'A lot of good that would do us. Haven't we all heard the Archbishop say
that any of his priests who appeals to Rome against him will get the
worst of it?'
'I wonder that he dares to defy popular opinion in this way.'
'What popular opinion is there to defy? Wasn't Patsy Donovan saying to
me only yesterday that the Archbishop was a brave man to be letting any
roof at all on the abbey? And Patsy is the best-educated man in this
part of the country.'
'People will believe anything.'
'Yes, indeed.'
And the priests stopped at the grave of Seaghan na Soggarth, or 'John of
the Priests,' and Father Oliver told Father Moran how a young priest,
who had lost his way in the mountains, had fallen in with Seaghan na
Soggarth. Seaghan offered to put him into the right road, but instead of
doing so he led him to his house, and closed the door on him, and left
him there tied hand and foot. Seaghan's sister, who still clung to
religion, loosed the priest, and he fled, passing Seaghan, who was on
his way to fetch the soldiers. Seaghan followed after, and on they went
like hare and hound till they got to the abbey. There the priest, who
could run no further, turned on his foe, and they fought until the
priest got hold of Seaghan's knife and killed him with it.
'But you know the story. Why am I telling it to you?'
'I only know that the priest killed Seaghan. Is there any more of it?'
'Yes, there is more.'
And Father Oliver went on to tell it, though he did not feel that Father
Moran would be interested in the legend; he would not believe that it
had been prophesied that an ash-tree should grow out of the buried head,
and that one of the branches should take root and pierce Seaghan's
heart. And he was right in suspecting his curate's lack of sympathy.
Father Moran at once objected that the ash-tree had not yet sent down a
branch to pierce the priest-killer's heart.
'Not yet; but this branch nearly touches the ground, and there's no
saying that it won't take root in a few years.'
'But his heart is there no longer.'
'Well, no,' said Father Oliver, 'it isn't; but if one is to argue that
way, no one would listen to a story at all.'
Father Moran held his peace for a little while, and then he began
talking about the penal times, telling how religion in Ireland was
another form of love of country, and that, if Catholics were intolerant
to every form of heresy, it was because they instinctively felt that the
questioning of any dogma would mean some slight subsidence from the idea
of nationality that held the people together. Like the ancient Jews, the
Irish believed that the faith of their forefathers could bring them into
their ultimate inheritance; this was why a proselytizer was hated so
intensely.
'More opinions,' Father Oliver said to himself. 'I wonder he can't
admire that ash-tree, and be interested in the story, which is quaint
and interesting, without trying to draw an historical parallel between
the Irish and the Jews. Anyhow, thinking is better than drinking,' and
he jumped on his car. The last thing he heard was Moran's voice saying,
'He who betrays his religion betrays his country.'
'Confound the fellow, bothering me with his preaching on this fine
summer's day! Much better if he did what he was told, and made up his
mind to put the small green slates on the abbey, and not those coarse
blue things which will make the abbey look like a common barn.'
Then, shading his eyes with his hand, he peered through the sun haze,
following the shapes of the fields. The corn was six inches high, and
the potatoes were coming into blossom. True, there had been a scarcity
of water, but they had had a good summer, thanks be to God, and he
thought he had never seen the country looking so beautiful. And he loved
this country, this poor Western plain with shapely mountains enclosing
the horizon. Ponies were feeding between the whins, and they raised
their shaggy heads to watch the car passing. In the distance cattle were
grazing, whisking the flies away. How beautiful was everything--the
white clouds hanging in the blue sky, and the trees! There were some
trees, but not many--only a few pines. He caught glimpses of the lake
through the stems; tears rose to his eyes, and he attributed his
happiness to his native land and to the thought that he was living in
it. Only a few days ago he wished to leave it--no, not for ever, but for
a time; and as his old car jogged through the ruts he wondered how it
was that he had ever wished to leave Ireland, even for a single minute.
'Now, Christy, which do you reckon to be the shorter road?'
'The shorter road, your reverence, is the Joycetown road, but I doubt if
we can get the car through it.'
'How is that?'
And the boy answered that since the Big House had been burnt the road
hadn't been kept in repair.
