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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11304 ***
+
+THE LAKE
+
+BY GEORGE MOORE
+
+
+1921
+
+LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
+
+
+
+
+ÉPÎTRE DÉDICATOIRE
+
+
+_17 Août, 1905._
+
+MON CHER DUJARDIN,
+
+Il se trouve que je suis à Paris en train de corriger mes épreuves au
+moment où vous donnez les dernières retouches au manuscrit de 'La Source
+du Fleuve Chrétien,' un beau titre--si beau que je n'ai pu m'empêcher de
+le 'chipper' pour le livre de Ralph Elles, un personnage de mon roman
+qui ne parait pas, mais dont on entend beaucoup parler. Pour vous
+dédommager de mon larcin, je me propose de vous dédier 'Le Lac.' Il y a
+bien des raisons pour que je désire voir votre nom sur la première page
+d'un livre de moi; la meilleure est, peut-être, parceque vous êtes mon
+ami depuis 'Les Confessions d'un Jeune Anglais' qui ont paru dans votre
+jolie _Revue Indépendante;_ et, depuis cette bienheureuse année, nous
+avons causé littérature et musique, combien de fois! Combien d'heures
+nous avons passés ensemble, causant, toujours causant, dans votre belle
+maison de Fontainebleau, si française avec sa terrasse en pierre et son
+jardin avec ses gazons maigres et ses allées sablonneuses qui serpentent
+parmi les grands arbres forestiers. C'est dans ce jardin à l'orée de la
+forêt et dans la forêt même, parmi la mélancolie de lat nature
+primitive, et à Valvins ou demeurait notre vieil ami Mallarmé, triste et
+charmant bonhomme, comme le pays du reste (n'est-ce-pas que cette
+tristesse croit depuis qu'il s'en est allé?) que vous m'avez entendu
+raconter 'Le Lac.'
+
+A Valvins, la Seine coule silencieusement tout le long des berges plates
+et graciles, avec des peupliers alignés; comme ils sont tristes au
+printemps, ces peupliers, surtout avant qu'ils ne deviennent verts,
+quand ils sont rougeâtres, posés contre un ciel gris, des ombres
+immobiles et ternes dans les eaux, dix fois tristes quand les
+hirondelles volent bas! Pour expliquer la tristesse de ce beau pays
+parsemé de châteaux vides, hanté par le souvenir des fêtes d'autrefois,
+il faudrait tout un orchestre. Je l'entends d'abord sur les violons;
+plus tard on ajouterait d'autres instruments, des cors sans doute; mais
+pour rendre la tristesse de mon pauvre pays là bas il ne faut drait pas
+tout cela. Je l'entends très bien sur une seule flute placée dans une
+île entourée des eaux d'un lac, le joueur assis sur les vagues ruines
+d'un réduit gallois ou bien Normand. Mais, cher ami, vous êtes Normand
+et peut-être bien que ce sent vos ancêtres qui out pillé mon pays; c'est
+une raison de plus pour que je vous offre ce roman. Acceptez-le sans le
+connaître davantage et n'essayez pas de le lire; ne vous donnez pas la
+peine d'apprendre l'anglais pour lire 'Le Lac'; que le lac ne soit
+jamais traversé par vous! Et parce que vous allez rester fatalement sur
+le bord de 'mon lac' j'ai un double plaisir à vous le dédier. Lorsqu'on
+dédie un livre, on prévoit l'heure où l'ami le prend, jette un coup
+d'oeil et dit: 'Pourquoi m'a-t-il dédié une niaiserie pareille?' Toutes
+les choses de l'esprit, sauf les plus grandes, deviennent niaiseries tôt
+ou tard. Votre ignorance de ma langue m'épargne cette heure fatale. Pour
+vous, mon livre sera toujours une belle et noble chose. Il ne peut
+jamais devenir pour vous banal comme une épouse. II sera pour vous une
+vierge, mieux qu'une vierge, il sera pour vous une demi-vierge. Chaque
+fois que vous l'ouvrirez, vous penserez à des années écoulées, au
+jardin où les rossignols chantent, a la forêt où rien ne se passe sauf
+la chute des feuilles, à nos promenades à Valvins pour voir le cher
+bonhomme; vous penserez à votre jeunesse et peut-être un peu à la
+mienne. Mais je veux que vous lisiez cette dédicace, et c'est pour cela
+que je l'ai écrite en français, dans un français qui vous est très
+familier, le mien. Si je l'écrivais en anglais et le faisais traduire
+dans le langage à la dernière mode de Paris, vous ne retrouveriez pas
+les accents barbares de votre vieil ami. Ils sont barbares, je le
+conçois, mais il y a des chiens qui sont laids et que l'on finit par
+aimer.
+
+Une poignée de mains,
+
+GEORGES MOORE.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The concern of this preface is with the mistake that was made when 'The
+Lake' was excluded from the volume entitled 'The Untilled Field,'
+reducing it to too slight dimensions, for bulk counts; and 'The Lake,'
+too, in being published in a separate volume lost a great deal in range
+and power, and criticism was baffled by the division of stories written
+at the same time and coming out of the same happy inspiration, one that
+could hardly fail to beget stories in the mind of anybody prone to
+narrative--the return of a man to his native land, to its people, to
+memories hidden for years, forgotten, but which rose suddenly out of the
+darkness, like water out of the earth when a spring is tapped.
+
+Some chance words passing between John Eglinton and me as we returned
+home one evening from Professor Dowden's were enough. He spoke, or I
+spoke, of a volume of Irish stories; Tourguéniev's name was mentioned,
+and next morning--if not the next morning, certainly not later than a
+few mornings after--I was writing 'Homesickness,' while the story of
+'The Exile' was taking shape in my mind. 'The Exile' was followed by a
+series of four stories, a sort of village odyssey. 'A Letter to Rome' is
+as good as these and as typical of my country. 'So on He Fares' is the
+one that, perhaps, out of the whole volume I like the best, always
+excepting 'The Lake,' which, alas, was not included, but which belongs
+so strictly to the aforesaid stories that my memory includes it in the
+volume.
+
+In expressing preferences I am transgressing an established rule of
+literary conduct, which ordains that an author must always speak of his
+own work with downcast eyes, excusing its existence on the ground of his
+own incapacity. All the same an author's preferences interest his
+readers, and having transgressed by telling that these Irish stories lie
+very near to my heart, I will proceed a little further into literary
+sin, confessing that my reason for liking 'The Lake' is related to the
+very great difficulty of the telling, for the one vital event in the
+priest's life befell him before the story opens, and to keep the story
+in the key in which it was conceived, it was necessary to recount the
+priest's life during the course of his walk by the shores of a lake,
+weaving his memories continually, without losing sight, however, of the
+long, winding, mere-like lake, wooded to its shores, with hills
+appearing and disappearing into mist and distance. The difficulty
+overcome is a joy to the artist, for in his conquest over the material
+he draws nigh to his idea, and in this book mine was the essential
+rather than the daily life of the priest, and as I read for this edition
+I seemed to hear it. The drama passes within the priest's soul; it is
+tied and untied by the flux and reflux of sentiments, inherent in and
+proper to his nature, and the weaving of a story out of the soul
+substance without ever seeking the aid of external circumstance seems to
+me a little triumph. It may be that I heard what none other will hear,
+not through his own fault but through mine, and it may be that all ears
+are not tuned, or are too indifferent or indolent to listen; it is
+easier to hear 'Esther Waters' and to watch her struggles for her
+child's life than to hear the mysterious warble, soft as lake water,
+that abides in the heart. But I think there will always be a few who
+will agree with me that there is as much life in 'The Lake,' as there is
+in 'Esther Waters'--a different kind of life, not so wide a life,
+perhaps, but what counts in art is not width but depth.
+
+Artists, it is said, are not good judges of their own works, and for
+that reason, and other reasons, maybe, it is considered to be unbecoming
+for a writer to praise himself. So to make atonement for the sins I have
+committed in this preface, I will confess to very little admiration for
+'Evelyn Innes' and 'Sister Teresa.' The writing of 'Evelyn Innes' and
+'Sister Teresa' was useful to me inasmuch that if I had not written them
+I could not have written 'The Lake' or 'The Brook Kerith.' It seems
+ungrateful, therefore, to refuse to allow two of my most successful
+books into the canon merely because they do not correspond with my
+æstheticism. But a writer's æstheticism is his all; he cannot surrender
+it, for his art is dependent upon it, and the single concession he can
+make is that if an overwhelming demand should arise for these books
+when he is among the gone--a storm before which the reed must bend--the
+publisher shall be permitted to print 'Evelyn Innes' and 'Sister Teresa'
+from the original editions, it being, however, clearly understood that
+they are offered to the public only as apocrypha. But this permission
+must not be understood to extend to certain books on which my name
+appears--viz., 'Mike Fletcher,' 'Vain Fortune,' Parnell and His Island';
+to some plays, 'Martin Luther,' 'The Strike at Arlingford,' 'The Bending
+of the Boughs'; to a couple of volumes of verse entitled 'Pagan Poems'
+and 'Flowers of Passion'--all these books, if they are ever reprinted
+again, should be issued as the work of a disciple--Amico Moorini I put
+forward as a suggestion.
+
+G.M.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was one of those enticing days at the beginning of May when white
+clouds are drawn about the earth like curtains. The lake lay like a
+mirror that somebody had breathed upon, the brown islands showing
+through the mist faintly, with gray shadows falling into the water,
+blurred at the edges. The ducks were talking in the reeds, the reeds
+themselves were talking, and the water lapping softly about the smooth
+limestone shingle. But there was an impulse in the gentle day, and,
+turning from the sandy spit, Father Oliver walked to and fro along the
+disused cart-track about the edge of the wood, asking himself if he were
+going home, knowing very well that he could not bring himself to
+interview his parishioners that morning.
+
+On a sudden resolve to escape from anyone that might be seeking him, he
+went into the wood and lay down on the warm grass, and admired the
+thickly-tasselled branches of the tall larches swinging above him. At a
+little distance among the juniper-bushes, between the lake and the wood,
+a bird uttered a cry like two stones clinked sharply together, and
+getting up he followed the bird, trying to catch sight of it, but always
+failing to do so; it seemed to range in a circle about certain trees,
+and he hadn't gone very far when he heard it behind him. A stonechat he
+was sure it must be, and he wandered on till he came to a great silver
+fir, and thought that he spied a pigeon's nest among the multitudinous
+branches. The nest, if it were one, was about sixty feet from the
+ground, perhaps more than that; and, remembering that the great fir had
+grown out of a single seed, it seemed to him not at all wonderful that
+people had once worshipped trees, so mysterious is their life, so remote
+from ours. And he stood a long time looking up, hardly able to resist
+the temptation to climb the tree--not to rob the nest like a boy, but to
+admire the two gray eggs which he would find lying on some bare twigs.
