AT THE ZENITH
For one reason or another, the great events to which our little history
is tending were deferred again and again, until at last the Monday
within the Octave of Corpus Christi was chosen for the marriage of
Bittra Campion and the launch of the great fishing-boat, that was to
bring untold wealth to Kilronan. Meanwhile our faculties were not
permitted to rust, for we had a glorious procession on the great
_Fête-Dieu_, organized, of course, and carried on to complete success by
the zeal and inventive piety of my young curate. My own timidity, and
dread of offending Protestant susceptibilities--a timidity, I suppose,
inherited from the penal days--would have limited that procession to the
narrow confines of the chapel yard; but the larger and more trusting
faith of Father Letheby leaped over such restrictions, and the
procession wound through the little village, down to the sheer cliffs
that overhang the sea, along the narrow footpath that cuts the turf on
the summit of the rocks, around the old mill, now the new factory, and
back by the main road skirting the bog and meadowland, to the village
church again. It would be quite useless to inquire how or where Father
Letheby managed to get those silken banners, and that glittering
processional cross, or the gorgeous canopy. I, who share with the
majority of my countrymen the national contempt for minutiæ and mere
details, would have at once dogmatically declared the impossibility of
securing such beautiful things in such a pre-Adamite, out-of-the-way
village as Kilronan. But Father Letheby, who knows no such word as
impossibility, in some quiet way--the legerdemain of a strong
character--contrives to bring these unimaginable things out of the
region of conjecture into the realms of fact; and I can only stare and
wonder. But the whole thing was a great and unexampled success; and,
whilst my own heart was swelling under the influence of the sweet hymns
of the children, and the golden radiance of June sunlight, and the
sparkling of the sea, and the thought that I held the Lord and Master of
all between my hands, my fancy would go back to that wondrous lake on
whose waters the Lord did walk, and from whose shores He selected the
future teachers of the world. The lake calm in the sunlight, the fish
gleaming in the nets, the half-naked Apostles bending over the gunwales
of their boats to drag in the nets, the stately, grave figure of our
Lord, the wondering women who gazed on Him afar off with fear and
love--all came up before my fancy, that only came back to reality when I
touched the shoulders of Reginald Ormsby and the doctor, who, with two
rough fishermen, belonging to the Third Order of St. Francis, held the
gilded poles of the canopy. They manifested great piety and love and
reverence all the way. Ormsby had brought over all his coast-guards
except the two that were on duty at the station, and they formed a noble
guard of honor around the canopy; and it was difficult to say which was
the more beautiful and picturesque--the demonstrative love of the
peasant women, who flung up their hands in a paroxysm of devotion,
whilst they murmured in the soft Gaelic: "Ten thousand, thousand thanks
to you, _O white and ruddy Saviour_!" or the calm, deep, silent
tenderness of these rough men, whose faces were red and tanned and
bronzed from the action of sun and sea. And the little children, who
were not in the procession, peeped out shyly from beneath their mothers'
cloaks, and their round, wondering eyes rested on the white Host, who in
His undying words had once said: "Suffer little children to come unto
me!" Let no one say that our poor Irish do not grasp the meaning of this
central mystery of our faith! It is true that their senses are touched
by more visible things; but whoever understands our people will agree
with me that no great theologian in his study, no philosopher in his
rostrum, no sacred nun in her choir, realizes more distinctly the awful
meaning of that continued miracle of love and mercy that is enshrined on
our altars, and named _Emmanuel_.
But all things come around, sooner or later, in their destined courses,
and Monday dawned, fair and sunny and beautiful, as befitted the events
that were to take place. There was a light summer haze on sea and land;
and just a ripple of a breeze blown down as a message from the
inhospitable hills. Father Letheby said early Mass at eight o'clock; and
at half-past nine, the hour for the nuptial Mass, there was no standing
or sitting-room in the little chapel. Of course, the front seats were
reserved for the gentry, who, in spite of an academical dislike to
Ormsby's conversion, gathered to witness this Catholic marriage, as a
rare thing in Ireland, at least amongst their own class. But behind
them, and I should say in unpleasant proximity (for the peasantry do not
carry handkerchiefs scented with White Rose or Jockey Club,--only the
odor of the peat and the bogwood), surged a vast crowd of men and women,
on whose lips and in whose hearts was a prayer for her who was entering
on the momentous change in her sweet and tranquil life. And young
Patsies and Willies and Jameses were locked by their legs around their
brothers' necks, and trying to keep down and economize for further use
that Irish cheer or yell, that from Dargai to Mandalay is well known as
the war-whoop of the race invincible. I presume that I was an object of
curiosity myself, as I awaited in alb and stole the coming of the bridal
party. Then the curiosity passed on to Ormsby, who, accompanied by Dr.
