claret; it’s Château Lafitte of a comet vintage. At least, Redmond told
me so, and he ought to know.”
“It’s a very fine wine, Casey—a soft wine, sir, in superb condition,
and heated to perfection,” observed the major, tossing off a glassful
and quickly replacing the goblet.
“Goes down like mother’s milk,” added the colonel, following suit.
“Well, major, go on about Kit Megar,” urged Rooney.
“Coffee is in the dhrawin’-room, jintlemin,” yelled Fogarty, entering.
“Well, let it stay there, Luke.”
“Shall we join the ladies?” asked Casey, with a society air.
The colonel looked at the major, the major looked at the colonel, and
both looked at the claret jugs.
“Oh! hang it all, no,” responded the major; “this wine is too good—much
too good.”
“More power to yer elbow, Baymish! An old dog for a hard road,” laughed
Tim Rooney. “Eh, Luke, this is a knowing old codger.”
Mr. Fogarty, being thus appealed to, gave a willing assent: “Up to
every trick in the box.”
After the gallant warriors had sufficiently punished Casey’s cellar
they repaired to the drawing-room. As they ascended the stairs they
compared notes.
“Did you ever meet such a queer customer as this brother-in-law?”
“Never. He’s the most vulgar, insolent blackguard I ever encountered.”
“He has lots of money.”
“I wonder does he play loo?”
“We can ask him.”
“He’d play a lively game.”
“And could be plucked like a green gosling.”
To the intense relief of the Casey family, Mr. Rooney stoutly refused
to adjourn to the upper regions, but remained in the dining-room
smoking a short clay pipe and drinking whiskey-punch.
Miss Beamish, upon hearing that he was enormously wealthy and unmarried
to boot, began to build a castle in Spain, in which she figured as
châtelaine, while the uncultured proprietor was gradually toned down by
those feminine influences which smooth the angles of the most rugged
natures.
“I _do_ like this child of nature, Miss Casey,” she gushed; “it is
sweet to hear the wild bird in the full, untutored sweetness of its
note. Shall we see your uncle again to-night?”
“I hope not,” was Matilda’s reply.
“Oh! why? He reminds me so much of an _arrière pensée_, a bright oasis
in the desert of my life, that I feel as if I could—but why recall
recollections that are fraught with bitterness, why strike a chord
which produces but—discord?” letting her pointed chin drop upon the
bog-oak necklet, which responded by a dull rattle.
Matilda played for the major—who marked her as the successor of the
late Mrs. B——, wagging his be-wigged pate to the music and applauding
with maudlin vigor.
“Exquisite! Divine! When I was quartered at Dum Dum—” And he jogged
over the same road, to arrive as far as the consumar, when Mrs. Bowdler
intimated that it was time to leave.
“But ye won’t go without supper? Just a sandwich and a glass of wine,”
entreated Mrs. Casey.
Of course they wouldn’t go, and they didn’t go until they had partaken
largely of both.
“Never was more charmed in my life,” exclaimed the colonel, as he bade
good-night. “Right glad I refused Lord Howth.”
“I thought it was the commander-in-chief,” said Mrs. Casey artlessly.
“Ahem! of course, and so it was; but I have so many invites, you see,
that I forget.”
Gentlemen who draw upon their imagination for their facts must needs
possess accurate memories.
“You’ll all dine with us on Christmas day,” said Mrs. Casey.
“Oh! yes, _do_, please,” added Matilda.
“Do, colonel; do, major, like good fellows,” urged Casey.
“Well, really, my dear, I don’t know what to say,” exclaimed Mrs.
Bowdler, “but I fear we cannot get out of going to Lady Meath’s.”
“Oh! hang Lady Meath; _you_ may go to her, I’ll come here,” laughed the
colonel.
“It’s fixed,” said Casey; “and you, major?”
“I couldn’t say no to such a good offer. When I was quartered in Dum
Dum—”
“Is this old fogy at it still?” asked Tim Rooney, emerging from the
dining-room into the hall where they were now all assembled.
“We are coming to dine here on Christmas day, Mr. Rooney,” said Miss
Beamish, casting a languishing look at him.
“Are ye? Thin upon me conscience ye’ll git a tail end of beef that will
feed you for a fortnight—wan of me own cows. And all Mary here has to
do is see that the wisps of cabbage is plenty.”