+
+At the edge of the wood there were some chestnuts and sycamores. He
+noticed that the large-patterned leaf of the sycamores, hanging out from
+a longer stem, was darker than the chestnut leaf. There were some elms
+close by, and their half-opened leaves, dainty and frail, reminded him
+of clouds of butterflies. He could think of nothing else. White,
+cotton-like clouds unfolded above the blossoming trees; patches of blue
+appeared and disappeared; and he wandered on again, beguiled this time
+by many errant scents and wilful little breezes.
+
+Very soon he came upon some fields, and as he walked through the ferns
+the young rabbits ran from under his feet, and he thought of the
+delicious meals that the fox would snap up. He had to pick his way, for
+thorn-bushes and hazels were springing up everywhere. Derrinrush, the
+great headland stretching nearly a mile into the lake, said to be one of
+the original forests, was extending inland. He remembered it as a deep,
+religious wood, with its own particular smell of reeds and rushes. It
+went further back than the island castles, further back than the Druids;
+and was among Father Oliver's earliest recollections. Himself and his
+brother James used to go there when they were boys to cut hazel stems,
+to make fishing-rods; and one had only to turn over the dead leaves to
+discover the chips scattered circlewise in the open spaces where the
+coopers sat in the days gone by making hoops for barrels. But iron hoops
+were now used instead of hazel, and the coopers worked there no more. In
+the old days he and his brother James used to follow the wood-ranger,
+asking him questions about the wild creatures of the wood--badgers,
+marten cats, and otters. And one day they took home a nest of young
+hawks. He did not neglect to feed them, but they had eaten each other,
+nevertheless. He forgot what became of the last one.
+
+A thick yellow smell hung on the still air. 'A fox,' he said, and he
+trailed the animal through the hazel-bushes till he came to a rough
+shore, covered with juniper-bushes and tussocked grass, the extreme
+point of the headland, whence he could see the mountains--the pale
+southern mountains mingling with the white sky, and the western
+mountains, much nearer, showing in bold relief. The beautiful motion and
+variety of the hills delighted him, and there was as much various colour
+as there were many dips and curves, for the hills were not far enough
+away to dwindle to one blue tint; they were blue, but the pink heather
+showed through the blue, and the clouds continued to fold and unfold, so
+that neither the colour nor the lines were ever the same. The retreating
+and advancing of the great masses and the delicate illumination of the
+crests could be watched without weariness. It was like listening to
+music. Slieve Cairn showing straight as a bull's back against the white
+sky, a cloud filling the gap between Slieve Cairn and Slieve Louan, a
+quaint little hill like a hunchback going down a road. Slieve Louan was
+followed by a great boulder-like hill turned sideways, the top indented
+like a crater, and the priest likened the long, low profile of the next
+hill to a reptile raising itself on its forepaws.
+
+He stood at gaze, bewitched by the play of light and shadow among the
+slopes; and when he turned towards the lake again, he was surprised to
+see a yacht by Castle Island. A random breeze just sprung up had borne
+her so far, and now she lay becalmed, carrying, without doubt, a
+pleasure-party, inspired by some vague interest in ruins, and a very
+real interest in lunch; or the yacht's destination might be Kilronan
+Abbey, and the priest wondered if there were water enough in the strait
+to let her through in this season of the year. The sails flapped in the
+puffing breeze, and he began to calculate her tonnage, certain that if
+he had such a boat he would not be sailing her on a lake, but on the
+bright sea, out of sight of land, in the middle of a great circle of
+water. As if stung by a sudden sense of the sea, of its perfume and its
+freedom, he imagined the filling of the sails and the rattle of the
+ropes, and how a fair wind would carry him as far as the cove of Cork
+before morning. The run from Cork to Liverpool would be slower, but the
+wind might veer a little, and in four-and-twenty hours the Welsh
+mountains would begin to show above the horizon. But he would not land
+anywhere on the Welsh coast. There was nothing to see in Wales but
+castles, and he was weary of castles, and longed to see the cathedrals
+of York and Salisbury; for he had often seen them in pictures, and had
+more than once thought of a walking tour through England. Better still
+if the yacht were to land him somewhere on the French coast. England
+was, after all, only an island like Ireland--- a little larger, but
+still an island--and he thought he would like a continent to roam in.
+The French cathedrals were more beautiful than the English, and it would
+be pleasant to wander in the French country in happy-go-lucky fashion,
+resting when he was tired, walking when it pleased him, taking an
+interest in whatever might strike his fancy.
+
+It seemed to him that his desire was to be freed for a while from
+everything he had ever seen, and from everything he had ever heard. He
+merely wanted to wander, admiring everything there was to admire as he
+went. He didn't want to learn anything, only to admire. He was weary of
+argument, religious and political. It wasn't that he was indifferent to
+his country's welfare, but every mind requires rest, and he wished
+himself away in a foreign country, distracted every moment by new
+things, learning the language out of a volume of songs, and hearing
+music, any music, French or German--any music but Irish music. He
+sighed, and wondered why he sighed. Was it because he feared that if he
+once went away he might never come back?
+
+This lake was beautiful, but he was tired of its low gray shores; he was
+tired of those mountains, melancholy as Irish melodies, and as
+beautiful. He felt suddenly that he didn't want to see a lake or a
+mountain for two months at least, and that his longing for a change was
+legitimate and most natural. It pleased him to remember that everyone
+likes to get out of his native country for a while, and he had only been
+out of sight of this lake in the years he spent in Maynooth. On leaving
+he had pleaded that he might be sent to live among the mountains by
+Kilronan Abbey, at the north end of the lake, but when Father Conway
+died he was moved round to the western shore; and every day since he
+walked by the lake, for there was nowhere else to walk, unless up and
+down the lawn under the sycamores, imitating Father Peter, whose wont it
+was to walk there, reading his breviary, stopping from time to time to
+speak to a parishioner in the road below; he too used to read his
+breviary under the sycamores; but for one reason or another he walked
+there no longer, and every afternoon now found him standing at the end
+of this sandy spit, looking across the lake towards Tinnick, where he
+was born, and where his sisters lived.
+
+He couldn't see the walls of the convent to-day, there was too much mist
+about; and he liked to see them; for whenever he saw them he began to
+think of his sister Eliza, and he liked to think of her--she was his
+favourite sister. They were nearly the same age, and had played
+together; and his eyes dwelt in memory on the dark corner under the
+stairs where they used to play. He could even see their toys through the
+years, and the tall clock which used to tell them that it was time to
+put them aside. Eliza was only eighteen months older than he; they were
+the red-haired ones, and though they were as different in mind as it was
+possible to be, he seemed nearer Eliza than anyone else. In what this
+affinity consisted he couldn't say, but he had always felt himself of
+the same flesh and blood. Neither his father nor mother had inspired
+this sense of affinity; and his sister Mary and his brothers seemed to
+him merely people whom he had known always--not more than that; whereas
+Eliza was quite different, and perhaps it was this very mutuality, which
+he could not define, that had decided their vocations.
+
+No doubt there is a moment in every man's life when something happens to
+turn him into the road which he is destined to follow; for all that it
+would be superficial to think that the fate of one's life is dependent
+upon accident. The accident that turns one into the road is only the
+means which Providence takes to procure the working out of certain ends.
+Accidents are many: life is as full of accidents as a fire is full of
+sparks, and any spark is enough to set fire to the train. The train
+escapes a thousand, but at last a spark lights it, and this spark always
+seems to us the only one that could have done it. We cannot imagine how
+the same result could have been obtained otherwise. But other ways would
+have been found; for Nature is full of resource, and if Eliza had not
+been by to fire the idea hidden in him, something else would. She was
+the means, but only the means, for no man escapes his vocation, and the
+priesthood was his. A vocation always finds a way out. But was he sure
+if it hadn't been for Eliza that he wouldn't have married Annie McGrath?
+He didn't think he would have married Annie, but he might have married
+another. All the same, Annie was a good, comfortable girl, a girl that
+everybody was sure would make a good wife for any man, and at that time
+many people were thinking that he should marry Annie. On looking back he
+couldn't honestly say that a stray thought of Annie hadn't found its way
+into his mind; but not into his heart--there is a difference.
+
+At that time he was what is known as a growing lad; he was seventeen.
+His father was then dead two years, and his mother looked to him, he
+being the eldest, to take charge of the shop, for at that time it was
+almost settled that James was to go to America. They had two or three
+nice grass farms just beyond the town: Patsy was going to have them; and
+his sisters' fortunes were in the bank, and very good fortunes they
+were. They had a hundred pounds apiece and should have married well.
+Eliza could have married whomever she pleased. Mary could have married,
+too, and to this day he couldn't tell why she hadn't married.
+
+The chances his sister Mary had missed rose up in his mind--why, he did
+not know; and a little bored by these memories, he suddenly became
+absorbed in the little bleat of a blackcap perched on a bush, the only
+one amid a bed of flags and rushes; 'an alder-bush,' he said. 'His mate
+is sitting on her eggs, and there are some wood-gatherers about; that's
+what's worrying the little fellow.' The bird continued to utter its
+troubled bleat, and the priest walked on, thinking how different was its
+evensong. He meditated an excursion to hear it, and then, without his
+being aware of any transition, his thoughts returned to his sister Mary,
+and to the time when he had once indulged in hopes that the mills along
+the river-side might be rebuilt and Tinnick restored to its former
+commercial prosperity. He was not certain if he had ever really believed
+that he might set these mills going, or if he had, he encouraged an
+illusion, knowing it to be one. He was only certain of this, that when
+he was a boy and saw no life ahead of him except that of a Tinnick
+shopman, he used to feel that if he remained at home he must have the
+excitement of adventure. The beautiful river, with its lime-trees,
+appealed to his imagination; the rebuilding of the mills and the
+reorganization of trade, if he succeeded in reorganizing trade, would
+mean spending his mornings on the wharves by the river-side, and in
+those days his one desire was to escape from the shop. He looked upon
+the shop as a prison. In those days he liked dreaming, and it was
+pleasant to dream of giving back to Tinnick its trade of former days;
+but when his mother asked him what steps he intended to take to get the
+necessary capital, he lost his temper with her. He must have known that
+he could never make enough money in the shop to set the mills working!