'But,' said Father Oliver, 'the Big House was burnt seventy years ago.'
'Well, your reverence, you see, it was a good road then, but the last
time I heard of a car going that way was last February.'
'And if a car got through in February, why can't we get through on the
first of June?'
'Well, your reverence, there was the storm, and I do be hearing that the
trees that fell across the road then haven't been removed yet.'
'I think we might try the road, for all that, for though if we have to
walk the greater part of it, there will be a saving in the end.'
'That's true, your reverence, if we can get the car through; but if we
can't we may have to come all the way back again.'
'Well, Christy, we'll have to risk that. Now, will you be turning the
horse up the road? And I'll stop at the Big House--I've never been
inside it. I'd like to see what it is like.'
Joycetown House was the last link between the present time and the past.
In the beginning of the century a duellist lived there; the terror of
the countryside he, for he was never known to miss his man. For the
slightest offence, real or imaginary, he sent seconds demanding redress.
No more than his ancestors, who had doubtless lived on the islands, in
Castle Island and Castle Hag, could he live without fighting. But when
he completed his round dozen, a priest said, 'If we don't put a stop to
his fighting, there won't be a gentleman left in the country,' and wrote
to him to that effect.
The story runs how Joyce, knowing the feeling of the country was against
him, tried to keep the peace. But the blood fever came on him again, and
he called out his nearest neighbour, Browne of the Neale, the only
friend he had in the world. Browne lived at Neale House, just over the
border, in County Galway, so the gentlemen arranged to fight in a
certain field near the mearing. It was Browne of Neale who was the first
to arrive. Joyce, having to come a dozen miles, was a few minutes late.
As soon as his gig was seen, the people, who were in hiding, came out,
and they put themselves between him and Browne, telling him up to his
face there was to be no fighting that day! And the priest, who was at
the head of them, said the same; but Joyce, who knew his countrymen,
paid no heed, but stood up in the gig, and, looking round him, said,
'Now, boys, which is it to be? The Mayo cock or the Galway cock?' No
sooner did he speak these words than they began to cheer him, and in
spite of all the priest could say they carried him into the field in
which he shot Browne of the Neale.
'A queer people, the queerest in the world,' Father Oliver thought, as
he pulled a thorn-bush out of the doorway and stood looking round. There
were some rough chimney-pieces high up in the grass-grown walls, but
beyond these really nothing to be seen, and he wandered out seeking
traces of terraces along the hillside.
On meeting a countryman out with his dogs he tried to inquire about the
state of the road.
'I wouldn't be saying, your reverence, that you mightn't get the car
through by keeping close to the wall; but Christy mustn't let the horse
out of a walk.'
The countryman said he would go a piece of the road with them, and tell
Christy the spots he'd have to look out for.
'But your work?'
'There's no work doing now to speak of, your reverence.'
The three of them together just managed to remove a fallen tree, which
seemed the most serious obstacle, and the countryman said once they were
over the top of the hill they would be all right; the road wasn't so bad
after that.
Half a mile further on Father Oliver found himself in sight of the main
road, and of the cottage that his sister Mary had lived in before she
joined Eliza in the convent.
To have persuaded Mary to take this step proved Eliza's superiority
more completely than anything else she had done, so Father Oliver often
said, adding that he didn't know what mightn't have happened to poor
Mary if she had remained in the world. For her life up to the time she
entered the convent was little else than a series of failures. She was a
shop-assistant, but standing behind the counter gave her varicose veins;
and she went to Dublin as nursery-governess. Father Oliver had heard of
musical studies: she used to play the guitar. But the instrument was not
popular in Dublin, so she gave it up, and returned to Tinnick with the
intention of starting a rabbit and poultry farm. Who put this idea into
her head was her secret, and when he received Eliza's letter telling him
of this last experiment, he remembered throwing up his hands. Of course,
it could only end in failure, in a loss of money; and when he read that
she was going to take the pretty cottage on the road to Tinnick, he had
become suddenly sad.
'Why should she have selected that cottage, the only pretty one in the
county? Wouldn't any other do just as well for her foolish experiment?'