Armstrong, stood erect and stately before the altar-rails; then, of
course, to the bride, who, accompanied by her father, and followed by a
bevy of fair children, drew down a rose-shower of benedictions from the
enthusiastic congregation. Did it rest there? Alas, no! Bridegroom and
bride, parish priest and curate, were blotted out of the interested
vision of the spectators; and, concentrated with absorbing fascination,
the hundreds of eyes rested on the snowy cap and the spotless streamers
of Mrs. Darcy. It was the great event of the day--the culmination of
civilization in Kilronan! Wagers had been won and lost over it; one or
two pitched battles had been fought with pewter weapons at Mrs. Haley's;
ballads had been written on it in the style, but not quite in the
polished lines, of "Henry of Navarre"; and now, there it was, the "white
plume" of victory, the cynosure of hundreds of wondering eyes. I dare
say the "upper ten" did not mind it; they were used to such things; but
everything else paled into insignificance to the critical and censorious
audience behind them.
"Didn't I tell you she'd do it?"
"Begor, you did. I suppose I must stand the thrate."
"Father Letheby cud do anything whin he cud do that."
"Begor, I suppose she'll be thinkin' of marryin' herself now, and Jem
hardly cowld in the clay."
"Yerra, look at her! She thinks she's wan of the gintry. Oh my! she's
blushin'. 'T wasn't so long ago that you could sow praties in her
face."
"I suppose thim cost a lot of money. But, shure, it was the priests give
'em to her."
"Wisha, thin, there's many a poor creature that would want the money
more."
Now, all this was not only sarcastic, but calumnious. The cap and
streamers were Mrs. Darcy's own, bought out of her hard earnings, and
donned to-day to honor the nuptials of her idol and benefactress. She
knew the mighty ordeal that was in store for her; but she faced it, and
thanked God she was "not behoulden to wan of thim for what she put into
her mout' and upon her back." And she stood there at the altar-rails,
erect and defiant, and there was not a tremor in the hand that held the
holy-water vase, nor in the hand that held the aspergill.
But it was very embarrassing to myself. I am not disposed to be nervous,
for I have always conscientiously avoided tea and too much study, and I
have lived in the open air, and always managed to secure eight hours of
dreamless, honest sleep; but I was "discomposed," as some one charitably
explained it that morning; and Mrs. Darcy's cap was the cause. I couldn't
take my eyes away from it. There it was, dancing like a
will-o'-the-wisp before my dazzled vision. I turned my back
deliberately upon it, and lo! there it was in miniature in the convex
arc of my spectacles; and if I looked up, there was my grinning
congregation, and their half-audible remarks upon this dread and
unwonted apparition. At last I commenced:
"Reginald Darcy, wilt thou take Bittra Ormsby here present--"
A forcible reminder from Father Letheby brought me to my senses; but
away they scattered again, as I heard Campion muttering something
uncomplimentary under his black mustache.
"Ahem!--Reginald Ormsby, wilt thou take Mrs. Darcy--"
Here Father Letheby nudged me again, and looked at me suspiciously. I
got a sudden and violent paroxysm of coughing, a remnant of an old
bronchial attack to which I am very subject. But I managed to say:--
"For the love of God, send that woman into the sacristy."
She covered her retreat nobly, made a curtsey to the priests,
genuflected calmly, laid down the aspergill, and, under pretence of
having been sent for something which these careless priests had
forgotten, retired with honors; and then I suppose had a good long cry.