+He must have known that he would never take his father's place at the
+desk by the dusty window! But if he shrank from an avowal it was because
+he had no other proposal to make. His mother understood him, though the
+others didn't, and seeing his inability to say what kind of work he
+would put his hand to, she had spoken of Annie McGrath. She didn't say
+he should marry Annie--she was a clever woman in her way--she merely
+said that Annie's relations in America could afford to supply sufficient
+capital to start one of the mills. But he never wanted to marry Annie,
+and couldn't do else but snap when the subject was mentioned, and many's
+the time he told his mother that if the mills were to pay it would be
+necessary to start business on a large scale. He was an impracticable
+lad and even now he couldn't help smiling when he thought of the
+abruptness with which he would go down to the river-side to seek a new
+argument wherewith to confute his mother, to return happy when he had
+found one, and sit watching for an opportunity to raise the question
+again.
+
+No, it wasn't because Annie's relations weren't rich enough that he
+hadn't wanted to marry her. And to account for his prejudice against
+marriage, he must suppose that some notion of the priesthood was
+stirring in him at the time, for one day, as he sat looking at Annie
+across the tea-table, he couldn't help thinking that it would be hard to
+live alongside of her year in and year out. Although a good and a
+pleasant girl, Annie was a bit tiresome to listen to, and she wasn't one
+of those who improve with age. As he sat looking at her, he seemed to
+understand, as he had never understood before, that if he married her
+all that had happened in the years back would happen again--more
+children scrambling about the counter, with a shopman (himself) by the
+dusty window putting his pen behind his ear, just as his father did when
+he came forward to serve some country woman with half a pound of tea or
+a hank of onions.
+
+And as these thoughts were passing through his mind, he remembered
+hearing his mother say that Annie's sister was thinking of starting
+dressmaking in the High Street. 'It would be nice if Eliza were to join
+her,' his mother added casually. Eliza laid aside the skirt she was
+turning, raised her eyes and stared at mother, as if she were surprised
+mother could say anything so stupid. 'I'm going to be a nun,' she said,
+and, just as if she didn't wish to answer any questions, went on sewing.
+Well might they be surprised, for not one of them suspected Eliza of
+religious inclinations. She wasn't more pious than another, and when
+they asked her if she were joking, she looked at them as if she thought
+the question very stupid, and they didn't ask her any more.
+
+She wasn't more than fifteen at the time, yet she spoke out of her own
+mind. At the time they thought she had been thinking on the
+matter--considering her future. A child of fifteen doesn't consider, but
+a child of fifteen may _know_, and after he had seen the look which
+greeted his mother's remarks, and heard Eliza's simple answer, 'I've
+decided to be a nun,' he never doubted that what she said was true. From
+that day she became for him a different being; and when she told him,
+feeling, perhaps, that he sympathized with her more than the others did,
+that one day she would be Reverend Mother of the Tinnick Convent, he
+felt convinced that she knew what she was saying--how she knew he could
+not say.
+
+His childhood had been a slumber, with occasional awakenings or half
+awakenings, and Eliza's announcement that she intended to enter the
+religious life was the first real awakening; and this awakening first
+took the form of an acute interest in Eliza's character, and, persuaded
+that she or her prototype had already existed, he searched the lives of
+the saints for an account of her, finding many partial portraits of her;
+certain typical traits in the lives of three or four saints reminded him
+of Eliza, but there was no complete portrait. The strangest part of the
+business was that he traced his vocation to his search for Eliza in the
+lives of the saints. Everything that happened afterwards was the
+emotional sequence of taking down the books from the shelf. He didn't
+exaggerate; it was possible his life might have taken a different turn,
+for up to that time he had only read books of adventure--stories about
+robbers and pirates. As if by magic, his interest in such stories passed
+clean out of his mind, or was exchanged for an extraordinary enthusiasm
+for saints, who by renouncement of animal life had contrived to steal up
+to the last bounds, whence they could see into the eternal life that
+lies beyond the grave. Once this power was admitted, what interest could
+we find in the feeble ambitions of temporal life, whose scope is limited
+to three score and ten years? And who could doubt that saints attained
+the eternal life, which is God, while still living in the temporal
+flesh? For did not the miracles of the saints prove that they were no
+longer subject to natural laws? Ancient Ireland, perhaps, more than any
+other country, understood the supremacy of spirit over matter, and
+strove to escape through mortifications from the prison of the flesh.
+Without doubt great numbers in Ireland had fled from the torment of
+actual life into the wilderness. If the shore and the islands on this
+lake were dotted with fortress castles, it was the Welsh and the Normans
+who built them, and the priest remembered how his mind took fire when he
+first heard of the hermit who lived in Church Island, and how
+disappointed he was when he heard that Church Island was ten miles away,
+at the other end of the lake.
+
+For he could not row himself so far; distance and danger compelled him
+to consider the islands facing Tinnick--two large islands covered with
+brushwood, ugly brown patches--ugly as their names, Horse Island and Hog
+Island, whereas Castle Island had always seemed to him a suitable island
+for a hermitage, far more so than Castle Hag. Castle Hag was too small
+and bleak to engage the attention of a sixth-century hermit. But there
+were trees on Castle Island, and out of the ruins of the castle a
+comfortable sheiling could be built, and the ground thus freed from the
+ruins of the Welshman's castle might be cultivated. He remembered
+commandeering the fisherman's boat, and rowing himself out, taking a
+tape to measure, and how, after much application of the tape, he had
+satisfied himself that there was enough arable land in the island for a
+garden; he had walked down the island certain that a quarter of an acre
+could grow enough vegetables to support a hermit, and that a goat would
+be able to pick a living among the bushes and the tussocked grass: even
+a hermit might have a goat, and he didn't think he could live without
+milk. He must have been a long time measuring out his garden, for when
+he returned to his boat the appearance of the lake frightened him; it
+was full of blustering waves, and it wasn't likely he'd ever forget his
+struggle to get the boat back to Tinnick. He left it where he had found
+it, at the mouth of the river by the fisherman's hut, and returned home
+thinking how he would have to import a little hay occasionally for the
+goat. Nor would this be all; he would have to go on shore every Sunday
+to hear Mass, unless he built a chapel. The hermit of Church Island had
+an oratory in which he said Mass! But if he left his island every Sunday
+his hermitage would be a mockery. For the moment he couldn't see how he
+was to build a chapel--a sheiling, perhaps; a chapel was out of the
+question, he feared.
+
+He would have to have vestments and a chalice, and, immersed in the
+difficulty of obtaining these, he walked home, taking the path along the
+river from habit, not because he wished to consider afresh the problems
+of the ruined mills. The dream of restoring Tinnick to its commerce of
+former days was forgotten, and he walked on, thinking of his chalice,
+until he heard somebody call him. It was Eliza, and as they leaned over
+the parapet of the bridge, he could not keep himself from telling her
+that he had rowed out to Castle Island, never thinking that she would
+reprove him, and sternly, for taking the fisherman's boat without asking
+leave. It was no use to argue with Eliza that the fisherman didn't want
+his boat, the day being too rough for fishing. What did she know about
+fishing? She had asked very sharply what brought him out to Castle
+Island on such a day. There was no use saying he didn't know; he never
+was able to keep a secret from Eliza, and feeling that he must confide
+in somebody, he told her he was tired of living at home, and was
+thinking of building a sheiling on the island.
+
+Eliza didn't understand, and she understood still less when he spoke of
+a beehive hut, such as the ancient hermits of Ireland lived in. She was
+entirely without imagination; but what surprised him still more than her
+lack of sympathy with his dream-project was her inability to understand
+an idea so inherent in Christianity as the hermitage, for at that time
+Eliza's mind was made up to enter the religious life. He waited a long
+time for her answer, but the only answer she made was that in the early
+centuries a man was either a bandit or a hermit. This wasn't true: life
+was peaceful in Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries; even if it
+weren't, she ought to have understood that change of circumstance cannot
+alter an idea so inherent in man as the hermitage, and when he asked her
+if she intended to found a new Order, or to go out to Patagonia to teach
+the Indians, she laughed, saying she was much more interested in a
+laundry than in the Indians. Her plea that the Tinnick Convent was
+always in straits for money did not appeal to him then any more than it
+did to-day.
+
+'The officers in Tinnick have to send their washing to Dublin. A fine
+reason for entering a convent,' he answered.
+
+But quite unmoved by the sarcasm, she replied that a woman can do
+nothing unless she be a member of a congregation. He shrank from Eliza's
+mind as from the touch of something coarse, and his suggestion that the
+object of the religious life is meditation did not embarrass her in the
+very least, and he remembered well how she had said:
+
+'Putting aside for the moment the important question whether there may
+or may not be hermits in the twentieth century, tell me, Oliver, are you
+thinking of marrying Annie McGrath? You know she has rich relations in
+America, and you might get them to supply the capital to set the mills
+going. The mills would be a great advantage. Annie has a good headpiece,
+and would be able to take the shop off your hands, leaving you free to
+look after the mills.'
+
+'The mills, Eliza! there are other things in the world beside those
+mills!'
+
+'A hermitage on Castle Island?'
+
+Eliza could be very impertinent when she liked. If she had no concern in
+what was being said, she looked round, displaying an irritating
+curiosity in every passer-by, and true to herself she had drawn his
+attention to the ducks on the river while he was telling her of the
+great change that had come over him. He had felt like boxing her ears.
+But the moment he began to speak of taking Orders she forgot all about
+the ducks; her eyes were fixed upon him, she listened to his every word,
+and when he finished speaking, she reminded him there had always been a
+priest in the family. All her wits were awake. He was the one of the
+family who had shown most aptitude for learning, and their cousin the
+Bishop would be able to help him. What she would like would be to see
+him parish priest of Tinnick. The parish was one of the best in the
+diocese. Not a doubt of it, she was thinking at that moment of the
+advantage this arrangement would be to her when she was directing the
+affairs of the convent.
+
+If there was no other, there was at least one woman in Ireland who was
+interested in things. He had never met anybody less interested in
+opinions or in ideas than Eliza. They had walked home together in
+silence, at all events not saying much, and that very evening she left
+the room immediately after supper. And soon after they heard sounds of
+trunks being dragged along the passage; furniture was being moved, and
+when she came downstairs she just said she was going to sleep with Mary.
+
+'Oliver is going to have my room. He must have a room to himself on
+account of his studies.'
+
+On that she gathered up her sewing, and left him to explain. He felt
+that it was rather sly of her to go away like that, leaving all the
+explanation to him. She wanted him to be a priest, and was full of
+little tricks. There was no time for thinking it over. There was only
+just time to prepare for the examination. He worked hard, for his work
+interested him, especially the Latin language; but what interested him
+far more than his aptitude for learning whatever he made up his mind to
+learn was the discovery of a religious vocation in himself. Eliza feared
+that his interest in hermits sprang from a boyish taste for adventure
+rather than from religious feeling, but no sooner had he begun his
+studies for the priesthood, than he found himself overtaken and
+overpowered by an extraordinary religious fervour and by a desire for
+prayer and discipline. Never had a boy left home more zealous, more
+desirous to excel in piety and to strive for the honour and glory of the
+Church.
