FATHER BROSNAN.
There has come a change among the priests in Ireland during the last
fifty years, as has been natural. Among whom has there not come a
change in half a century? In England, statesmen are different, and
parsons, and judges, and peers. When an entire country has been left
unmoved by the outside world, so as to seem to have been left asleep
while others have been awake, the different classes will seem to
be the same at the end of every half century. A village lawyer in
Spain will be as was a village lawyer fifty years ago. But a parish
priest in Ireland will be an altered personage, because the country
generally has not been sleeping.
There used to be two distinct sorts of priests; of whom the elder,
who had probably been abroad, was the better educated; whereas the
younger, who was home-nurtured, had less to say for himself on
general topics. He was generally the more zealous in his religious
duties, but the elder was the better read in doctrinal theology. As
to the political question of the day, they were both apt to be on the
list against the Government, though not so with such violence as to
make themselves often obnoxious to the laws. It was natural that they
should be opposed to the Government, as long as the Protestant Church
claimed an ascendency over them. But their feelings and aspirations
were based then on their religious opinions. Now a set of men has
risen up, with whom opposition to the rulers of the country is
connected chiefly with political ideas. A dream of Home Rule has made
them what they are, and thus they have been roused into waking life,
by the American spirit, which has been imported into the country.
There is still the old difference between the elder and the younger
priests. The parish priest is not so frequently opposed to the law,
as is his curate. The parish priest is willing that the landlord
shall receive his rents, is not at least anxious, that he shall
be dispossessed of his land. But the curate has ideas of peasant
proprietors; is very hot for Home Rule, is less obedient to the
authority of the bishops than he was of yore, and thinks more of the
political, and less of the religious state of his country.
This variance of feeling might be seen in the three priests who have
been already mentioned in our story. Father Giles was the parish
pastor of Headford, in which position he had been for nearly forty
years. He was a man seventy years of age, in full possession of all
his faculties, very zealous in the well-being of his people, prone to
teach them that if they would say their prayers, and do as they were
bid by their betters, they would, in the long run, and after various
phases of Catholic well or ill-being, go to heaven. But they would
also have enough to eat in this world; which seemed to be almost more
prominent in Father Giles's teaching than the happy bliss of heaven.
But the older Father Giles became the more he thought of the good
things of this world, on behalf of his people, and the less he liked
being troubled with the political desires of his curate. He had gone
so far as to forbid Father Brosnan to do this, or to do that on
various occasions, to make a political speech here, or to attend
a demonstration there;--in doing which, or in not doing it, the
curate sometimes obeyed, but sometimes disobeyed the priest, thereby
bringing Father Giles in his old age into infinite trouble.
But Father Malachi, in the neighbouring parish of Ballintubber, ran
a course somewhat intermediate between these two. He, at the present
moment, had no curate who interfered with his happiness. There was,
indeed, a curate of Ballintubber--so named; but he lived away,
not inhabiting the same house with Father Malachi, as is usual in
Ireland; having a chapel to himself, and seldom making his way into
our part of the country. Father Malachi was a strong-minded man, who
knew the world. He, too, had an inclination for Home Rule, and still
entertained a jealousy against the quasi-ascendency of a Protestant
bishop; but he had no sympathy whatever with Father Brosnan. Ireland
for the Irish might be very well, but he did not at all want to have
Ireland for the Americans. Father Giles and Father Malachi certainly
agreed on one thing--that Brosnan was a great trouble.
If the conversion of Florian Jones was to be attributed to any
clerical influence, Father Brosnan was entitled to claim the good or
the evil done; but in truth very few polemical arguments had been
used on the occasion. The boy's head had been filled with the idea
of doing something remarkable, and he had himself gone to the priest.
When a Protestant child does go to a priest on such a mission, what
can the priest do but accept him? He is bound to look upon the
suppliant as a brand to be saved from the burning. "You stupid young
ass!" the priest may say to himself, apostrophising the boy; "why
don't you remain as you are for the present? Why do you come to
trouble me with a matter you can know nothing about?" But the priest
must do as his Church directs him, and the brands have to be saved
from the burning. Father Brosnan sent the boy to Father Malachi, and
Father Malachi told the lad to go to his terrestrial father. It was
this that Mr. Jones had expected, and there the boy was received as a
Catholic.
But to Father Brosnan the matter was much more important in its
political view. Father Brosnan knew the application as to his rent
which had been made by Pat Carroll to his landlord. He was of opinion
that no rent ought to be paid by any Irish tenant to any landlord--no
rent, at least, to a Protestant landlord. Wrath boiled within his
bosom when he heard of the answer which was given, as though Mr.
Jones had robbed the man by his refusal. Mr. Brosnan thought that
for the present a tenant was, as a matter of course, entitled to
abatement in his rent, as in a short time he must be entitled to his
land without paying any. He considered not at all the circumstances,
whether, as had been the case on certain properties in Mayo, all
money expended had been so expended by the tenant, or by the
landlord, as had been the case with Pat Carroll's land. That was an
injustice, according to Mr. Brosnan's theory; as is all property in
accordance with the teaching of some political doctors who are not
burdened with any.
