XIII

It would be a full moon on the fifteenth of July, and every night he

went out on the hillside to watch the horned moon swelling to a disc.

And on the fifteenth, the day he had settled for his departure, as he

sat thinking how he would go down to the lake in a few hours, a letter

started to his mind which, as well as he could remember, was written in

a foolish, vainglorious mood--a stupid letter that must have made him

appear a fool in her eyes. Had he not said something about--The

thought eluded him; he could only remember the general tone of his

letter, and in it he seemed to consider Nora as a sort of medicine--a

cure for religion.

He should have written her a simple little letter, telling her that he

was leaving Ireland because he had suffered a great deal, and would

write to her from New York, whereas he had written her the letter of a

booby. And feeling he must do something to rectify his mistake, he went

to his writing-table, but he had hardly put the pen to the paper when he

heard a step on the gravel outside his door.

'Father Moran, your reverence.'

'I see that I'm interrupting you. You're writing.'

'No, I assure you.'

'But you've got a pen in your hand.'

'It can wait--a matter of no importance. Sit down.'

'Now, you'll tell me if I'm in the way?'

'My good man, why are you talking like that? Why should you be in the

way?'

'Well, if you're sure you've nothing to do, may I stay to supper?'

'To supper?'

'But I see that I'm in the way.'

'No; I tell you you're not in the way. And you're going to stay to

supper.'

Father Oliver flung himself between Father Moran and the door; Father

Moran allowed himself to be led back to the armchair. Father Oliver took

the chair opposite him, for he couldn't send Moran away; he mustn't do

anything that would give rise to suspicion.

'You're quite sure I'm not in the way--I'm not interfering with any

plans?'

'Quite sure. I'm glad you have come this evening.'

'Are you? Well, I had to come.'

'You had to come!'

'Yes, I had to come; I had to come to see if anything had happened. You

needn't look at me like that; I haven't been drinking, and I haven't

gone out of my mind. I can only tell you that I had to come to see you

this evening.'

'And you don't know why?'

'No, I don't; I can't tell you exactly why I've come. As I was reading

my breviary, walking up and down the road in front of the house, I felt

that I must see you. I never felt anything like it in my life before. I

had to come.'

'And you didn't expect to find me?'

'Well, I didn't. How did you guess that?'

'You'd have hardly come all that way to find me sitting here in this

armchair.'

'That's right. It wasn't sitting in that chair I expected to see you; I

didn't expect to see you at all--at least, I don't think I did. You see,

it was all very queer, for it was as if somebody had got me by the

shoulders. It was as if I were being pushed every yard of the road.

Something was running in my mind that I shouldn't see you again, or if I

did see you that it would be for the last time. You seemed to me as if

you were going away on a long journey.'

'Was it dying or dead you saw me?'

'That I can't say. If I said any more I shouldn't be telling the truth.

No, it wasn't the same feeling when I came to tell you I couldn't put up

with the loneliness any more--the night I came here roaring for drink. I

was thinking of myself then, and that you might save me or do something

for me--give me drink or cure me. I don't know which thought it was that

was running in my head, but I had to come to you all the same, just as I

had to come to you to-day. I say it was different, because then I was on

my own business; but this time it seemed to me that I was on yours. One

good turn deserves another, as they say; and something was beating in my

head that I could help you, serve as a stay; so I had to come. Where

should I be now if it were not for you? I can see you're thinking that

it was only nonsense that was running in my head, but you won't be

saying it was nonsense that brought me the night I came like a madman

roaring for drink. If there was a miracle that night, why shouldn't

there be a miracle to-night? And if a miracle ever happened in the

world, it happened that night, I'm thinking. Do you remember the dark

gray clouds tearing across the sky, and we walking side by side, I

trying to get away from you? I was that mad that I might have thrown you

into the bog-hole if the craving had not passed from me. And it was just

lifted from me as one might take the cap off one's head. You remember

the prayer we said, leaning over the bit of wall looking across the bog?

There was no lonesomeness that night coming home, Gogarty, though a

curlew might have felt a bit.'

'A curlew!'

'Well, there were curlews and plovers about, and a starving ass picking

grass between the road and the bog-hole. That night will be ever in my

mind. Where would I be now if it hadn't been that you kept on with me

and brought me back, cured? It wouldn't be a cassock that would be on my

back, but some old rag of a coat. There's nothing in this world,

Gogarty, more unlucky than a suspended priest. I think I can see myself

in the streets, hanging about some public-house, holding horses attached

to a cab-rank.'