+
+An expression of anger, almost of hatred, passed over Father Oliver's
+face, and he turned from the lake and walked a few yards rapidly, hoping
+to escape from memories of his folly; for he had made a great fool of
+himself, no doubt. But, after all, he preferred his enthusiasms, however
+exaggerated they might seem to him now, to the commonplace--he could not
+call it wisdom--of those whom he had taken into his confidence. It was
+foolish of him, no doubt, to have told how he used to go out in a boat
+and measure the ground about Castle Island, thinking to build himself a
+beehive hut out of the ruins. He knew too little of the world at that
+time; he had no idea how incapable the students were of understanding
+anything outside the narrow interests of an ecclesiastical career.
+Anyhow, he had had the satisfaction of having beaten them in all the
+examinations; and if he had cared to go in for advancement, he could
+have easily got ahead of them all, for he had better brains and better
+interest than any of them. When he last saw that ignorant brute Peter
+Fahy, Fahy asked him if he still put pebbles in his shoes. It was to
+Fahy he had confided the cause of his lameness, and Fahy had told on
+him; he was ridiculously innocent in those days, and he could still see
+them gathered about him, pretending not to believe that he kept a
+cat-o'-nine-tails in his room, and scourged himself at night. It was Tom
+Bryan who said that he wouldn't mind betting a couple of shillings that
+Gogarty's whip wouldn't draw a squeal from a pig on the roadside. The
+answer to that was: 'A touch will make a pig squeal: you should have
+said an ass!' But at the moment he couldn't think of an answer.
+
+No doubt everyone looked on him as a ninny, and they persuaded him to
+prove to them that his whip was a real whip by letting Tom Bryan do the
+whipping for him. Tom Bryan was a rough fellow, who ought to have been
+driving a plough; a ploughman's life was too peaceful an occupation for
+him--a drover's life would have suited him best, prodding his cattle
+along the road with a goad; it was said that was how he maintained his
+authority in the parish. The remembrance of the day he bared his back to
+that fellow was still a bitter one. With a gentle smile he had handed
+the whip to Tom Bryan, the very smile which he imagined the hermits of
+old time used to wear. The first blow had so stunned him that he
+couldn't cry out, and this blow was followed by a second which sent the
+blood flaming through his veins, and then by another which brought all
+the blood into one point in his body. He seemed to lose consciousness of
+everything but three inches of back. Nine blows he bore without wincing;
+the tenth overcame his fortitude, and he had reeled away from Tom Bryan.
+
+Tom had exchanged the whip he had given him for a great leather belt;
+that was why he had been hurt so grievously--hurt till the pain seemed
+to reach his very heart. Tom had belted him with all his strength; and
+half a dozen of Tom's pals were waiting outside the door, and they came
+into the room, their wide mouths agrin, asking him how he liked it. But
+they were unready for the pain his face expressed, and in the midst of
+his agony he noticed that already they foresaw consequences, and he
+heard them reprove Tom Bryan, their intention being to dissociate
+themselves from him. Cowards! cowards! cowards!
+
+They tried to help him on with his shirt, but he had been too badly
+beaten, and Tom Bryan came up in the evening to ask him not to tell on
+him. He promised, and he wouldn't have told if he could have helped it.
+But some explanation had to be forthcoming--he couldn't lie on his
+back. The doctor was sent for....
+
+And next day he was told the President wished to see him. The President
+was Eliza over again; hermits and hermitages were all very well in the
+early centuries, but religion had advanced, and nowadays a steadfast
+piety was more suited to modern requirements than pebbles in the shoes.
+If it had been possible to leave for America that day he thought he
+would have gone. But he couldn't leave Maynooth because he had been fool
+enough to bare his back to Tom Bryan. He couldn't return home to tell
+such a story as that. All Tinnick would be laughing at him, and Eliza,
+what would she think of him? He wasn't such a fool as the Maynooth
+students thought him, and he realized at once that he must stay in
+Maynooth and live down remembrance of his folly. So, as the saying goes,
+he took the bit between his teeth.
+
+The necessity of living down his first folly, of creating a new idea of
+himself in the minds of the students, forced him to apply all his
+intelligence to his studies, and he made extraordinary progress in the
+first years. The recollection of the ease with which he outdistanced his
+fellow-students was as pleasant as the breezes about the lake, and his
+thoughts dwelt on the opinion which he knew was entertained, that for
+many years no one at Maynooth had shown such aptitude for scholarship.
+He only had to look at a book to know more about it than his
+fellow-students would know if they were to spend days over it. He won
+honours. He could have won greater honours, but his conscience reminded
+him that the gifts he received from God were not bestowed upon him for
+the mere purpose of humiliating his fellow-students. He often felt then
+that if certain talents had been given to him, they were given to him to
+use for the greater glory of God rather than for his own glorification;
+and his feeling was that there was nothing more hateful in God's sight
+than intellectual, unless perhaps spiritual, pride, and his object
+during his last years at Maynooth was to exhibit himself to the least
+advantage.
+
+It is strange how an idea enters the soul and remakes it, and when he
+left Maynooth he used his influence with his cousin, the Bishop, to get
+himself appointed to the poorest parish in Connaught. Eliza had to
+dissemble, but he knew that in her heart she was furious with him. We
+are all extraordinarily different one from another, and if we seem most
+different from those whom we are most like, it is because we know
+nothing at all about strangers. He had gone to Kilronan in spite of
+Eliza, in spite of everyone, their cousin the Bishop included. He had
+been very happy in Bridget Clery's cottage, so happy that he didn't know
+himself why he ever consented to leave Kilronan.
+
+No, it was not because he was too happy there. He had to a certain
+extent outgrown his very delicate conscience.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A breeze rose, the forest murmured, a bird sang, and the sails of the
+yacht filled. The priest stood watching her pass behind a rocky
+headland, knowing now that her destination was Kilronan Abbey. But was
+there water enough in the strait at this season of the year? Hardly
+enough to float a boat of her size. If she stuck, the picnic-party would
+get into the small boat, and, thus lightened, the yacht might be floated
+into the other arm of the lake. 'A pleasant day indeed for a sail,' and
+in imagination he followed the yacht down the lake, past its different
+castles, Castle Carra and Castle Burke and Church Island, the island on
+which Marban--Marban, the famous hermit poet, had lived.
+
+It seemed to him strange that he had never thought of visiting the
+ruined church when he lived close by at the northern end of the lake.
+His time used to be entirely taken up with attending to the wants of his
+poor people, and the first year he spent in Garranard he had thought
+only of the possibility of inducing the Government to build a bridge
+across the strait. That bridge was badly wanted. All the western side of
+the lake was cut off from railway communication. Tinnick was the
+terminus, but to get to Tinnick one had to go round the lake, either
+by. the northern or the southern end, and it was always a question which
+was the longer road--round by Kilronan Abbey or by the Bridge of Keel.
+Many people said the southern road was shorter, but the difference
+wasn't more than a mile, if that, and Father Oliver preferred the
+northern road; for it took him by his curate's house, and he could
+always stop there and give his horse a feed and a rest; and he liked to
+revisit the abbey in which he had said Mass for so long, and in which
+Mass had always been said for a thousand years, even since Cromwell had
+unroofed it, the celebrant sheltered by an arch, the congregation
+kneeling under the open sky, whether it rained or snowed.
+
+The roofing of the abbey and the bridging of the strait were the two
+things that the parish was really interested in. He tried when he was in
+Kilronan to obtain the Archbishop's consent and collaboration; Moran was
+trying now: he did not know that he was succeeding any better; and
+Father Oliver reflected a while on the peculiar temperament of their
+diocesan, and jumping down from the rock on which he had been sitting,
+he wandered along the sunny shore, thinking of the many letters he had
+addressed to the Board of Works on the subject of the bridge. The Board
+believed, or pretended to believe, that the parish could not afford the
+bridge; as well might it be urged that a cripple could not afford
+crutches. Without doubt a public meeting should be held; and in some
+little indignation Father Oliver began to think that public opinion
+should be roused and organized.
+
+It was for him to do this: he was the people's natural leader; but for
+many months he had done nothing in the matter. Why, he didn't know
+himself. Perhaps he needed a holiday; perhaps he no longer believed the
+Government susceptible to public opinion; perhaps he had lost faith in
+the people themselves! The people were the same always; the people never
+change, only individuals change.
+
+And at the end of the sandy spit, where some pines had grown and seeded,
+he stood looking across the silvery lake wondering if his parishioners
+had begun to notice the change that had come over him since Nora Glynn
+left the parish, and as her name came into his mind he was startled out
+of his reverie by the sound of voices, and turning from the lake, he saw
+two wood-gatherers coming down a little path through the juniper-bushes.
+He often hid himself in the woods when he saw somebody coming, but he
+couldn't do so now without betraying his intention, and he stayed where
+he was. The women passed on, bent under their loads. Whether they saw
+him or not he couldn't tell; they passed near enough for him to
+recognize them, and he remembered that they were in church the day he
+alluded to Nora in his sermon. A hundred yards further on the women
+unburdened and sat down to rest a while, and Father Oliver began to
+consider what their conversation might be. His habit of wandering away
+by himself had no doubt been noticed, and once it was noticed it would
+become a topic of conversation. 'And what they do be saying now is,
+"That he has never been the same man since he preached against the
+schoolmistress, for what should he be doing by the lake if he wasn't
+afraid that she made away with herself?" And perhaps they are right,' he
+said, and walked up the shore, hoping that as soon as he was out of
+sight the women would forget to tell when they returned home that they
+had seen him walking by the lake.
+
+All the morning he had been trying to keep Nora Glynn out of his mind,
+but now, as he rambled, he could not put back the memory of the day he
+met her for the first time, nearly two years ago, for to-day was the
+fifteenth of May; it was about that time a little later in the year; it
+must have been in June, for the day was very hot, and he had been riding
+fast, not wishing to keep Catherine's dinner waiting, and as he pushed
+his bicycle through the gate, he saw the great cheery man, Father Peter,
+with a face like an apple, walking up and down under the sycamores
+reading his breviary. It must have been in June, for the mowers were in
+the field opposite, in the field known as the priest's field, though
+Father Peter had never rented it. There had never been such weather in
+Ireland before, and the day he rode his bicycle over to see Father Peter
+seemed to him the hottest day of all. But he had heard of the new
+schoolmistress's musical talents, and despite the heat of the day had
+ridden over, so anxious was he to hear if Father Peter were satisfied
+with her in all other respects. 'We shall be able to talk better in the
+shade of the sycamores,' Father Peter said, and on this they crossed the
+lawn, but not many steps were taken back and forth before Father Peter
+began to throw out hints that he didn't think Miss Glynn was altogether
+suited to the parish.