With great hand-shaking, and a general buzz of pleased excitement, the
guests took their departure.
“What a success!” exclaimed Matilda, throwing herself on a sofa that
had been wheeled out of the dining-room into the hall in order to make
room, “except for”—nodding towards Tim, who was endeavoring to light a
bedroom candlestick with a singularly unsteady hand.
“They all took to him,” whispered Mrs. Casey.
“I never got such a turn as when he came in. O mamma! I thought I
should have died.”
“Well, aren’t the Bowdlers nice, agreeable people, Matilda?” demanded
Mr. Casey.
“Delightful, exquisite! Such elegant refinement. And the Beamishes are
equally well bred.”
“That major is a downy old bird.”
“He is a most perfect gentleman. How he did praise my playing!”
The Caseys did not see much of the Bowdlers during the next few days,
the colonel having over-eaten himself, and his wife being laid up with
an attack of bronchitis; but Major Beamish and his daughter were most
constant in their attentions, calling, staying to dinner, going to the
theatre—Casey paying for all, cabs included—coming home to supper, and
other attentions equally delicate and one-sided. The major was very
_prononcé_ in his manner toward Matilda, who, while she accepted his
homage, did not for a moment imagine it meant more than that excessive
and chivalrous politeness which distinguishes the _vieux militaire_ of
any nationality.
Miss Beamish lay in wait for Tim Rooney, and spun her web as deftly as
the uncouth movements of this desirable fly permitted. She adroitly
learned his hours for going out, and invariably intercepted him.
“I’m always meeting that wan,” he observed to his sister. “She’s for
ever in the street.”
“She’s a very elegant lady, Tim.”
“Elegant enough, but, as tough as shoe-leather.”
By degrees, however, the fair Circe interested him, and when the others
were engaged in listening with rapt attention to the major’s
oft-repeated story commencing, “When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” Tibie
Beamish, eyes plunged into those of the Tipperary farmer, would hang
upon his accents as he detailed his own “cuteness” in the purchase of a
drove of heifers at the great fair of Ballinasloe, or how he palmed off
a spavined pony upon a neighboring but less wide-awake grazier.
If a woman wants to win a man, let her listen to him, if he be fond of
narrating his personal experiences; and what man does not revel in
_ego_?”
“She _is_ a nice little girl, Mary, and is not above learning a trifle.
I’ll be bail she could go into Ballinasloe fair next October and finger
a baste as well as that villyan Phil Dempsey, from the knowledge I give
her.”
The spell was working.
* * * * *
Christmas day came, bright, crisp, and joyous. Snow had fallen for the
previous few days, and was now hard and shining in the streets,
rendering walking somewhat hazardous and sliding almost unavoidable.
Colonel and Mrs. Bowdler arrived very early at Merrion Street—in fact,
just in time for luncheon—and by a strange coincidence Major Beamish
and his daughter dropped in almost at the same moment. A walk was
proposed, but abandoned, and the party, broken up into two camps, sat
chatting around the fires in the back and front drawing-rooms.
Everybody is hungry on Christmas day. Everybody thinks of the boiled
turkey, Limerick ham, roast beef, plum-pudding, and mince-pies. Why,
then, should the guests of Mickey Casey prove an exception to the rule?
Fogarty announced the dinner in a voice that savored of a joyous
anticipation. He had had a private and confidential snack with the
cook, but merely enough to make him wish for more.
“That’s me tail end of beef,” exclaimed Tim Rooney, as the huge mound
of golden fatted meat was uncovered, behind which the host sat in a
state of total eclipse—“that’s me tail end, and a lovelier baste never
nipped grass, nor the—”
“Will you carve this turkey, Tim?” interrupted his sister.
“To be sure I will, Mary; but ye must let me do it me own way,”
divesting himself of his coat and proceeding to work with a will.
“O Tim!”
“O uncle!”
“Let him alone,” exclaimed Mrs. Bowdler, whose teeth were watering for
a slice of the breast. “Such a gigantic bird requires to be carved
_sans cérémonie_.”
“When I was quartered at Dum Dum—” began the major.
“See here, now, me ould codger, we’ve had enough of that singsong.”
The major smiled grimly and tossed off a glass of Amontillado.
“You _are_ a character, Rooney,” he said.