But poor Bittra was blushing furiously; Ormsby was calm as on the
quarterdeck; but Dr. Armstrong was pulling at his mustache, as if
determined to show the world that there was no use any more for razors
or depilatories; and Miss Leslie had bitten right through her under
lip, and was threatened with apoplexy. We got through the rest of the
ceremony with flying colors: and the moment I said, _In nomine Patris,
et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti_, the hush of death fell on the
congregation. Then the nuptial blessing was given, the choir threw all
their vocal strength into the grand _finale_; the registers were signed;
Campion kissed his beloved child, and shook hands with Ormsby; and then
commenced the triumphal march. I forgot to say that for the glorious
procession on the Thursday before the village was _en fête_. Great
arcades of laurel were stretched from chimney to chimney, because there
were no upper rooms in the cabins; the posts and lintels of the humble
doors were covered with foliage and flowers; and the windows were
decorated with all the pious images that had been accumulating in the
cabins for generations. Little _ëikons_ of the Sacred Heart, gorgeous
statues of our Lady of Lourdes, colored prints of Leo XIII., and
crucifixes without number dappled the dark background of the
windows,--and all the splendor was allowed to remain untouched during
the octave. And glad they were, poor people, to show their love for
their young idol and mistress, even with the decorations of their Lord
and King. But what a shout tore open the heavens as Bittra appeared,
leaning on her husband's arm; and what prayers echoed round and round
them, as Ormsby handed Bittra into the victoria that was waiting! No
genteel showers of rice, no casting of slippers nor waving of jealous
handkerchiefs here, but--
"Come down out o' dat, you grinning monkey," and the gorgeous coachman
was hauled down ignominiously, and a score of strong arms replaced the
panting horses under the bridal carriage. And so it moved on, this
bridal procession, amidst a strange _epithalamium_ of cheering and
blessings, whilst rough hands from time to time grasped the strong
fingers of the smiling bridegroom or the tiny gloved hand of the bride.
Ay, move down the valley of life together, you two, linked hand-in-hand,
having said your farewells to the world, for you are entering on a new
and altogether consecrated life. No wonder that the Church insists on
the sacramental nature of this stupendous compact between two human
souls; no wonder that the world, anxious to break its indissolubility,
denies its awful sacredness; no wonder that the Catholic girl enters
beneath the archway of the priest's stole[6] with the fear of great joy,
and that the Catholic bridegroom is unnerved with dread at undertaking
the responsibilities of a little universe.
We had a little chat over this matter, my curate and I, the evening
before Bittra's marriage. It came around quite naturally, for we had
been debating all kinds of possibilities as to the future; and he had
been inveighing, in his own tumultuous manner, against the new and
sacrilegious ideas that are just now being preached by the modern
apostles of free thought in novel and journal. We agreed in thinking
that the Christian ideal of marriage was nowhere so happily realized as
in Ireland, where, at least up to recent times, there was no lurid and
volcanic company-keeping before marriage, and no bitter ashes of
disappointment after; but the good mother quietly said to her child:
"Mary, go to confession to-morrow, and get out your Sunday dress. You
are to be married on Thursday evening." And Mary said: "Very well,
mother," not even asserting a faintest right to know the name of her
future spouse. But, then, by virtue of the great sacramental union, she
stepped from the position of a child and a dependent into the regal
position of queen and mistress on her own hearth. The entire authority
of the household passed thereby into her hands, as she slung the keys at
her girdle; she became bursar and _econome_ of the establishment; and in
no instance was her right to rule supreme ever questioned by husband or
child, unless drink came in to destroy this paradise, as the serpent
fouled with his slime the flowers of the garden of Eden. Married life in
Ireland has been, up to now, the most splendid refutation of all that
the world and its gospel, the novel, preach about marriage, and the
most splendid and complete justification of the supernaturalism of the
Church's dogmas and practices. But, reverting to the new phases in the
ever-shifting emotionalism of a godless world, with which marriage has
become a question of barter--a mere lot-drawing of lambs for the
shambles--he compared the happy queenly life of our Irish mother with
that of the victim of fashion, or that of uncatholic lands, where a poor
girl passes from one state of slavery to another.
"I hope," he said, "that we never shall be able to compare Bittra, like
so many other brides, to the sleeping child that Carafola has painted,
with an angel holding over it a crown of thorns, and whom marriage, like
the angel, would awake by pressing the thorns on her brow."
"God forbid!" I said fervently. How little I dreamed of the troubles
that were looming up out of the immediate future to shroud her marriage
sunshine in awful gloom!
As the marriage procession passed the door where Alice lived, Bittra
gave a little timid, imperious command to her admirers to stop. She and
Ormsby alighted and passed into the cottage. The orange blossoms touched
the crown of thorns on the head of the sick girl; but, somehow, both
felt that there was need of a sisterhood of suffering on the one part to
knit their souls together. Ormsby remained in the kitchen, talking to
Mrs. Moylan; and from that day forward she was secured, at least, from
all dread of dependence or poverty forevermore.
At the breakfast table it was, of course, my privilege to propose the
health of the bride and bridegroom, which I most gladly did; and, let me
say, so successfully as to bring back unwonted smiles to Campion's face,
who now freely forgave me for the _gaucheries_ at the marriage service.
Then the guests strolled around, looking at the marriage presents--the
usual filigree and useless things that are flung at the poor bride.
Bittra took me into a little boudoir of her own to show me her _real_
presents.