+
+'But if you're satisfied with her discipline,' Father Oliver jerked out,
+and it was all he could do to check himself from further snaps at the
+parish priest, a great burly man who could not tell a minor from a major
+chord, yet was venting the opinion that good singing distracted the
+attention of the congregation at their prayers. He would have liked to
+ask him if he was to understand that bad singing tended to a devotional
+mood, but wishing to remain on good terms with his superior, he said
+nothing and waited for Father Peter to state his case against the new
+schoolmistress, which he seemed to think could be done by speaking of
+the danger of young unmarried women in the parish. It was when they came
+to the break in the trees that Father Peter nudged him and said under
+his breath:
+
+'Here is the young woman herself coming across the fields.'
+
+He looked that way and saw a small, thin girl coming towards the stile.
+She hopped over it as if she enjoyed the little jump into the road.
+Father Peter called to her and engaged her in conversation; and he
+continued to talk to her of indifferent things, no doubt with the view
+to giving him an opportunity of observing her. But they saw her with
+different eyes: whereas Father Peter descried in her one that might
+become a mischief in the parish, he could discover no dangerous beauty
+in her, merely a crumpled little face that nobody would notice were it
+not for the eyes and forehead. The forehead was broad and well shapen
+and promised an intelligence that the eyes were quick to confirm; round,
+gray, intelligent eyes, smiling, welcoming eyes. Her accent caressed the
+ear, it was a very sweet one, only faintly Irish, and she talked easily
+and correctly, like one who enjoyed talking, laughing gaily, taking, he
+was afraid, undue pleasure in Father Peter's rough sallies, without
+heeding that he was trying to entrap her into some slight indiscretion
+of speech that he could make use of afterwards, for he must needs
+justify himself to himself if he decided to dismiss her.
+
+As he had been asked to notice her he remarked her shining brown hair.
+It frizzled like a furze-bush about her tiny face, and curled over her
+forehead. Her white even teeth showed prettily between her lips. She was
+not without points, but notwithstanding these it could not be said that
+she deserved the adjective pretty; and he was already convinced that it
+was not good looks that prejudiced her in Father Peter's eyes. Nor was
+the excuse that her singing attracted too much attention an honest one.
+What Father Peter did not like about the girl was her independent mind,
+which displayed itself in every gesture, in the way she hopped over the
+stile, and the manner with which she toyed with her parasol--a parasol
+that seemed a little out of keeping with her position, it is true. A
+very fine parasol it was; a blue silk parasol. Her independence betrayed
+itself in her voice: she talked to the parish priest with due respect,
+but her independent mind informed every sentence, even the smallest,
+and that was why she was going to be dismissed from her post. It was
+shameful that a grave injustice should be done to a girl who was
+admittedly competent in the fulfilment of all her duties, and he had not
+tried to conceal his opinion from Father Peter during dinner and after
+dinner, leaving him somewhat earlier than usual, for nothing affronted
+him more than injustice, especially ecclesiastical injustice.
+
+As he rode his bicycle down the lonely road to Bridget's cottage, the
+thought passed through his mind that if Nora Glynn were a stupid,
+intelligent woman no objection would have been raised against her. 'An
+independent mind is very objectionable to the ecclesiastic,' he said to
+himself as he leaped off his bicycle.... 'Nora Glynn. How well suited
+the name is to her. There is a smack in the name. Glynn, Nora Glynn,' he
+repeated, and it seemed to him that the name belonged exclusively to
+her.
+
+A few days after this first meeting he met her about two miles from
+Garranard; he was on his bicycle, she was on hers, and they both leaped
+instinctively from their machines. What impressed him this time far more
+than her looks was her happy, original mind. While walking beside her he
+caught himself thinking that he had never seen a really happy face
+before. But she was going to be sent away because she was happy and wore
+her soul in her face.
+
+They had seemed unable to get away from each other, so much had they to
+say. He mentioned his brother James, who was doing well in America and
+would perhaps one day send them the price of a harmonium. She told him
+she couldn't play on the wheezy old thing at Garranard, and at the
+moment he clean forgot that the new harmonium would avail her little,
+since Father Peter was going to get rid of her; he only remembered it as
+he got on his bicycle, and he returned home ready to espouse her cause
+against anybody.
+
+She must write to the Archbishop, and if he wouldn't do anything she
+must write to the papers. Influence must be brought to bear, and Father
+Peter must be prevented from perpetrating a gross injustice. He felt
+that it would be impossible for him to remain Father Peter's curate if
+the schoolmistress were sent away for no fault of hers, merely because
+she wore a happy face. What Father Peter would have done if he had lived
+no one would ever know. He might have dismissed her; even so the
+injustice would have been slight compared with what had happened to her;
+and the memory of the wrong that had been done to her put such a pain
+into his heart that he seemed to lose sight of everything, till a fish
+leaping in the languid lake awoke him, and he walked on, absorbed in the
+memory of his mistake, his thoughts swinging back to the day he had met
+her on the roadside, and to the events that succeeded their meeting.
+Father Peter was taken ill, two days after he was dead, before the end
+of the week he was in his coffin; and it was left to him to turn Nora
+Glynn out of the parish. No doubt other men had committed faults as
+grave as his; but they had the strength to leave the matter in the
+hands of God, to say: 'I can do nothing, I must put myself in the hands
+of God; let him judge. He is all wise.' He hadn't their force of
+character. He believed as firmly as they did, but, for some reason which
+he couldn't explain to himself, he was unable to leave the matter in
+God's hands, and was always thinking how he could get news of her.
+
+
+If it hadn't been for that woman, for that detestable Mrs. O'Mara, who
+was the cause of so much evil-speaking in the parish!... And with his
+heart full of hatred so black that it surprised him, he asked himself if
+he could forgive that woman. God might, he couldn't. And he fell to
+thinking how Mrs. O'Mara had long been a curse upon the parish. Father
+Peter was more than once compelled to speak about her from the altar,
+and to make plain that the stories she set going were untrue. Father
+Peter had warned him, but warnings are no good; he had listened to her
+convinced at the time that it was wrong and foolish to listen to
+scandalmongers, but unable to resist that beguiling tongue, for Mrs.
+O'Mara had a beguiling tongue--fool that he was, that he had been. There
+was no use going over the wretched story again; he was weary of going
+over it, and he tried to put it out of his mind. But it wouldn't be put
+out of his mind, and in spite of himself he began to recall the events
+of the fatal day. He had been out all the morning, walking about with an
+engineer who was sent down by the Board of Works to consider the
+possibility of building the bridge, and had just come in to rest.
+Catherine had brought him a cup of tea; he was sitting by the window,
+almost too tired to drink it. The door was flung open. If Catherine had
+only asked him if he were at home to visitors, he would have said he
+wasn't at home to Mrs. O'Mara, but he wasn't asked; the door was flung
+open, and he found himself face to face with the parish magpie. And
+before he could bless himself she began to talk to him about the bridge,
+saying that she knew all about the engineer, how he had gotten his
+appointment, and what his qualifications were. It is easy to say one
+shouldn't listen to such gossips, but it is hard to shut one's ears or
+to let what one hears with one ear out the other ear, for she might be
+bringing him information that might be of use to him. So he listened,
+and when the bridge, and the advantage of it, had been discussed, she
+told him she had been staying at the convent. She had tales to tell
+about all the nuns and about all the pupils. She told him that half the
+Catholic families in Ireland had promised to send their daughters to
+Tinnick if Eliza succeeded in finding somebody who could teach music and
+singing. But Eliza didn't think there was anyone in the country
+qualified for the post but Nora Glynn. If Mrs. O'Mara could be believed,
+Eliza said that she could offer Nora Glynn more money than she was
+earning in Garranard. Until then he had only half listened to Mrs.
+O'Mara's chatter, for he disliked the woman--her chatter amused him only
+as the chatter of a bird might; but when he heard that his sister was
+trying to get his schoolmistress away from him he had flared up. 'Oh,
+but I don't think that your schoolmistress would suit a convent school.
+I shouldn't like my daughter--' 'What do you mean?' Her face changed
+expression, and in her nasty mincing manner she began to throw out hints
+that Nora Glynn would not suit the nuns. He could see that she was
+concealing something--there was something at the back of her mind. Women
+of her sort want to be persuaded; their bits of scandal must be dragged
+from them by force; they are the unwilling victims who would say nothing
+if they could help it. She had said enough to oblige him to ask her to
+speak out, and she began to throw out hints about a man whom Nora used
+to meet on the hillside (she wouldn't give the man's name, she was too
+clever for that). She would only say that Nora had been seen on the
+hillside walking in lonely places with a man. Truly a detestable woman!
+His thoughts strayed from her for a moment, for it gave him pleasure to
+recollect that he had defended his schoolmistress. Didn't he say: 'Now,
+then, Mrs. O'Mara, if you have anything definite to say, say it, but I
+won't listen to vague charges.' 'Charges--who is making charges?' she
+asked, and he had unfortunately called her a liar. In the middle of the
+row she dropped a phrase: 'Anyhow, her appearance is against her.' And
+it was true that Nora Glynn's appearance had changed in the last few
+months. Seeing that her words had a certain effect, Mrs. O'Mara quieted
+down; and while he stood wondering if it could possibly be true that
+Nora had deceived them, that she had been living in sin all these
+months, he suddenly heard Mrs. O'Mara saying that he was lacking in
+experience--which was quite true, but her way of saying it had roused
+the devil in him. Who was she that she should come telling him that he
+lacked experience? To be sure, he wasn't an old midwife, and that's what
+Mrs. O'Mara looked like, sitting before him.
+
+He had lost control of himself, saying, 'Now, will you get out of this
+house, you old scandalmonger, or I'll take you by the shoulders and put
+you out!' And he had thrown the front-door open. What a look she gave
+him as she passed out! At that moment the clock struck three and he
+remembered suddenly that the children were coming out of school at that
+moment. It would have been better if he had waited. But he couldn't
+wait: he'd have gone mad if he had waited; and he recalled how he had
+jumped into the road, squeezed through the stile, and run across the
+field. 'Why all this hurry?' he had asked himself.
+
+She was locking up the desks; the children went by him, curtseying, and
+he had to wait till the last one was past the door. Nora must have
+guessed his errand, for her face noticeably hardened. 'I've seen Mrs.
