"Of course," I said. "Wonder you never thought of it before!"
"That is curious now. But you always find things in unexpected quarters.
But you're sure 't will do?"
"Quite sure. By the way, what _is_ the _Kampaner Thal?_"
He looked squarely at me.
"'Pon my word, Father Dan, I confess I sometimes think you are rather
fond of a joke."
"Come along, never mind," I replied. "After air and water, the power of
a pleasant and kind word is the best and cheapest thing God gives us,
His children."