STIGMATA?
I do not think it was personal humiliation, or the sense of personal
shame, or dread of further exposure, that really agitated Father Letheby
during these dreary days, so much as the ever-recurring thought that his
own ignominy would reflect discredit on the great body to which he
belonged. He knew how rampant and how unscrupulous was the spirit of
criticism in our days; and with what fatal facility the weaknesses and
misfortunes of one priest would be supposed, in the distorted mirrors of
popular beliefs, to be reflected upon and besmirch the entire sacred
profession. And it was an intolerable thought that, perhaps in far
distant years, his example would be quoted as evidence of folly or
something worse on the part of the Irish priesthood. "When Letheby
wasted hundreds of pounds belonging to the shopkeepers of Kilkeel," or,
"Don't you remember Letheby of Galway, and the boat that was sunk?"
"What was his bishop doing?" "Oh, he compelled him to leave the
diocese!" These were the phrases, coined from the brazen future, that
were flung by a too fervid or too anxious imagination at his devoted
head; and if the consolations of religion healed the wounds rapidly,
there were ugly cicatrices left behind, which showed themselves in
little patches of silver here and there in his hair, and the tiny
fretwork of wrinkles in his forehead and around his mouth. Then, whilst
speaking, he grew frequently abstracted, and would start and murmur: "I
beg pardon! I didn't quite catch what you were saying." Then I
understood that he had sleepless nights as well as troublous days; and
all the time I was powerless to help him, though I yearned to be able to
do so. What was most aggravating was the complete silence of Father Duff
and his contemporaries during these days of trial, and the contemptuous
and uncharitable criticisms that reached me, but did not reach Father
Letheby, from quondam admirers and friends.
"Sure, we knew well how it would all turn out! These Utopian schemes
generally do end in failure."
"If he had only followed the beaten track, there was every prospect of
success before him; for, mind you, he had a fair share of ability."
"I wonder what will the bishop do?"
"I dare say he'll withdraw faculties and ask him to seek a mission
abroad."
"Well, it is a warning to the other young fellows, who were tempted to
follow him."
I was hoping that the return of Bittra and Ormsby would wean him away
from his anxiety. But this, too, was pitiful and sad beyond words. I
ventured to go see her the morning after their arrival. Ormsby came into
the drawing-room first, and told me all particulars of their journey,
and prepared me to see a great change in his young wife. Nevertheless, I
was startled to see what a transformation a few days' agony had caused.
Bittra had a curious habit of holding her face upwards, like a child,
when she spoke; and this innocent, ingenuous habit, so typical of her
candor and openness of mind, was now accentuated by the look of blank
and utter despair that had crept over her. If she had wept freely, or
been hysterical, it would have been a relief; but no! she appeared
dazed, and as if stricken into stone by the magnitude of her sorrow; and
all the little accidents of home life,--the furniture, the gardens, her
father's room and his wardrobe, his few books, his fishing-rods and
fowling-pieces,--all were souvenirs of one whose place could not be
filled in her soul, and whose tragic end, unsupported by the
ministrations of religion, made the tender and reverent spirit of his
child think of possibilities which no one can contemplate without a
shudder. How different the Catholic from the non-Catholic soul! What an
intense realization of eternity and the future of its immortal spirits
in the one! How utterly callous and indifferent to that immortality is
the other! What an awful idea of God's justice in the one! What cool
contempt for God's dispensations in the other! And how the one realizes
the bursting of bonds and the setting free of the immortal spirit unto
the vast environments and accidents of life, whilst the other sees but
dead clay with some dim ideas of a shadowy and problematical eternity!
"His soul! his soul!" Here was the burden of Bittra's grief. Ormsby
could not understand it; he was frightened and bewildered. I tried every
word of solace, every principle of hope, that are our inheritance, only
to realize that--
"Not all the preaching since Adam
Can make Death other than Death!"
Then I took her out into the yard, and placed her where her father had
stood on the morning of her marriage, and where he heard "the Mass of
his sad life ringing coldly to its end." I repeated every word he
said,--his remorse, his faith, his determination for a future, his
regret that he was not with her on the morning of her nuptial Communion,
his promise to be at Communion the Sunday after they returned from the
Continent. "And here," I said, "he stood when the Angelus rang, and,
taking off his hat, reverentially said it; and I counted the silver in
his hair. And do you think, you little infidel, that our great Father
has not numbered the hairs of his head also--ay, and the deep yearnings
of his heart?"
She looked relieved.