+O'Mara,' he blurted out, 'and she tells me that you've been seen walking
+with some man on the hillside in lonely places.... Don't deny it if it
+is true.' 'I'm not going to deny anything that is true.' How brave she
+was! Her courage attracted him and softened his heart. But everything
+was true, alas! Everything. She told him that her plans were to steal
+out of the parish without saying a word to anyone, for she was
+determined not to disgrace him or the parish. She was thinking of him in
+all her trouble, and everything might have ended well if he had not
+asked her who the man was. She would not say, nor give any reasons why
+she wouldn't do so. Only this, that if the man had deserted her she
+didn't want anybody to bring him back, if he could be brought back; if
+the man were dead it were better to say nothing about him. 'But if it
+were his fault?' 'I don't see that that would make any difference.'
+
+They went out of the school-house talking in quite a friendly way. There
+was a little drizzle in the air, and, opening her umbrella, she said,
+'I'm afraid you'll get wet.' 'Get wet, get wet! what matter?' he had
+answered impatiently, for the remark annoyed him. By the hawthorn-bush
+he began to tell her again that it would relieve his mind to know who
+the man was. She tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't let her go;
+and catching her by the arm he besought her, saying that it would
+relieve his mind. How many times had he said that? But he wasn't able to
+persuade her, notwithstanding his insistence that as a priest of the
+parish he had a right to know. No doubt she had some very deep reason
+for keeping her secret, or perhaps his authoritative manner was the
+cause of her silence. However this might be, any words would have been
+better than 'it would relieve my mind to know who the man was.' 'Stupid,
+stupid, stupid!' he muttered to himself, and he wandered from the
+cart-track into the wood.
+
+It was impossible to say now why he had wished to press her secret from
+her. It would be unpleasant for him, as priest of the parish, to know
+that the man was living in the parish; but it would be still more
+unpleasant if he knew who the man was. Nora's seducer could be none
+other than one of the young soldiers who had taken the fishing-lodge at
+the head of the lake. Mrs. O'Mara had hinted that Nora had been seen
+with one of them on the hill, and he thought how on a day like this she
+might have been led away among the ferns. At that moment there came out
+of the thicket a floating ball of thistle-down. 'It bloweth where it
+listeth,' he said. 'Soldier or shepherd, what matter now she is gone?'
+and rising to his feet and coming down the sloping lawn, overflowing
+with the shade of the larches, he climbed through the hawthorns growing
+out of a crumbled wall, and once at the edge of the lake, he stood
+waiting for nothing seemingly but to hear the tiresome clanking call of
+the stonechat, and he compared its reiterated call with the words
+'atonement,' 'forgiveness,' 'death,' 'calamity,' words always clanking
+in his heart, for she might be lying at the bottom of the lake, and some
+day a white phantom would rise from the water and claim him.
+
+His thoughts broke away, and he re-lived in memory the very agony of
+mind he had endured when he went home after her admission that she was
+with child. All that night, all next day, and for how many days? Would
+the time ever come when he could think of her without a pain in his
+heart? It is said that time brings forgetfulness. Does it? On Saturday
+morning he had sat at his window, asking himself if he should go down
+to see her or if he should send for her. There were confessions in the
+afternoon, and expecting that she would come to confess to him, he had
+not sent for her. One never knows; perhaps it was her absence from
+confession that had angered him. His temper took a different turn that
+evening. All night he had lain awake; he must have been a little mad
+that night, for he could only think of the loss of a soul to God, and of
+God's love of chastity. All night long he had repeated with variations
+that it were better that all which our eyes see--this earth and the
+stars that are in being--should perish utterly, be crushed into dust,
+rather than a mortal sin should be committed; in an extraordinary
+lucidity of mind he continued to ponder on God's anger and his own
+responsibility towards God, and feeling all the while that there are
+times when we lose control of our minds, when we are a little mad. He
+foresaw his danger, but he could not do else than rise from his bed and
+begin to prepare his sermon, for he had to preach, and he could only
+preach on chastity and the displeasure sins against chastity cause to
+God. He could think but of this one thing, the displeasure God must feel
+against Nora and the seducer who had robbed her of the virtue God prized
+most in her. He must have said things that he would not have said at any
+other time. His brain was on fire that morning, and words rose to his
+lips--he knew not whence nor how they came, and he had no idea now of
+what he had said. He only knew that she left the church during his
+sermon; at what moment he did not know, nor did he know that she had
+left the parish till next day, when the children came up to tell him
+there was no schoolmistress. And from that day to this no news of her,
+nor any way of getting news of her.
+
+His thoughts went to the hawthorn-trees, for he could not think of her
+any more for the moment, and it relieved his mind to examine the green
+pips that were beginning to appear among the leaves. 'The hawthorns will
+be in flower in another week,' he said; and he began to wonder at the
+beautiful order of the spring. The pear and the cherry were the first;
+these were followed by the apple, and after the apple came the lilac,
+the chestnut, and the laburnum. The forest trees, too, had their order.
+The ash was still leafless, but it was shedding its catkins, and in
+another fifteen days its light foliage would be dancing in the breeze.
+The oak was last of all. At that moment a swallow flitted from stone to
+stone, too tired to fly far, and he wondered whence it had come. A
+cuckoo called from a distant hill; it, too, had been away and had come
+back.
+
+His eyes dwelt on the lake, refined and wistful, with reflections of
+islands and reeds, mysteriously still. Rose-coloured clouds descended,
+revealing many new and beautiful mountain forms, every pass and every
+crest distinguishable. It was the hour when the cormorants come home to
+roost, and he saw three black specks flying low about the glittering
+surface; rising from the water, they alighted with a flutter of wings on
+the corner wall of what remained of Castle Hag, 'and they will sleep
+there till morning,' he said, as he toiled up a little path, twisting
+through ferns and thorn-bushes. At the top of the hill was his house,
+the house Father Peter had built. Its appearance displeased him, and he
+stood for a long time watching the evening darkening, and the yacht
+being towed home, her sails lowered, the sailors in the rowing-boat.
+'They will be well tired before they get her back to Tinnick;' and he
+turned and entered his house abruptly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Catherine's curiosity was a worry. As if he knew why he hadn't come home
+to his dinner! If she'd just finish putting the plates on the table and
+leave him. Of course, there had been callers. One man, the man he
+especially wished to see, had driven ten miles to see him. It was most
+unfortunate, but it couldn't be helped; he had felt that morning that he
+couldn't stay indoors--the business of the parish had somehow got upon
+his nerves, but not because he had been working hard. He had done but
+little work since she left the parish. Now was that story going to begin
+again? If it did, he should go out of his mind; and he looked round the
+room, thinking how a lonely evening breeds thoughts of discontent.
+
+Most of the furniture in the room was Father Peter's. Father Peter had
+left his curate his furniture, but the pretty mahogany bookcase and the
+engravings upon the walls were Father Oliver's own taste; he had bought
+them at an auction, and there were times when these purchases pleased
+him. But now he was thinking that Father Peter must have known to whom
+the parish would go at his death, for he could not have meant all his
+furniture to be taken out of the house--'there would be no room for it
+in Bridget Clery's cottage;' and Father Oliver sat thinking of the
+evenings he used to spend with Father Peter. How often during those
+evenings Father Peter must have said to himself, 'One day, Gogarty, you
+will be sitting in my chair and sleeping in my bed.' And Father Oliver
+pondered on his affection for the dead man. There were no differences of
+opinion, only one--the neglected garden at the back of the house; and,
+smiling sadly, Father Oliver remembered how he used to reprove the
+parish priest.
+
+'I'm afraid I'm too big and too fat and too fond of my pipe and my glass
+of whisky to care much about carnations. But if you get the parish when
+I'm gone, I'm sure you'll grow some beauties, and you'll put a bunch on
+my grave sometimes, Gogarty.' The very ring of the dead man's voice
+seemed to sound through the lonely room, and, sitting in Father Peter's
+chair, with the light of Father Peter's lamp shining on his face and
+hand, Father Oliver's thoughts flowed on. It seemed to him that he had
+not understood and appreciated Father Peter's kindliness, and he
+recalled his perfect good nature. 'Death reveals many things to us,' he
+said; and he lifted his head to listen, for the silence in the house and
+about the house reminded him of the silence of the dead, and he began to
+consider what his own span of life might be. He might live as long as
+Father Peter (Father Peter was fifty-five when he died); if so,
+twenty-one years of existence by the lake's side awaited him, and these
+years seemed to him empty like a desert--yes, and as sterile.
+'Twenty-one years wondering what became of her, and every evening like
+this evening--the same loneliness.'
+
+He sat watching the hands of his clock, and a peaceful meditation about
+a certain carnation that unfortunately burst its calyx was interrupted
+by a sudden thought. Whence the thought came he could not tell, nor what
+had put it into his head, but it had occurred to him suddenly that 'if
+Father Peter had lived a few weeks longer he would have found means of
+exchanging Nora Glynn for another schoolmistress, more suitable to the
+requirements of the parish. If Father Peter had lived he would have done
+her a grievous wrong. He wouldn't have allowed her to suffer, but he
+would have done her a wrong all the same.' And it were better that a man
+should meet his death than he should do a wrong to another. But he
+wasn't contemplating his own death nor Nora's when this end to the
+difficulty occurred to him. Our inherent hypocrisy is so great that it
+is difficult to know what one does think. He surely did not think it
+well that Father Peter had died, his friend, his benefactor, the man in
+whose house he was living? Of course not. Then it was strange he could
+not keep the thought out of his mind that Father Peter's death had saved
+the parish from a great scandal, for if Nora had been dismissed he might
+have found himself obliged to leave the parish.
+
+Again he turned on himself and asked how such thoughts could come into
+his mind. True, the coming of a thought into the consciousness is often
+unexpected, but if the thought were not latent in the mind, it would
+not arise out of the mind; and if Father Peter knew the base thoughts he
+indulged in--yes, indulged in, for he could not put them quite out of
+his mind--he feared very much that the gift of all this furniture
+might--No, he was judging Father Peter ill: Father Peter was
+incapable of a mean regret.
+
+But who was he, he'd like to be told, that he should set himself up as
+Father Peter's judge? The evil he had foreseen had happened. If Father
+Peter felt that Nora Glynn was not the kind of schoolmistress the parish
+required, should he not send her away? The need of the parish, of the
+many, before the one. Moreover, Father Peter was under no obligation
+whatsoever to Nora Glynn. She had been sent down by the School Board
+subject to his approval. 'But my case is quite different. I chose her; I
+decided that she was to remain.' And he asked himself if his decision
+had come about gradually. No, he had never hesitated, but dismissed
+Father Peter's prejudices as unworthy.... The church needed some good
+music. But did he think of the church? Hardly at all. His first
+consideration was his personal pleasure, and he wished that the best
+choir in the diocese should be in his church, and Nora Glynn enabled him
+to gratify his vanity. He made her his friend, taking pleasure in her
+smiles, and in the fact that he had only to express a desire for it to
+be fulfilled. After school, tired though she might be, she was always
+willing to meet him in the church for choir practice. She would herself
+propose to decorate the altar for feast-days. How many times had they
+walked round the garden together gathering flowers for the altar! And it
+was strange that she could decorate so well without knowing much about
+flowers or having much natural taste for flowers.