"Father," she said, "who is a great artist, wanted me to give back all
this rubbish, as he calls it; but I would much rather sacrifice all that
_bijouterie_ outside." And she exhibited with glistening eyes the bridal
offerings of the poor fisherwomen and country folk of Kilronan. They
were fearfully and wonderfully made. Here was a magnificent three-decker
battleship, complete from pennant to bowsprit, every rope in its place,
and the brass muzzles of its gun protruded for action. Here was a pretty
portrait of Bittra herself, painted by a Japanese artist from a
photograph, surreptitiously obtained, and which had been sent 15,000
miles across the ocean for an enlarged replica. Here were shells of all
sizes and fantastic forms, gathered during generations, from the vast
museums of the deep. Here was a massive gold ring, with a superb ruby,
picked up, the Lord knows how, by a young sailor in the East Indian
Islands. Here, screaming like a fury, was a paroquet, gorgeous as a
rainbow, but ill-conducted as a monkey; and here was a gauze shawl, so
fine that Bittra hid it in her little palm, and whispered that it was of
untold price.
"But, of course, I cannot keep all these treasures," she said; "I shall
hold them as a loan for a while; and then, under one pretext or another,
return them. It is what they indicate that I value."
"And I think, my little child," I said, "that if you had them
reduplicated until they would fill one wing of the British Museum, they
would hardly be an exponent of all that these poor people think and
feel."
"It should make me very happy," said Bittra.
And then we passed into the yard and dairies, where the same benevolent
worship had congregated fowl of strange and unheard-of breeds; and there
was a little bonham; and above all, staring around, wonder-stricken and
frightened, and with a gorgeous blue ribbon about her neck, was the
prettiest little fawn in the world, its soft brown fur lifted by the
warm wind and its eyes opened up in fear and wonder at its surroundings.
Bittra patted its head, and the pretty animal laid its wet nozzle in
her open hand. Then she felt a little shiver, and I said:--
"That bridal dress is too light. Go in and change." But she said,
looking up at me wistfully:--
"It is not the chill of cold, but of dread, that is haunting me all the
morning. I feel as if some one were walking over my grave, as the people
say."
[Illustration: "Ahem!--Reginald Ormsby, wilt thou take Mrs. Darcy--" (p.
382.)]
"Nonsense!" I cried. "You are unnerved, child; the events of the morning
have been too much for you."
Here we heard her father's voice, shouting: "Bittra! Bittra! where are
you?"
"Here, father," she said, as Ormsby came into the yard with Campion,
"showing all my treasures to Father Dan."
She linked her arm in her husband's, and Campion looked from one to the
other admiringly. And no wonder. They were a noble, handsome pair, as
they stood there, and the June sunlight streamed and swam around them.
"Go in," he said at last. "The guests expect you."
He and I walked around the farmyard, noting, observing, admiring. He
called my attention to this animal and to that, marked out all his
projected improvements, and what he would do to make this a model
country residence for his child; but I could see that he had something
else to say. At last he turned to me, and there was a soft haze in his
gleaming black eyes as he tried to steady his voice:--
"I have been a hard man," he said, "but the events of this morning have
quite upset me. I didn't know that my child was so worshipped by the
people, and it has touched me deeply. You know, brought up in the school
where I graduated, I have never been able to shake off a feeling of
contempt for these poor, uneducated serfs; and their little cunning ways
and want of manliness have always disgusted me. I am beginning to see
that I have been wrong. And then I have been a bad Catholic. Ormsby,
lately an unbeliever, has shown me this, not by his words, for he is a
thorough gentleman, but by his quiet example. You know I did not care
one brass pin whether he was Turk, Jew, or atheist, so long as he
married Bittra. Now I see that the Church is right, and that her
espousal would have been incomplete if she had not married a Catholic,
and a true one. All this has disturbed me, and I intend to turn over a
new leaf. I am running into years; and although I have, probably, thirty
years of life before me, I must brush up as if the end were near. I am
awfully sorry I was not at the rails with Bittra and Ormsby this
morning; but we shall all be together at Holy Communion the Sunday after
they return from the Continent. By Jove! there goes the Angelus; and
twelve is the hour to start the boat!"
He took off his hat, and we said the _Angelus_ in silence together. I
noticed the silver gathering over his ears, and the black hair was
visibly thinning on the top. I watched him keenly for those few seconds.
I did not know that those musical strains of the midday Angelus were his
death-knell--the ringing up of the great stage-manager, Death, for his
_volté subito_--his leap through the ring to eternity.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: In many places in Ireland the priest places the broad ends
of the stole on the heads of the newly married couple.]