"Come now," I said, "put on your hat and let us see Dolores. She knows
eternity better than you or I."
"May I ask Rex to come with us?"
"Certainly," as I thought what a merciful dispensation it was that a new
love had been implanted where an old love was rudely snatched away.
"And Dr. Armstrong? He journeyed down from Dublin with us."
"Of course. He intends, I believe, to see Alice professionally."
"Yes. He is to arrange for a consultation with our doctor."
"Very good. We shall all go together."
So we did. And I had the supreme consolation to see these two afflicted
ones mingling their tears in the chalice that was held to them to drink.
"One little word, Father Dan," said Alice, as I departed. "I don't mind
Mrs. Ormsby. There is to be no operation, you promised me."
"No, my dear child, don't think of that. You will be treated with the
greatest delicacy and tenderness."
The result of the investigation made next day was a curious one. It was
quite true that her poor body was one huge sore; even the palms of her
hands and the soles of her feet were not exempt. But Dr. Armstrong made
light of this.
"I cannot promise to make her as handsome as I am told she was," he
said; "but I can restore her health by powerful tonics and good food.
That's no trouble. I've seen worse cases at least partially cured. But
the poor girl is paralyzed from the hips down, and that is beyond human
skill."
Here was a revelation. I told Alice about it after the doctors had left.
She only said "Thank God!" But Dr. Armstrong's predictions were
verified. Slowly, very slowly, in a few weeks, the external symptoms of
the dread disease disappeared, until the face and forehead became
thoroughly healed, and only a red mark, which time would wear off,
remained. And her general strength came back, day by day, as fresh blood
drove out all that was tainted and unwholesome, and even her hair began
to grow, first in fluffy wisps, then in strong, glossy curls, whilst a
curious, spiritual beauty seemed to animate her features, until she
looked, to my eyes, like the little Alice I had worshipped as a child.
In a mysterious way, also, Alice and Bittra seemed to pass into each
other's souls; and as the thorns withered and fell away from each young
brow and heart, little roses of Divine love, reflected in human sympathy
and fellowship, seemed to sprout, and throw out their tender leaves,
until the Rose of Love took the place of the red Roses of Pain; and
Time, the Healer, threw farther back, day by day, the memories of trials
surmounted, and anguish subdued in its bitterness to the sweetness of
resignation. And when, one day in the late autumn, when all the leaves
were reddening beneath the frosts of night and the hushed, hidden grays
of sombre days, Alice was rolled to the door of her cottage, and saw the
old, familiar objects again; and the children clustered around her
bath-chair with all kinds of presents of lovely flowers and purple and
golden fruits; and as the poor, pale invalid stretched out her thin
hands to the sky, and drew in long draughts of pure, sweet air, she
trembled under the joy of her resurrection, and seemed to doubt whether,
after all, her close little room, and the weary bed, and her own dread
cross, and her crucifix, were not better. But now she understood that
this recovery of hers was also God's holy will, and she bowed her head
in thankfulness and wept tears of joy.
And so the cross was lifted from the shoulders of two of my children,
only to press more heavily on the third. As the dreary days went by, and
no relief came to Father Letheby, his suspense and agitation increased.
It was a matter of intense surprise that our good friends from Kilkeel
seemed to have forgotten their grievance; and a still greater surprise
that their foreman and self-constituted protagonist could deprive
himself of the intense pleasure of writing eloquent objurgations to the
priest. But not one word was heard from them; and when, in the
commencement of the autumn, Father Letheby received a letter from the
Board of Works, stating that the Inspector of the Board of Trade
despaired of making the owners of the steamer amenable, and stated,
moreover, that they might be able to indemnify eventually the local
subscribers out of the receipts accruing from the insurance on the boat,
no reply came to this communication which he had immediately forwarded
to Kilkeel. He had one other letter from the solicitor of the Loughboro'
Factory Company, stating that law proceedings were about being
instituted in Dublin, at the Superior Courts. He could only reply by
regretting his inability to meet the demand, and offering, as an
instalment, to auction all his furniture and books, and forward the
proceeds. And so things went on, despair deepening into despair, until
one morning he came to me, his face white as a sheet, and held out to
me, with tremulous hands, a tiny sheet, pointing with his finger to one
particular notice. It was not much, apparently, but it was the verdict,
final and irrevocable, of insolvency and bankruptcy. It was a list of
judgments, marked in the Superior Courts, against those who are unable
to meet their demands; and this particular item ran thus:--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
County.|Defendants. |Plaintiff. |Court.|Date of |Amount. | Costs.
| | | |Judgment. | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Galway.|Letheby, Rev. |Loughboro' |Q. B. |Oct. 12, 187--|£126.0.0.| £8.12.6.
|Edward, |Factory | | | |
|R.C. Clergyman.|Co., L't'd.| | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This is the end," said he, mournfully. "I have written the bishop,
demanding my _exeat_."