Tim acquitted himself admirably, cutting the bird and innumerable jokes
at the same time, many of them of a personal nature, such as allusions
to the gallant major’s wig, which he called a “jasey,” the scragginess
of Mrs. Bowdler, and the rosy tip at the extremity of the colonel’s
nasal appendage. However, as everybody was in good-humor, his _facetiæ_
passed off without exciting ill-feeling, and all went as merry as a
marriage-bell.
The dinner had disappeared, and the company sat tranquilly over the
dessert. Tim, having resigned his post of honor, returned to his chair
beside Miss Beamish, to whom he whispered a good deal, to the intense
amusement of his brother-in-law, who declared that Tim Rooney had been
hit at last.
“There’s many a true word said in jest, Mick,” retorted Tim. Miss
Beamish hung down her head and tried to blush, and, failing in this,
essayed a cough, which proved more successful.
“Oh! Tim is an old bachelor,” cried Mrs. Casey, “and a most determined
one.”
“It’s never too late to mend, Mary.”
“_You’ll_ never mend, Tim.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” ogling his fair neighbor, who again tried
a cough, which, however, terminated in a hoarse gurgle.
Tim Rooney was possessor of twenty thousand pounds, all in the Bank of
Ireland. His farm was valued at ten thousand, and his stock at five
thousand more. He was Matilda’s godfather, and, as a matter of course,
all these good things would revert to her in time. It was a standing
joke at Merrion Street that Tim should get married without delay.
“Not a bit of it,” he would retort. “I’ll keep looking at them during
the winter, and I’ll take another summer out of myself.”
His joking now on the subject of Miss Beamish was exquisite fun to the
family of Casey, who enjoyed it only as family jokes _can_ be enjoyed.
“You’ll ask me to the wedding, uncle?” said Matilda.
“Sure you’ll be a bridesmaid, Matty.”
“And you’ll have to give me a new dress, a real Parisian one; won’t he,
Miss Beamish?”
Miss Beamish bashfully tittered.
“When is it to be, Tim?” asked Mr. Casey.
“Next Thursday, then,” he grinned.
“That’s mighty quick.”
“Delays is dangerous.”
“Right, Tim,” cried Casey. “If I hadn’t asked your sister on the
Friday, Joe Mulligan, the tailor would have—”
“Papa, _do_ see that Colonel Bowdler takes his wine,” almost shrieked
Matilda.
O agony! he was about informing their patrician guests that his rival
had been a—tailor!
“Well, see here, Mickey, and see here, Mary, and see here, Matty,” said
Mr. Rooney, rising, “I’ll give ye all a toast.”
“Oh! toasts are vulgar; are they not, Colonel Bowdler?” interposed
Matilda.
“Well, ahem! except upon special occasions they are not in vogue,”
replied that gallant warrior.
“Well this _is_ a special occasion, and a _very_ special
occasion”—Hear! hear! from the host—“and wan that calls for particular
mention; an’ it’s health, long life, and happiness to Mrs. Tim Rooney
that is for to be. Ye must all drink it on yer legs.”
Anything to humor Tim, now that the Bowdlers and Beamishes tolerated
him. So with much laughing on the part of the gentlemen, and much
giggling on the part of the ladies, the toast was drunk with all honor.
“And now, Mick, Mary and Matty,” cried Tim, “I may as well let the cat
out of the bag. Me and Miss Tibie is to be married on Thursday.”
Had a bombshell fallen in their midst greater consternation could not
have shown itself upon the countenances of the Casey family.
“Yer not in airnest, Tim,” said Casey, endeavoring to smile a sickly
smile.
“Tim must have his joke,” observed Mrs. Casey, her face as white as a
sheet.
“Uncle is _so_ full of fun,” tittered Matilda, dire apprehension in
every lineament.
“It’s no jest; is it, Tibie?” asked Tim of his _fiancée_.
“No, Timothy, I am proud to say it is not,” responded Miss Beamish,
placing her hand in the arm of her lover.
* * * * *
“And to think I gave that Bowdler a hundred pounds for to lose us forty
thousand,” groaned Casey, as, seated with his weeping wife and
daughter, he grimly surveyed the wedding-cards of Mr. and Mrs. T.
Rooney. “This comes of yer infernal tomfoolery wantin’ to get into
society that wouldn’t touch ye with a forty-foot pole. Serve ye right.”