+
+Feeling he was doing her an injustice, he admitted that she had made
+much progress under his guidance in her knowledge of flowers.
+
+'But how did he treat her in the end, despite all her kindnesses?
+Shamefully, shamefully, shamefully!' and getting up from his chair
+Father Oliver walked across the room, and when he turned he drew his
+hand across his eyes. The clock struck twelve. 'I shall be awake at
+dawn,' he said, 'with all this story running in my head,' and he stopped
+on the threshold of his bedroom, frightened at the sight of his bed. But
+he had reached the stint of his sufferings, and that morning lay awake,
+hardly annoyed at all by the black-birds' whistling, contentedly going
+over the mistakes he had made--a little surprised, however, that the
+remembrance of them did not cause him more pain. At last he fell asleep,
+and when his housekeeper knocked at his door and he heard her saying
+that it was past eight, he leaped out of bed cheerily, and sang a stave
+of song as he shaved himself, gashing his chin, however, for he could
+not keep his attention fixed on his chin, but must peep over the top of
+the glass, whence he could see his garden, and think how next year he
+would contrive a better arrangement of colour. It was difficult to stop
+the bleeding, and he knew that Catherine would grumble at the state he
+left the towels in (he should not have used his bath-towel); but these
+were minor matters. He was happier than he had been for many a day.
+
+The sight of strawberries on his breakfast-table pleased him; the man
+who drove ten miles to see him yesterday called, and he shared his
+strawberries with him in abundant spirit. The sunlight was exciting, the
+lake called him, and it was pleasant to stride along, talking of the
+bridge (at last there seemed some prospect of getting one). The
+intelligence of this new inspector filled him with hope, and he
+expatiated in the advantages of the bridge and many other things. Nor
+did his humour seem to depend entirely on the companionship of his
+visitor. It endured long after his visitor had left him, and very soon
+he began to think that his desire to go away for a long holiday was a
+passing indisposition of mind rather than a need. His holiday could be
+postponed to the end of the year; there would be more leisure then, and
+he would be better able to enjoy his holiday than he would be now.
+
+His changing mind interested him, and he watched it like a vane, unable
+to understand how it was that, notwithstanding his restlessness, he
+could not bring himself to go away. Something seemed to keep him back,
+and he was not certain that the reason he stayed was because the
+Government had not yet sent a formal promise to build the bridge. He
+could think of no other reason for delaying in Garranard; he certainly
+wanted change. And then Nora's name came into his mind, and he meditated
+for a moment, seeing the colour of her hair and the vanishing
+expression of her eyes. Sometimes he could see her hand, the very
+texture of its skin, and the line of the thumb and the forefinger. A cat
+had once scratched her hand, and she had told him about it. That was
+about two months before Mrs. O'Mara had come to tell him that shocking
+story, two months before he had gone down to his church and spoken about
+Nora in such a way that she had gone out of the parish. But was he going
+to begin the story over again? He picked up a book, but did not read
+many sentences before he was once more asking himself if she had gone
+down to the lake, and if it were her spell that kept him in Garranard.
+'The wretchedness of it all,' he cried, and fell to thinking that Nora's
+spirit haunted the lake, and that his punishment was to be kept a
+prisoner always. His imagination ran riot. Perhaps he would have to seek
+her out, follow her all over the world, a sort of Wandering Jew, trying
+to make atonement, and would never get any rest until this atonement was
+made. And the wrong that he had done her seemed the only reality. It was
+his elbow companion in the evening as he sat smoking his pipe, and every
+morning he stood at the end of a sandy spit seeing nothing, hearing
+nothing but her. One day he was startled by a footstep, and turned
+expecting to see Nora. But it was only Christy, the boy who worked in
+his garden.
+
+'Your reverence, the postman overlooked this letter in the morning. It
+was stuck at the bottom of the bag. He hopes the delay won't make any
+difference.'
+
+
+_From Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'_June_ 1, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'I am writing to ask you if you know anything about a young woman called
+Nora Glynn. She tells me that she was schoolmistress in your parish and
+organist in your church, and that you thought very highly of her until
+one day a tale-bearer, Mrs. O'Mara by name, went to your house and told
+you that your schoolmistress was going to have a baby. It appears that
+at first you refused to believe her, and that you ran down to the school
+to ask Miss Glynn herself if the story you had heard about her was a
+true one. She admitted it, but on her refusal to tell you who was the
+father of the child you lost your temper; and the following Sunday you
+alluded to her so plainly in your sermon about chastity that there was
+nothing for her but to leave the parish.
+
+'There is no reason why I should disbelieve Miss Glynn's story; I am an
+Irish priest like yourself, sir. I have worked in London among the poor
+for forty years, and Miss Glynn's story is, to my certain knowledge, not
+an uncommon one; it is, I am sorry to say, most probable; it is what
+would happen to any schoolmistress in Ireland in similar circumstances.
+The ordinary course is to find out the man and to force him to marry the
+girl; if this fails, to drive the woman out of the parish, it being
+better to sacrifice one affected sheep than that the whole flock should
+be contaminated. I am an old man; Miss Glynn tells me that you are a
+young man. I can therefore speak quite frankly. I believe the practice
+to which I have alluded is inhuman and unchristian, and has brought
+about the ruin of many an Irish girl. I have been able to rescue some
+from the streets, and, touched by their stories, I have written
+frequently to the priest of the parish pointing out to him that his
+responsibility is not merely local, and does not end as soon as the
+woman has passed the boundary of his parish. I would ask you what you
+think your feelings would be if I were writing to you now to tell you
+that, after some months of degraded life, Miss Glynn had thrown herself
+from one of the bridges into the river? That might very well have been
+the story I had to write to you; fortunately for you, it is another
+story.
+
+'Miss Glynn is a woman of strong character, and does not give way
+easily; her strength of will has enabled her to succeed where another
+woman might have failed. She is now living with one of my parishioners,
+a Mrs. Dent, of 24, Harold Street, who has taken a great liking to her,
+and helped her through her most trying time, when she had very little
+money and was alone and friendless in London. Mrs. Dent recommended her
+to some people in the country who would look after her child. She
+allowed her to pay her rent by giving lessons to her daughter on the
+piano. One thing led to another; the lady who lived on the drawing-room
+floor took lessons, and Miss Glynn is earning now, on an average, thirty
+shillings per week, which little income will be increased if I can
+appoint her to the post of organist in my church, my organist having
+been obliged to leave me on account of her health. It was while talking
+to Mrs. Dent on this very subject that I first heard Miss Glynn's name
+mentioned.
+
+'Mrs. Dent was enthusiastic about her, but I could see that she knew
+little about her lodger's antecedents, except that she came from
+Ireland. She was anxious that I should engage her at once, declaring
+that I could find no one like her, and she asked me to see her that
+evening. I went, and the young woman impressed me very favourably. She
+came to my church and played for me. I could see that she was an
+excellent musician, and there seemed to be no reason why I should not
+engage her. I should probably have done so without asking any further
+questions--for I do not care to inquire too closely into a woman's past,
+once I am satisfied that she wishes to lead an honourable life--but Miss
+Glynn volunteered to tell me what her past had been, saying it was
+better I should hear it from her than from another. When she had told me
+her sad story, I reminded her of the anxiety that her disappearance from
+the parish would cause you. She shook her head, saying you did not care
+what might happen to her. I assured her that such a thing was not the
+case, and begged of her to allow me to write to you; but I did not
+obtain her consent until she began to see that if she withheld it any
+longer we might think she was concealing some important fact. Moreover,
+I impressed upon her that it was right that I should hear your story,
+not because I disbelieved hers--I take it for granted the facts are
+correctly stated--but in the event of your being able to say something
+which would put a different complexion upon them.
+
+'Yours very sincerely,
+
+'MICHAEL O'GRADY.'
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+After reading Father O'Grady's letter he looked round, fearing lest
+someone should speak to him. Christy was already some distance away;
+there was nobody else in sight; and feeling he was safe from
+interruption, he went towards the wood, thinking of the good priest who
+had saved her (in saving her Father O'Grady had saved him), and of the
+waste of despair into which he would have drifted certainly if the news
+had been that she had killed herself. He stood appalled, looking into
+the green wood, aware of the mysterious life in the branches; and then
+lay down to watch the insect life among the grass--a beetle pursuing its
+little or great destiny. But he was too exalted to remain lying down;
+the wood seemed to beckon him, and he asked if the madness of the woods
+had overtaken him. Further on he came upon a chorus of finches singing
+in some hawthorn-trees, and in Derrinrush he stopped to listen to the
+silence that had suddenly fallen. A shadow floated by; he looked up: a
+hawk was passing overhead, ready to attack rat or mouse moving among the
+young birches and firs that were springing up in the clearance. The
+light was violent, and the priest shaded his eyes. His feet sank in
+sand, he tripped over tufts of rough grass, and was glad to get out of
+this part of the wood into the shade of large trees.
+
+Trees always interested him, and he began to think of their great roots
+seeking the darkness, and of their branches lifting themselves in love
+towards the light. He and these trees were one, for there is but one
+life, one mother, one elemental substance out of which all has come.
+That was it, and his thoughts paused. Only in union is there happiness,
+and for many weary months he had been isolated, thrown out; but to-day
+he had been drawn suddenly into the general life, he had become again
+part of the general harmony, and that was why he was so happy. No better
+explanation was forthcoming, and he did not think that a better one was
+required--at least, not to-day.
+
+He noticed with pleasure that he no longer tried to pass behind a
+thicket nor into one when he met poor wood-gatherers bent under their
+heavy loads. He even stopped to speak to a woman out with her children;
+the three were breaking sticks across their knees, and he encouraged
+them to talk to him. But without his being aware of it, his thoughts
+hearkened back, and when it came to his turn to answer he could not
+answer. He had been thinking of Nora, and, ashamed of his
+absentmindedness, he left them tying up their bundles and went towards
+the shore, stopping many times to admire the pale arch of evening sky
+with never a wind in it, nor any sound but the cries of swallows in full
+pursuit. 'A rememberable evening,' he said, and there was such a
+lightness in his feet that he believed, or very nearly, that there were
+wings on his shoulders which he only had to open to float away whither
+he might wish to go.