"It is bad, very bad," I replied.
"I suppose the Kilkeel gentlemen will come next," he said, "and then the
bailiffs."
"The whole thing is melancholy," I replied; "it is one of those cases
which a man requires all his fortitude and grace to meet."
"Well, I made a complete sacrifice of myself this morning at Mass," he
said, gulping down his emotion; "but I didn't anticipate this blow from
on high. Nevertheless, I don't for a moment regret or withdraw. What is
that you quote about suffering:--
'... aspera, sed nutrix hominum bona'?
I'll make arrangements now to sell off everything, and then for
'Larger constellations burning, mellow moons, and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade, and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.'
But the name I leave behind me--Letheby!--Letheby! It will go down from
generation to generation--a word of warning against shame and defeat.
Dear me! how different the world looked twelve months ago! Who would
have foreseen this? And I was growing so fond of my work, and my little
home, and my books, and my choir, and--and--the children!"
"Alice and Bittra have been pulled out of the fire unscathed," I said
feebly. "Why may not you?"
"Ay, but they had physical and domestic troubles," he said; "but how can
you get over disgrace?"
"That, too, may be overcome," I replied. "Is there not something about
'opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis,' in Scripture?"
"True," he said, "there it is. I am forever grasping at two remedies, or
rather supports--work, work, work, and the Example you have quoted; and
sometimes they swing me up over the precipices and then let me down into
the abysses. It is a regular see-saw of exultation and despair!"
"Let me know, when you have heard from the bishop," I said; "somehow I
believe that all will come right yet."
"No, no, Father Dan," he said, "it is only your good nature which you
mistake for a happy presentiment. Look out for a new curate."
* * * * *
The events of the afternoon, indeed, did not promise favorably for my
forecast. About three o'clock, whilst Father Letheby was absent, a
side-car drove into the village, from which two men alighted; and having
made inquiries, proceeded to Father Letheby's house, and told the
bewildered and frightened Lizzie that they had come to take possession.
Lizzie, like a good Irish girl, stormed and raged, and went for the
police, and threatened the vengeance of the Superior Courts, at which
they laughed and proceeded to settle themselves comfortably in the
kitchen. Great fear fell, then, upon the village, and great wrath
smouldered in many breasts; and, as surely as if they had lighted
beacon-fires, or sent mounted couriers far and wide, the evil news was
flashed into the remotest mountain nooks and down to the hermitages of
the fishermen. And there was wrath, feeble and impotent, for here was
the law, and behind the law was the omnipotence of England.
What Father Letheby endured that evening can only be conjectured; but I
sent word to Lizzie that he was to come up to my house absolutely and
remain there until the hateful visitors had departed. This was sooner
than we anticipated. Meanwhile, a few rather touching and characteristic
scenes occurred. When the exact nature of Father Letheby's trouble
became known, the popular indignation against the rebellious factory
girls became so accentuated that they had to fly from the parish, and
they finally made their way, as they had promised, to America. Their
chief opponents now were the very persons that had hooted their
substitutes through the village, and helped to close the factory
finally. And two days after the bailiffs had appeared, an old woman,
who had been bed-ridden for years with rheumatism, managed to come down
into the village, having got a "lift" from a neighbor, and she crept
from the cart to my door. Father Letheby was absent; he hid himself in
the mountains or in the sea-caves these dread days, never appearing in
the village but to celebrate his morning Mass, snatch a hasty breakfast,
and return late at night, when the shadows had fallen. Well, Ellen
Cassidy made her way with some difficulty into my little parlor, where,
after I had recovered from my fright at the apparition, I ventured to
address her:--
"Why, Nell, you don't mean to say that this is yourself?"
"Faith it is, your reverence, my own poor ould bones. I just kem down
from my cabin at Maelrone."
"Well, Nell, wonders will never cease. I thought you would never leave
that cabin until you left it feet foremost."
"Wisha, thin, your reverence, naither did I; but God give me the strinth
to come down on this sorrowful journey."
"And what is it all about, Nell? Sure, you ought to be glad that the
Lord gave you the use of your limbs again."