'Lord of Heaven, Moran! what are you coming here to talk to me in this

way for? The night you're speaking of was bad enough, but your memory of

it is worse. Nothing of what you're saying would have happened; a man

like you would be always able to pick up a living.'

'And where would I be picking up a living if it weren't on a cab-rank,

or you either?'

'Well, 'tis melancholy enough you are this evening.'

'And all for nothing, for there you are, sitting in your old chair. I

see I've made a fool of myself.'

'That doesn't matter. You see, if one didn't do what one felt like

doing, one would have remorse of conscience for ever after.'

'I suppose so. It was very kind of you, Moran, to come all this way.'

'What is it but a step? Three miles--'

'And a half.'

Moved by a febrile impatience, which he could not control, Father Oliver

got up from his chair.

'Now, Moran, isn't it strange? I wonder how it was that you should have

come to tell me that you were going off to drink somewhere. You said you

were going to lie up in a public-house and drink for days, and yet you

didn't think of giving up the priesthood.'

'What are you saying, Gogarty? Don't you know well enough I'd have been

suspended? Didn't I tell you that drink had taken that power over me

that, if roaring hell were open, and I sitting on the brink of it and a

table beside me with whisky on it, I should fill myself a glass?'

'And knowing you were going down to hell?'

'Yes, that night nothing would have stopped me. But, talking of hell, I

heard a good story yesterday. Pat Carabine was telling his flock last

Sunday of the tortures of the damned, and having said all he could about

devils and pitchforks and caldrons, he came to a sudden pause--a blank

look came into his face, and, looking round the church and seeing the

sunlight streaming through the door, his thoughts went off at a tangent.

"Now, boys," he said, "if this fine weather continues, I hope you'll be

all out in the bog next Tuesday bringing home my turf."'

Father Oliver laughed, but his laughter did not satisfy Father Moran,

and he told how on another occasion Father Pat had finished his sermon

on hell by telling his parishioners that the devil was the landlord of

hell. 'And I leave yourself to imagine the groaning that was heard in

the church that morning, for weren't they all small tenants? But I'm

afraid my visit has upset you, Gogarty.'

'How is that?'

'You don't seem to enjoy a laugh like you used to.'

'Well, I was thinking at that moment that I've heard you say that, even

though you gave way to drink, you never had any doubts about the reality

of the hell that awaited you for your sins.'

'That's the way it is, Gogarty, one believes, but one doesn't act up to

one's belief. Human nature is inconsistent. Nothing is queerer than

human nature, and will you be surprised if I tell you that I believe I

was a better priest when I was drinking than I am now that I'm sober? I

was saying that human nature is very queer; and it used to seem queer to

myself. I looked upon drink as a sort of blackmail I paid to the devil

so that he might let me be a good priest in everything else. That's the

way it was with me, and there was more sense in the idea than you'd be

thinking, for when the drunken fit was over I used to pray as I have

never prayed since. If there was not a bit of wickedness in the world,

there would be no goodness. And as for faith, drink never does any harm

to one's faith whatsoever; there's only one thing that takes a man's

faith from him, and that is woman. You remember the expulsions at

Maynooth, and you know what they were for. Well, that sin is a bad one,

but I don't think it affects a man's faith any more than drink does. It

is woman that kills the faith in men.'

'I think you're right: woman is the danger. The Church dreads her. Woman

is life.'

'I don't quite understand you.'

Catherine came into the room to lay the cloth, and Father Oliver asked

Father Moran to come out into the garden. It was now nearing its prime.

In a few days more the carnations would be all in bloom, and Father

Oliver pondered that very soon it would begin to look neglected. 'In a

year or two it will have drifted back to the original wilderness, to

briar and weed,' he said to himself; and he dwelt on his love of this

tiny plot of ground, with a wide path running down the centre, flower

borders on each side, and a narrow path round the garden beside the

hedge. The potato ridges, and the runners, and the cabbages came in the

middle. Gooseberry-bushes and currant-bushes grew thickly, there were

little apple-trees here and there, and in one corner the two large

apple-trees under which he sat and smoked his pipe in the evenings.

'You're very snug here, smoking your pipe under your apple-trees.'

'Yes, in a way; but I think I was happier where you are.'

'The past is always pleasant to look upon.'

'You think so?'

The priests walked to the end of the garden, and, leaning on the wicket,

Father Moran said:

'We've had queer weather lately--dull heavy weather. See how low the

swallows are flying. When I came up the drive, the gravel space in front

of the house was covered with them, the old birds feeding the young

ones.'

'And you were noticing these things, and believing that Providence had

sent you here to bid me good-bye.'

'Isn't it when the nerves are on a stretch that we notice little things

that don't concern us at all?'

