Part 2 (2/2)

”Ah, yes.” The priest caught his pipe by the bowl and used the stem to emphasize his words. ”I felt that way, too. I like you, Mr. Griffin, and so I am going to ask you not to mind if I tell you something that I have never told anyone before. I was afraid of her. I hated her. I struggled, and almost cursed her. She was too logical. She was leading me where I did not want to go. But when I came she put her arms around me; and when I looked at her, she smiled. I came in spite of many things; and now, Mr. Griffin, I pay. I am alone, and I pay always. Yet I am glad to pay. I am glad to pay--even here--in Siha.s.set.”

Mark was moved in spite of himself. ”I wonder,” he said softly, ”if you are glad, Monsignore, to pay so much? Pardon me if I touch upon something raw; but I know that you were, even as a Catholic, higher than you are now. Doesn't that make it hard to pay?”

”To many it might appear that it would make things harder; but it doesn't. You have to be inside in order to understand it. The Church takes you, smiling. She gives to you generously, and then, with a smile, she breaks you; and, hating to be broken, you break, knowing that it is best for you. She pets you, and then she whips you; and the whips sting, but they leave no mark on the soul, except a good mark, _if you have learned_. But pardon me, here's a paris.h.i.+oner--” A woman, old and bent, was coming up the steps. ”Come on, Mrs. O'Leary.

How is the good man?”

The priest arose to meet the woman, whose sad face aroused in Mark a keen thrill of sympathy.

”He's gone, Father,” she said, ”gone this minute. I thank G.o.d he had you with him this morning, and went right. It came awful sudden.”

”G.o.d rest him. I'm sorry--”

”Don't be sorry, Father,” she answered, as he opened the door to let her go into the house ahead of him. ”Sure, G.o.d was good to me, and to John and to the childer. Sure, I had him for thirty year, and he died right. I'm happy to do G.o.d's will.”

She pa.s.sed into the house. The priest looked over to where Mark was standing hat in hand.

”Don't go, Mr. Griffin, unless you really have to. I'll be away only a few minutes.”

Mark sat down again and thought. The priest had said nothing about the lady of the tree, and Mark really wanted him to mention her; but Father Murray had given him something else that made him thoughtful and brought back memories. Mark did not have long to wait, for the door opened in five minutes and the priest came out alone.

”Mrs. O'Leary came to arrange for the funeral herself--brave, wasn't it?” he said. ”I left her with Ann, my housekeeper, a good soul whose specialty is one in which the Irish excel--sympathy. Ann keeps it in stock and, though she is eternally drawing on it, the stock never diminishes. Mrs. O'Leary's troubles are even now growing less.”

”Sympathy and loyalty,” said Mark, ”are chief virtues of the Irish I knew at home.”

”Ann has both,” said Father Murray, hunting for his pipe. ”But the latter to an embarra.s.sing degree. She would even run the parish if she could, to see that it was run to save me labor. Ann has been a priest's housekeeper for twenty-five years. She has condoled with hundreds; she loves the poor but has no patience with shams. We have a chronic sick man here who is her particular _bete noir_. And, as for organists, she would cheerfully drown them all. But Mrs. O'Leary is safe with Ann.”

”Poor woman!” said Mark.

”That reminds me,” said Father Murray. ”I had a convert priest here a little while ago. His Bishop had sent him for his initial 'breaking in' to one of the poorest parishes in a great city. I questioned a little the advisability of doing that; so, after six months, when I met the priest--who, by the way, had been a fas.h.i.+onable minister like myself--I asked him rather anxiously how he liked his people.

'Charming people,' he answered, 'charming. Charming women, too--Mrs.

O'Rourke, Mrs. Sweeney, Mrs. Thomasefski--' 'You speak of them,' I said, 'as if they were society ladies.' 'Better--better still,' he answered. 'They're the real thing--fewer faults, more faith, more devotion.' I tell you, Mr. Griffin, I never before met people such as these.”

”Mrs. O'Leary seems to have her pastor's philosophy,” ventured the visitor.

”Philosophy! That would seem a compliment indeed to Mrs. O'Leary. She wouldn't understand it, but she would recognize it as something fine.

It isn't philosophy, though,” he added, slowly; ”rather, it's something bigger. It's real religion.”

”She needs it!”

”So do we all need it. I never knew how much until I was so old that I had to weep for the barren years that might have bloomed.” The priest sighed as he hunted for his pipe.

The discussion ended for, to Mark's amazement, who should come up the walk, veiled indeed, yet unmistakable, but the lady of the tree? Both the priest and his visitor stood up. Mark reached for his hat and gloves.

”Pardon me,” said the lady, ”for disturbing you, Monsignore.”

Father Murray laughed and put up his hand. ”Now, then--please, please.”

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