Part 18 (2/2)

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 h.e.l.l by telling his paris.h.i.+oners that the devil was the landlord of h.e.l.l. '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 h.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.s 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.'

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