“Serve us right indeed!” echoed the two ladies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CATHOLIC “CIRCLES” FOR WORKING-MEN IN FRANCE.
Immediately after the German invasion and the Paris Commune there
existed already at Paris a Catholic “Circle” of working-men, distinct,
if not in appearance, yet in reality, from the associations of young
apprentices called by this name, or under the more appropriate one of
_Patronages_. It was, in fact, a working-men’s association—a little
Christian republic; self-governing, by means of a council chosen from
among its own number, the members of which council were considered as
irremovable. On its festivals the whole association assembled in the
chapel belonging to the circle; there its elected functionaries were
received into office at the foot of the altar, there they made frequent
communions, and thence, in accordance with the customs of the ancient
confraternities of craftsmen, they bore in procession the banners of
their patron saints. There were formed earnest men, accustomed to hear
the language of duty, and ready to make the sacrifices it demands, as
those of their number who died in the war had testified, as well as the
many more who did not cease to incur, with patience and steadfastness,
the persecutions of their scoffing companions in the ateliers.
This association was the work of a religious of the Institute of St.
Vincent de Paul—M. Maignen, Director of the Circle of Montparnasse. The
subscriptions of the circle, however, which had previously sufficed for
its support, were unequal to the burden incurred by its installation,
and the external subscriptions which had hitherto aided it had become
few in number and small in amount.
M. Maignen then resolved to assemble in council, on the evening of
Christmas day, a group of capitalists, among whom were three deputies,
three well-known writers, and three military officers, scarcely known
to each other except by name; but they were all good and earnest
Catholics, and had, moreover, suffered and fought for their country.
After uniting in prayer they resolved to seek, in the definitions of
the church in regard to her relations to civil society, the germ of the
sole social force capable of saving France from the consequences of her
errors; and this force, they decided, should be constituted in the form
of Catholic Circles for Working-men, similar to the one in which they
were met together.
They began, in the first place, by addressing to the Holy Father the
expression of their resolution, to which he granted his benediction. In
the next they sent, by thousands of copies, an energetic appeal to all
“men of good-will.” “The revolution,” they said, “has descended from
the brains of (so-called) philosophers into the minds of the people.
Are we to leave our misguided working-men to perdition—a perdition in
which they will also involve their country—or, by drawing a
supernatural strength from the heart of Jesus—himself a
working-man—shall we not oppose the associations of men who love
darkness rather than light by the Catholic Association, and meet the
lessons of materialism by those of the Gospel, and a cold
cosmopolitanism by the love of our country?”
Then the little group of men who signed the engagement further united
themselves by a religious bond—the daily recital of a prayer, and an
annual communion for the intentions of the work, the duties of which
the members distributed among themselves according to their respective
facilities.
Each section set to work under the direction of a chief: the first for
the general promulgation of the work, the second for its foundations,
the third for the creation of resources, and the fourth for the popular
diffusion of its teaching. The sections worked independently of each
other, but met in committee when there was any need for arranging or
deciding as to any general plan of action. For the purpose of directing
and controlling the action of the fourth section the committee also
appointed a council under the name of _Jésus-Ouvrier_. Thus the work
was constituted in its first _committee_—that is to say, the first
association of the directing class—on the principle of its first
“circle,” the Catholic declaration and the division of
responsibilities, and, lastly, as a sign and pledge of the union of the
active members of the work, the religious bond.
The association thus organized bore marvellous fruit, and in a few
months the committee found itself able to relieve the Cercle
Montparnasse by creating two similar ones in the quarters (of evil
notoriety) of Belleville and Montmartre, which were chosen with the
intention of a public expiation, and to furnish each of the circles
with a council of its quarter.
This was the golden age of the work, which was, as it were, crowned by
the high testimony it received at the Congress of Directors of the
Catholic Working-men’s Associations assembled at Poitiers under the
auspices of Mgr. Pie. It obtained also an exceptional _éclat_ from the
remarkable eloquence of one of its initiators at the Cercle
Montparnasse—the intrepid Count Albert de Mun—as well as from the fact
of there being several other military officers among them. The work
appeared to be marked with a providential character, having at its
outset the stamp of trial, followed by that of rapid expansion, and
possessing another in the saintly character of its first founder; for,
although God may be pleased to employ unworthy instruments to promote
his merciful designs, it will always be found that, in the first
instance, they have been deposited, as in a chalice, in a holy and
devoted soul.