'Yes, Moran; you are right. I've never known you as wise as you are this

evening.'

Catherine appeared in the kitchen door. She had come to tell them their

supper was ready. During the meal the conversation turned on the roofing

of the abbey and the price of timber, and when the tablecloth had been

removed the conversation swayed between the price of building materials

and the Archbishop's fear lest he should meet a violent death, as it had

been prophesied if he allowed a roof to be put upon Kilronan.

'You know I don't altogether blame him, and I don't think anyone does at

the bottom of his heart, for what has been foretold generally comes to

pass sooner or later.'

'The Archbishop is a good Catholic who believes in everything the Church

teaches--in the Divinity of our Lord, the Immaculate Conception, and the

Pope's indulgences. And why should he be disbelieving in that which has

been prophesied for generations about the Abbot of Kilronan?'

'Don't you believe in these things?'

'Does anyone know exactly what he believes? Does the Archbishop really

believe every day of the year and every hour of every day that the Abbot

of Kilronan will be slain on the highroad when a De Stanton is again

Abbot?' Father Oliver was thinking of the slip of the tongue he had been

guilty of before supper, when he said that the Church looks upon woman

as the real danger, because she is the life of the world. He shouldn't

have made that remark, for it might be remembered against him, and he

fell to thinking of something to say that would explain it away.

'Well, Moran, we've had a pleasant evening; we've talked a good deal,

and you've said many pleasant things and many wise ones. We've never had

a talk that I enjoyed more, and I shall not forget it easily.'

'How is that?'

'Didn't you say that it isn't drink that destroys a man's faith, but

woman? And you said rightly, for woman is life.'

'I was just about to ask you what you meant, when Catherine came in and

interrupted us.'

'Love of woman means estrangement from the Church, because you have to

protect her and her children.'

'Yes, that is so; that's how it works out. Now you won't be thinking me

a fool for having come to see you this evening, Gogarty? One never knows

when one's impulses are true and when they're false. If I hadn't come

the night when the drink craving was upon me, I shouldn't have been here

now.'

'You did quite right to come, Moran; we've talked of a great many

things.'

'I've never talked so plainly to anyone before; I wonder what made me

talk as I've been talking. We never talked like this before, did we,

Gogarty? And I wouldn't have talked to another as I've talked to you. I

shall never forget what I owe to you.'

'You said you were going to leave the parish.'

'I don't think I thought of anything except to burn myself up with

drink. I wanted to forget, and I saw myself walking ahead day after day,

drinking at every public-house.'

'And just because I saved you, you thought you would come to save me?'

'There was something of that in it. Gad! it's very queer; there's no

saying where things will begin and end. Pass me the tobacco, will you?'

Father Moran began to fill his pipe, and when he had finished filling

it, he said:

'Now I must be going, and don't be trying to keep me; I've stopped long

enough. If I were sent for a purpose--'

'But you don't believe seriously, Moran, that you were sent for a

purpose?' Moran didn't answer, and his silence irritated Father Oliver,

and, determined to probe his curate's conscience, he said: 'Aren't you

satisfied now that it was only an idea of your own? You thought to find

me gone, and here I am sitting before you.' After waiting for some time

for Moran to speak, he said: 'You haven't answered me.'

'What should I be answering?'

'Do you still think you were sent for a purpose?'

'Well, I do.'

'You do?'

The priests stood looking at each other for a while.

'Can't you give a reason?'

'No; I can give no reason. It's a feeling. I know I haven't reason on my

side. There you are before me.'

'It's very queer.'

He would have liked to have called back Moran. It seemed a pity to let

him go without having probed this matter to the bottom. He hadn't asked

him if he had any idea in his mind about the future, as to what was

going to happen; but it was too late now. 'Why did he come here

disturbing me with his beliefs,' he cried out, 'poisoning my will?' for

he had already begun to fear that Moran's visit might come between him

and his project. The wind sighed a little louder, and Father Oliver

said: 'I wouldn't be minding his coming here to warn me, though he did

say that it wasn't of his own will that he came, but something from the

outside that kept pushing him along the road--I wouldn't be minding all

that if this wind hadn't risen. But the omen may be a double one.' At

that moment the wind shook the trees about the house, and he fell to

thinking that if he had started to swim the lake that night he would be

now somewhere between Castle Island and the Joycetown shore, in the

deepest and windiest part of the lake. 'And pretty well tired I'd be at

the time. If I'd started to-night a corpse would be floating about by

now.' The wind grew louder. Father Oliver imagined the waves slapping in

his face, and then he imagined them slapping about the face of a corpse

drifting towards the Joycetown shore.