"Wisha, thin, your reverence, sure, 't is I'm wishing that I was in my
sroud[8] in the cowld clay, before I saw this sorrowful day. Me poor
gintleman! me poor gintleman! To think of all his throuble, and no wan
to help him!"
"You mean Father Letheby's trouble, Nell?"
"Indeed, 'n' I do,--what else? Oh! wirra, wirra! to hear that me poor
gintleman was gone to the cowld gaol, where he is lying on the stone
flure, and nothing but the black bread and the sour wather."
Whilst Nell was uttering this lonely threnody, she was dragging out of
the recesses of her bosom what appeared to be a red rag. This she placed
on the table, whilst I watched her with interest. She then commenced to
unroll this mummy, taking off layer after layer of rags, until she came
to a crumpled piece of brown paper, all the time muttering her Jeremiad
over her poor priest. Well, all things come to an end; and so did the
evolutions of that singular purse. This last wrapper was unfolded, and
there lay before me a pile of crumpled banknotes, a pile of sovereigns,
and a handful of silver.
"'T isn't much, your reverence, but it is all I have. Take it and give
it to that good gintleman, or thim who are houlding him, and sind him
back to us agin."
"'T is a big sum of money, Nell, which a poor woman like you could hardly
afford to give--"
"If it were tin millions times as much, your reverence, I'd give it to
him, my darlin' gintleman. Sure, an' 't was he came to me up on that
lonesome hill in all the rain and cowld of last winter; and 't was he
said to me, 'Me poor woman, how do you live at all! And where's the
kittle?' sez he; but sure, I had no kittle; but he took up a black burnt
tin, and filled it with wather, and put the grain of tay in it, and
brought it over to me; and thin he put his strong arm under my pillow,
and lifted me up, and 'Come, me poor woman,' sez he, 'you must be wake
from fastin'; take this; and thin he wint around like a 'uman and set
things to rights; and I watchin' him and blessin' him all the time in
_my_ heart of hearts; and now to think of him without bite or
sup;--wisha, tell me, your reverence," she said, abruptly changing her
subject, "how much was it? Sure, I thought there was always a dacent
living for our priests at Kilronan. But the times are bad, and the
people are quare."
It needed all my eloquence and repeated asseverations to persuade her
that Father Letheby was not gone to gaol as yet, and most probably would
not go. And it was not disappointment, but a sense of personal injury
and insult, that overshadowed her fine old face as I gathered up her
money and returned it to her. She went back to her lonely cabin in
misery.
When Father Letheby came in and sat down to a late dinner, I told him
all. He was deeply affected.
"There is some tremendous mine of the gold of human excellence in these
good people," he said; "but the avenues to it are so tortuous and
difficult, it seems hardly worth while seeking for. They are capable of
the most stupendous sacrifices provided they are out of the common; but
it is the regular system and uniformity of the natural and human law
that they despise. But have you any letter for me?"
"None. But here is a tremendous indictment against myself from Duff."
"No letter from the bishop?" he said despondently, as he opened and read
the letter, which ran thus:--
Atheloy, 13/10/7--.
Rev. dear Father Dan:--How has all this miserable business
occurred? Well, to our minds, you alone are culpable and
responsible. We must seem to Letheby to be utter caitiffs and
cowards, to allow matters to come to such a horrible crisis,
especially in the case of a sensitive fellow like him. But up to
the date of that horrible exposure in Stubbs', we had no idea there
were complications with those factory people--nothing, in fact,
beyond the responsibilities of that unhappy boat. Now, why didn't
you let us know? You may not be aware that the evening of the
disaster I made a solemn engagement to stand by him to the end; and
now all this must seem the merest braggadocio. And yet, the thing
was a trifle. Would you tell Letheby now, that it will be all right
in a few days, and to cheer up; no harm done, beyond a temporary
humiliation! But we'll never dine with you again, and we shall,
one and all, brave the Episcopal anger by refusing to be your
curates when Letheby is promoted.
Yours, etc.,
Charles L. Duff, C. C.
"He's very kind, very kind, indeed," said Father Letheby, meditatively;
"but I cannot see how he is going to make it all right in a few days."
"It wouldn't surprise me much," I replied, "if that good young fellow
had already put a sop in those calves' mouths over there at Kilkeel."
"Impossible!" he cried.
"Well, time will tell."
I called down to see Alice and talk over things. It is wonderful what a
_clairvoyante_ she has become. She sees everything as in a magic mirror.