The impetus was given. The large towns of France answered the appeal by
requesting the initiators to form, within them, committees like the
Directing Committee at Paris. The principles of the constitution never
varied; _i.e._, Catholic affirmation by the acceptance of the religious
bond, and the general bases of the work, division of labor among the
members of the local association, and periodic communication with the
secretariate general.
This in a short time was carried out at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles,
Lille, and many other places of importance, numerous smaller towns, and
even villages, asking for the same institution. And everywhere it bore
fruit, the formation of a committee being in every instance followed by
the opening of a circle.
At the same time the Council of _Jésus-Ouvrier_, and, following its
example, the committees of the large towns, opened public conferences
in popular quarters, where the people were addressed in frank and
energetic language, inspired by the intimate union of religious and
social faith, and the doctrines of liberalism boldly denounced, which
substitute for the precepts “Love one another” and “Bear ye one
another’s burdens” that of “To each according to his work”—a maxim good
enough in itself, but which the employer translates into “Each one for
himself,” and the employed into “My turn next for enjoyment.” These
declarations, repeated simultaneously in all parts of France, gave the
work a remarkable unity of spirit, which was amply manifested at the
first general assembly of its members, held in the spring of 1873.
Difficulties, however, arose in proportion to the progress made. Few
adherents were obtained from among the manufacturing chiefs, on whom
depends the whole economy of the working-classes; while the committees,
formed of men little accustomed to study the laws of labor, did not
well observe its divisions, and thus dwindled away. That of Paris, to
which had been allotted the most complete autonomy, and which was more
especially devoted to the general propagation of the work, gave way
beneath its accumulated burden.
“We then” (to quote the words of one of the members in his address to
the Congress at Rheims)—“We then turned our eyes with confidence to her
who is the help of Christians, our ever Blessed Lady, resolving to go
all together and invoke her aid in one of the sanctuaries of France
where she has most anciently manifested her power, and where formerly
the kingdom was dedicated to her by a solemn vow—Notre Dame de Liesse.
The funds of the Paris committee were already exhausted and the year
only half over. We collected ten thousand francs, and unhesitatingly
devoted them to defray the expenses of this distant pilgrimage.
“The committees of the north were invited to join it at the head of the
circles they had formed, and on the 17th of August, 1873, twenty-five
hundred pilgrims arrived from their respective towns to form one
procession to Notre Dame de Liesse. Half of the number, in spite of the
fatigues of the way, there received Holy Communion, and we returned
with renewed strength and confidence to our posts.”
We will not here give a detailed account of the toils and progress of
the year which succeeded the pilgrimage. A brief of the Holy Father
confirmed the constitution of the work by the grant of duly specified
indulgences attached to it; it also received the canonical protection
of a cardinal of the church.
These favors brought a timely encouragement to the promoters of the
work; for with its progress its trials also increased. Among the most
painful were those of seeing it misunderstood by many persons who might
have been expected to prove its warmest advocates. Some of these lost
sight of its social character, and preferred to seek the good of a few
individual souls instead of helping forward a Christian restoration of
society; while others, again, mistook the part to be taken in the
committees by the upper classes. “Of what use,” they asked, “is a
committee, unless to provide resources for an ecclesiastical director?”
This is a question which has been frequently asked. But it must be
borne in mind that if the circle establishes among its members social
_fraternity_, the director could not himself alone represent its
_paternity_. To do this would be to deter other Christians of the upper
classes from the unmistakable command they have received to exercise
this social paternity which they have from God in the very advantages
of their social condition.
For why are riches and honors bestowed upon the few—why the benefits of
education, of leisure, of cultivation of the mind—unless it be that
they are to be consecrated to the moral guidance and material
assistance of the classes who are deprived of such advantages? In
regard to this social paternity, as in regard to that which creates the
family, the priest must be the consecrator: but, in his turn, the
father who would abandon to the priest the charges and responsibilities
of the dignity which, by divine right, is his own, would only disappear
from among his fellow-men to be confounded before the Eternal Father—he
and the two complaisant accomplices of his culpable abdication.
After establishing social fraternity by the _circles_, and social
paternity by the committees, it remained to restore the social
_family_—that is, to associate Christian families in the benefits of
the work, after having associated in it the _heads_ of families of
various conditions.