It would have been unfair to Mr. Brosnan to say that he sympathised
with murderers, or that he agreed with those who considered that
midnight outrages were fair atonements; he demanded rights. He
himself would have been hot with righteous indignation, had such
a charge been made against him. But in the quarrel which was now
beginning all his sympathies were with the Carrolls at large, and
not with the Jones's at large. At every victory won by the British
Parliament his heart again boiled with indignation. At every
triumphant note that came over the water from America--which was
generally raised by the record of the dollars sent--he boiled, on
the other hand, with joy. He had gleams in his mind of a Republic.
He thought of a Saxon as an evil being. The Queen, he would say, was
very well, but she was better at a distance. The Lord-Lieutenant
was a British vanity, and English pomp, but the Chief Secretary
was a minister of the evil one himself. He believed that England
was enriched by many millions a year robbed from Ireland, and that
Ireland was impoverished to the same extent. He was a man thoroughly
disloyal, and at the same time thoroughly ignorant, altogether in
the dark as to the truth of things, a man who, whatever might be
his fitness for the duties of the priesthood, to which he had been
educated, had no capability of perceiving political facts, and no
honesty in teaching them. But it would have been unjust to him to say
that he was a murderer, or that he countenanced murder. To him it was
that young Florian now betook himself, and found him seated alone in
the back parlour in Father Giles's house. The old priest was out, and
Father Brosnan was engaged on some portion of clerical duties. To
give him his due, he performed those duties rigidly, and the more
rigidly when, in doing them, he obeyed the letter of the law rather
than the spirit. As Father Giles, in his idea of his duties, took
altogether the other side of the question, and, in thinking of the
spirit, had nearly altogether ignored the letter, it may be imagined
that the two men did not agree together very well. In truth, Father
Giles looked upon Father Brosnan as an ignorant, impertinent puppy,
whereas Father Brosnan returned the compliment by regarding Father
Giles as half an infidel, and almost as bad as a Protestant.
"Well, Master Florian," said the priest, "and how are things going
with you?"
"Oh! Father Brosnan, I'm in terrible throuble."
"What throuble's up now?"
"They're all agin me at home, and father's nearly as bad as any of
them. It's all along of my religion."
"I thought your father had given his consent?"
"So he has; but still he's agin me. And my two sisters are dead agin
me. What am I to do about Pat Carroll?"
"Just hould your tongue."
"They do be saying that because what Pat and the other boys did was
agin father's interest, I am bound to tell."
"You've given a promise?"
"I did give a promise."
"And you swore an oath," said the priest solemnly.
"I did swear an oath certainly."
"Then you must hould your tongue. In such a case as this I cannot
absolve you from your word. I don't know what it is that Pat Carroll
did." Here it must be admitted Father Brosnan did not stick to the
absolute truth. He did know what Pat Carroll had done. All Headford
knew that Mr. Jones's meadows had been flooded, and the priest must
have known that the present cause of trouble at Castle Morony,
was the injury thus done. Father Brosnan knew and approved of Pat
Carroll's enmity to the Jones family. But he was able to justify the
falsehood of his own heart, by stumbling over the degree of knowledge
necessary. There was a sense in which he did not know it. He need
not have sworn to it in a Court of Law. So he told himself, and so
justified his conscience. "You need not tell me," he went on to say
when the boy was proceeding to whisper the story, "I am not bound
to know what it is that Pat Carroll does, and what it is that your
father suffers. Do you go home, and keep your toe in your pump,
as they say, and come to me for confession a day or two before
Christmas. And if any of them say anything to you about your
religion, just sit quiet and bear it."
The boy was then dismissed, and went home to his father's home,
indifferent as to who might see him now, because he had come from the
priest's house. But the terror of that man in the mask still clung
to him; and mingled with that was the righteous fear, which still
struck cold to his heart, of the wicked injury which he was doing his
father. Boy though he was, he knew well what truth and loyalty, and
the bonds which should bind a family together, demanded from him. He
was miserable with a woe which he had not known how to explain to the
priest, as he thought of his terrible condition. At first Pat Carroll
and his friends had recommended themselves to him. He had, in truth,
only come on the scene of devastation down by the lough, by mere
accident. But he had before heard that Pat was an aggrieved man in
reference to his rent, and had taken it into his boyish heart to
sympathise with such sorrows. When Pat had got hold of him on the
spot, and had first exacted the promise of secrecy, Florian had given
it willingly. He had not expected to be questioned on the subject,
and had not attributed the importance to it which it had afterwards
assumed. He had since denied all knowledge of it, and was of course
burdened with a boy's fear of having to acknowledge the falsehood.
And now there had been added to it that awful scene in the cabin at
Headford, and on the top of that had come the priest's injunction.
"In such a case as this I cannot absolve you from your word." It was
so that the priest had addressed him, and there was something in it
that struck his young mind with awe. There was the man in the mask
tendering to him the oath upon the cross; and there had been Pat
Carroll assuring him of that man's wrath. Then there had come the
other stranger, speaking out angrily, and promising to him all evil,
were he to divulge a word.