"I think the Holy Souls will come to his relief," she said, in a cool,
calm way. "He has, I think, a great devotion to the Holy Souls. He told
me once, when we were talking about holy things, that he makes a
_memento_ in every Mass of the most neglected and abandoned priest in
purgatory; but, sure, priests don't go to purgatory, Father Dan, do
they?"
"Well, my dear, I cannot answer you in general terms; but there's one
that will be certainly there before many years; and unless you and
Father Letheby and Bittra pull him out by your prayers, I'm
afraid--But continue what you were saying."
"He makes a _memento_, he said, for the most abandoned priest, and for
the soul that is next to be released. And whenever he has not a special
intention, he always gives his Mass to our Blessed Lady for that soul.
Now, I think, that's very nice. Just imagine that poor soul waiting
inside the big barred gates, and the angel probably her warder for many
years, outside. They don't exchange a word. They are only waiting,
waiting. Far within are the myriads of Holy Souls, praying, suffering,
loving, hoping. There is a noise as of a million birds, fluttering their
wings above the sea. But here at the gate is silence, silence. She dares
not ask: When?--because the angel does not know. Now and again he
looks at her and smiles, and she is praying softly to herself. Suddenly
there is a great light in the darkness overhead, and then there is a
dawn on the night of purgatory; for a great spirit is coming down
swiftly, swiftly, on wings of light, until he reaches the prison-house.
Then he hands the warder-angel a letter from the Queen of Heaven; and in
a moment, back swing the gates, and in plunges the guardian angel, and
wraps up that expectant soul in his strong wings, and up, up, up,
through starry night and sunny day they go, until they come into the
singing heavens; and up along the great avenues of smiling angels, until
at last the angel lays down that soul gently at the feet of Mary. And
all this was done by a quiet priest in a remote, whitewashed chapel,
here by the Atlantic, and there was no one with him but the little boy
who rang the bell."
I had been listening to this rhapsody with the greatest admiration, when
just then Bittra came in. She has got over the most acute period of her
grief, "except when," she says, "she looks at the sea and thinks of what
is there."
"Alice is prophesying," I said; "she is going to take Father Letheby out
of his purgatory on Monday."
"Ah, no, Daddy Dan, that's not fair. But I think he will be relieved
from his cross."
"And what about your own troubles, Alice?" said Bittra. "Is the healing
process going on?"
"Yes, indeed, thank God," she replied, "except here and there."
Bittra was watching me curiously. Now it is quite a certain fact, but I
never dreamed of attaching any importance to it, that this child had
recovered her perfect health, so far as that dreadful scrofulous
affection extended, except in the palms of her hands and the soles of
her feet, where there remained, to the doctor's intense disappointment,
round, angry sores, about the size of a half-crown, and each surrounded
with a nimbus of raw, red flesh, which bled periodically.
"And here, also," she said innocently this evening, "here on my side is
a raw sore which sometimes is very painful and bleeds copiously. I have
not shown the doctor that; but he gets quite cross about my hands and
feet."
"It is very curious," I said, in my own purblind fashion, "but I suppose
the extremities heal last."
"I shall walk home with you, Father Dan, if you have no objection," said
Bittra.
"Come along, child," I replied. "Now, Alice, we shall be watching
Monday, All Souls' Day."
"Very well, Daddy Dan," she said, smiling. "Everything will come right,
as we shall see."
As we walked through the village, Bittra said to me wonderingly:--
"Isn't it curious about those sores, Father? They won't heal."
"It is," I said musingly.
"I have been thinking a lot about it," she said.
"And the result of your most wise meditations?"
"You'll laugh at me."
"Never. I never laugh. I never allow myself to pass beyond the genteel
limits of a smile."
"Then I think--but--"
"Say it out, child. What are you thinking of?"
"I think it is the _stigmata_," she said, blushing furiously.
I was struck silent. It was too grand. Could it be? Had we a real,
positive saint amongst us?
"What do you think, Father Dan? Are you angry?"
"God forbid, child. But tell me, have you spoken to Alice on the
matter?"
"Oh, dear no! I wouldn't dream of such a thing. It would give her an
awful shock."
"Well, we'll keep it a profound secret, and await further revelations.
'Abscondisti hæc a prudentibus, et revelasti ea parvulis.'"
But next evening, I think I threw additional fervor into the _Laudate's_
and _Benedicite's_ at Lauds.
But as I looked at Father Letheby across the table in the lamplight, and
saw his drawn, sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, and the white patch of
hair over his ears, I could not help saying to myself: "You, too, have
got your _stigmata_, my poor fellow!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: Shroud.]