Nevertheless, his conscience was so strong within him, that when he
reached the Castle he had almost made up his mind to tell his father
everything. But just as he was about to enter the Lodge gate, he was
touched on the arm by a female. "Master Florian," said the female,
"we is all in your hands." It was now dark night, and he could
not even see the woman's face. She seemed indeed to keep her face
covered, and yet he could see the gleam of her eyes. "You're one of
us now, Master Florian."
"I'm a Catholic, if you mean that."
"What else should I main? Would ye be unthrue to your own people?
Do ye know what would happen you if ye commit such a sin as that? I
tould them up there that you'd never bring down hell fire upon yer
head, by such a deed as that. It isn't what ye can do to him he'll
mind, I said, but the anger o' the Blessed Virgin. Worn't it thrue
for me what I said, Master Florian?" She held him in the dark, and he
could see the glimmer of her eyes, and hear the whisper of her voice,
and she frightened him with the fear of the world to come. As he
made his way up to the hall door, it was not the dread of the man in
the mask, so much as the fear inspired by this woman which made him
resolve that, come what come might, he must stick to the lie which he
had told.
After breakfast the next morning, his father summoned him into
his room. "Now," said Flory to himself, as he followed his father
trembling,--"now must I be true." By this he meant that he must be
true to his co-conspirators. If he were false to them, he would have
to incur the anger of the Blessed Virgin. How this should be made
to fall upon him, he did not in the least understand; but he did
understand that the Virgin as he had thought her, should be kind, and
mild, and gracious. He had never stopped to think whether the curse
as uttered by the woman, might or might not be true. Of loyalty to
his father he had thought much; but now he believed that it behoved
him to think more of loyalty to the Virgin, as defined by the woman
in the dark.
He followed his father into the magistrates' room, leaving his
brother and two sisters in the parlour. He was glad that none of
them were invited to accompany him, for he felt that his father was
more prone to believe him, than were either his sisters or even his
brother. "Florian," said his father, "you know, do you not, the
trouble to which I have been put about this man, Pat Carroll?"
"Yes, father; I know you have."
"And the terrible loss which I have incurred! Eighty acres are under
water. I suppose the miscreant will have cost me between L400 and
L500."
"As much as that?" said Florian, frightened by the magnitude of the
sum named.
"Indeed he will. It is hard to calculate the extent of the malignity
of a wicked man. Whether the barony will share the loss with me I
cannot yet say; but in either case the wickedness will be the same.
There is no word bad enough for it. It is altogether damnable;
and this is done by a man who calls me in question because of my
religion." Here the father paused, but Florian stood by without an
answer. If Pat Carroll was right in his religion, his father must be
wrong; and Florian thought that Pat Carroll was right. But he did
not see how the two things were joined together,--the opening of the
sluices, and the truth of Pat Carroll's religious convictions. "But
bad as the matter is as regards Pat Carroll, it is all as nothing in
reference to the accusation made against you." Here the father came
up, and laying his two hands on the boy's shoulders looked sadly into
his face. "I cannot believe that my own boy, my darling boy, has
joined in this evil deed against me!" Here the father ceased and
waited for his son to speak.
The son remembered the determination to which he had come, and
resolved to adhere to it. "I didn't," he said after a pause.
"I cannot believe it of you; and yet, your sisters who are as true as
steel, who are so good that I bless God morning and night that He in
His mercy has left me such treasures,--they believe it."
"They are against me because of my religion."
"No, Florian, not so; they disapprove of your change in religion, but
they are not brought to accuse you by such a feeling. They say that
they see it in your face."
"How can they see all that in my face?"
"That though you are lying persistently, you cannot hide from them
that you are lying. They are not only good girls, but they have very
sharp wits. A cleverer girl than Edith, or one better able to read
the truth of a boy's head, or even a man's, I have never known. I
hardly dare to put my own judgment against hers."
"In this case she knows nothing about it."
"But to me it is of such vital importance! It is not simply that your
evidence is needed to punish the man; I would let the man go and all
the evil that he has done me. But not for any money that I could name
would I entertain such an opinion of my son. Were I convinced at this
moment that you are innocent, I should be a happy man."
"Then you may, father."
"But your manner is against you. You do not answer me with that
appearance of frankness which I should have expected."
"Of course it all makes me very miserable. How can a fellow be frank
when he's suspected like this?"
"Florian, do you give me your most solemn assurance that you saw
nothing of this evil work while it was being perpetrated?"
"Yes, father."
"You saw nothing, and you knew nothing?"
"No, father."
"You have no reason to accuse Pat Carroll, except by what you have
heard?"
"No, father."
"Nor anyone else?"
"No, father." Then Mr. Jones stood silent, looking at his son.
And the more he looked the more he doubted him. When the boy had
uttered "No, father," for the last time, Mr. Jones felt almost
convinced--almost convinced that Edith was right. "You may go now,
Florian," he said. And the boy departed, fully convinced that his
father had disbelieved him.