+
+His brain overflowed with thankfulness and dreams of her forgiveness,
+and at midnight he sat in his study still thinking, still immersed in
+his happiness; and hearing moths flying about the burning lamp he
+rescued one for sheer love of her, and later in the evening the illusion
+of her presence was so intense that he started up from his chair and
+looked round for her. Had he not felt her breath upon his cheek? Her
+very perfume had floated past! There ... it had gone by again! No, it
+was not she--only the syringa breathing in the window.
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Father O'Grady._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_June_ 2, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER O'GRADY,
+
+'Miss Glynn's disappearance caused me, as you rightly surmise, the
+gravest anxiety, and it is no exaggeration to say that whenever her name
+was mentioned, my tongue seemed to thicken and I could not speak.
+
+'I wish I could find words to thank you for what you have done. I am
+still under the influence of the emotion that your letter caused me, and
+can only say that Miss Glynn has told her story truthfully. As to your
+reproofs, I accept them, they are merited; and I thank you for your kind
+advice. I am glad that it comes from an Irishman, and I would give much
+to take you by the hand and to thank you again and again.'
+
+
+Getting up, he walked out of the room, feeling in a way that a calmer
+and more judicious letter would be preferable. But he must answer Father
+O'Grady, and at once; the letter would have to go. And in this resolve
+he walked out of his house into his garden, and stood there wondering at
+the flower-life growing so peacefully, free from pain.
+
+The tall Madonna lilies flourished like sculpture about the porch, and
+he admired their tall stems and leaves and carven blossoms, thinking how
+they would die without strife, without complaint. The briar filled the
+air with a sweet, apple-like smell; and far away the lake shone in the
+moonlight, just as it had a thousand years ago when the raiders returned
+to their fortresses pursued by enemies. He could just distinguish Castle
+Island, and he wondered what this lake reminded him of: it wound in and
+out of gray shores and headlands, fading into dim pearl-coloured
+distance, and he compared it to a shroud, and then to a ghost, but
+neither comparison pleased him. It was like something, but the image he
+sought eluded him. At last he remembered how in a dream he had seen Nora
+carried from the lake; and now, standing among the scent of the flowers,
+he said: 'She has always been associated with the lake in my thoughts,
+yet she escaped the lake. Every man,' he continued, 'has a lake in his
+heart.' He had not sought the phrase, it had come suddenly into his
+mind. Yes, 'Every man has a lake in his heart,' he repeated, and
+returned to the house like one dazed, to sit stupefied until his
+thoughts took fire again, and going to his writing-table he drew a sheet
+of paper towards him, feeling that he must write to Nora. At last he
+picked up the pen.
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GAHRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_June_ 2, 19--.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'I must write to thank you for your kindness in asking Father O'Grady to
+send me a letter. It appears that you were afraid I might be anxious
+about you, and I have been very anxious. I have suffered a great deal
+since you left, and it is a great relief to my mind to hear that you are
+safe and well. I can understand how loath you were to allow Father
+O'Grady to write to me; he doesn't say in his letter that you have
+forgiven me, but I hope that your permission to him to relieve my
+anxiety by a letter implies your forgiveness. Father O'Grady writes very
+kindly; it appears that everybody is kind except me. But I am thinking
+of myself again, of the ruin that it would have been if any of the
+terrible things that have happened to others had happened to you. But I
+cannot think of these things now; I am happy in thinking that you are
+safe.'
+
+
+The evening post was lost, but if he were to walk to Bohola he would
+catch the morning mail, and his letter would be in her hands the day
+after to-morrow. It was just three miles to Bohola, and the walk there,
+he thought, would calm the extraordinary spiritual elation that news of
+Nora had kindled in his brain. The darkness of the night and the almost
+round moon high in the southern horizon suited his mood. Once he was
+startled by a faint sigh coming from a horse looking over a hedge, and
+the hedgerows were full of mysterious little cracklings. Something white
+ran across the road. 'The white belly of a stoat,' he thought; and he
+walked on, wondering what its quest might be.
+
+The road led him through a heavy wood, and when he came out at the other
+end he stopped to gaze at the stars, for already a grayness seemed to
+have come into the night. The road dipped and turned, twisting through
+gray fields full of furze-bushes, leading to a great hill, on the other
+side of which was Bohola. When he entered the village he wondered at the
+stillness of its street. 'The dawn is like white ashes,' he said, as he
+dropped his letters into the box; and he was glad to get away from the
+shadowy houses into the country road. The daisies and the dandelions
+were still tightly shut, and in the hedgerow a half-awakened chaffinch
+hopped from twig to twig, too sleepy to chirrup. A streak of green
+appeared in the east, and the death-like stillness was broken by
+cock-crows. He could hear them far away in the country and close by, and
+when he entered his village a little bantam walked up the road shrilling
+and clapping his wings, advancing to the fight. The priest admired his
+courage, and allowed him to peck at his knees. Close by Tom Mulhare's
+dorking was crowing hoarsely, 'A hoarse bass,' said the priest, and at
+the end of the village he heard a bird crowing an octave higher, and
+from the direction he guessed it must be Catherine Murphy's bird.
+Another cock, and then another. He listened, judging their voices to
+range over nearly three octaves.
+
+The morning was so pure, the air so delicious, and its touch so
+exquisite on the cheek, that he could not bear even to think of a close
+bedroom and the heat of a feather bed. He went into his garden, and
+walking up and down he appreciated the beauty of every flower, none
+seeming to him as beautiful as the anemones, and he thought of Nora
+Glynn living in a grimy London lodging, whereas he was here amid many
+flowers--anemones blue, scarlet, and purple, their heads bent down on
+their stalks. New ones were pushing up to replace the ones that had
+blown and scattered the evening before. The gentians were not yet open,
+and he thought how they would look in a few hours--bluer than the
+mid-day sky. He passed through the wicket, and stood on the hill-top
+watching the mists sinking lower. The dawn light strengthened--the sky
+filled with pale tints of emerald, mauve, and rose. A cormorant opened
+his wings and flew down the lake, his fellows followed soon after; but
+Father Oliver stood on the hill-top waiting for daybreak. At last a red
+ball appeared behind a reddish cloud; its colour changed to the colour
+of flame, paled again, and at four flared up like a rose-coloured
+balloon.
+
+The day had begun, and he turned towards his house. But he couldn't
+sleep; the house was repellent, and he waited among the thorn-bushes and
+ferns. Of what use to lie in one's bed when sleep is far and will not
+be beckoned? and his brain being clear as day he went away to the woods
+and watersides, saying: 'Life is orientated like a temple; there are in
+every existence days when life streams down the nave, striking the
+forehead of the God.' And during his long life Father Oliver always
+looked back upon the morning when he invaded the pantry and cut large
+slices of bread, taking the butter out of the old red crock, with a
+little happy sadness in his heart. He wrapped the slices in paper and
+wandered without thought for whither he was going, watching the birds in
+the branches, interested in everything. He was fortunate enough to catch
+sight of an otter asleep on a rock, and towards evening he came upon a
+wild-duck's nest in the sedge; many of the ducklings had broken their
+shells; these struggled after the duck; but there were two prisoners,
+two that could not escape from their shells, and, seeing their lives
+would be lost if he did not come to their aid, he picked the shells away
+and took them to the water's edge, for he had heard Catherine say that
+one could almost see little ducks growing when they had had a drop of
+water. The old duck swam about uttering a whistling sound, her cry that
+her ducklings were to join her. And thinking of the lives he had saved,
+he felt a sudden regret that he had not come upon the nest earlier, when
+Christy brought him Father O'Grady's letter.
+
+The yacht appeared between the islands, her sails filled with wind, and
+he began to dream how she might cast anchor outside the reeds. A sailor
+might draw a pinnace alongside, and he imagined a woman being helped
+into it and rowed to the landing-place. But the yacht did not cast
+anchor; her helm was put up, her boom went over, and she went away on
+another tack. He was glad of his dream, though it lasted but a moment,
+and when he looked up a great gull was watching him. The bird had come
+so near that he could see the small round head and the black eyes; as
+soon as he stirred it wheeled and floated away. Many other little
+adventures happened before the day ended. A rabbit crawled by him
+screaming, for he could run no longer, and lay waiting for the weasel
+that appeared out of the furze. What was to be done? Save it and let the
+weasel go supperless? At eight the moon rose over Tinnick, and it was a
+great sight to see the yellow mass rising above the faint shores; and
+while he stood watching the moon an idea occurred to him that held him
+breathless. His sister had written to him some days ago asking if he
+could recommend a music-mistress to her. It was through his sister that
+he might get Nora back to her country, and it was through his sister
+that he might make atonement for the wrong he had done. The letter must
+be carefully worded, for nuns understood so little, so estranged were
+they from the world. As for his sister Mary, she would not understand at
+all--she would oppose him; but Eliza was a practical woman, and he had
+confidence in her good sense.
+
+He entered the house, and, waving Catherine aside, who reminded him that
+he had had nothing to eat since his dinner the day before, he went to
+his writing-table and began his letter.
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to the Mother Abbess, Tinnick Convent._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_June 3_, 19--.
+
+'MY DEAR ELIZA,
+
+'I hope you will forgive me for having delayed so long to answer your
+letter, but I could not think at the moment of anybody whom I could
+recommend as music-mistress, and I laid the letter aside, hoping that an
+idea would come to me. Well, an idea has come to me. I do not think you
+will find--'
+
+
+The priest stopped, and after thinking a while he laid down his pen and
+got up. The sentence he had been about to write was, 'I do not think you
+will find anyone better than Miss Glynn.' But he would have to send
+Father O'Grady's letter to his sister, and even with Father O'Grady's
+letter and all that he might add of an explanation, she would hardly be
+able to understand; and Eliza might show the letter to Mary, who was
+prejudiced. Father Oliver walked up and down the room thinking.... A
+personal interview would be better than the letter, for in a personal
+interview he would be able to answer his sister's objections, and
+instead of the long letter he had intended to write he wrote a short
+note, adding that he had not seen them for a long time, and would drive
+over to-morrow afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+The southern road was the shorter, but he wanted to see Moran and to
+hear when he proposed to begin to roof the abbey. Father Oliver thought,
+moreover, that he would like to see the abbey for a last time in its
+green mantle of centuries. The distance was much the same--a couple of
+miles shorter by the southern road, no doubt, but what are a couple of
+miles to an old roadster? Moreover, the horse would rest in Jimmy
+Maguire's stable whilst he and Moran rambled about the ruin. An hour's
+rest would compensate the horse for the two extra miles.
+
+He tapped the glass; there was no danger of rain. For thirty days there
+had been no change--only a few showers, just enough to keep the country
+going; and he fell asleep thinking of the drive round the lake from
+Garranard to Tinnick in the sunlight and from Tinnick to Garranard in
+the moonlight.
+
+He was out of bed an hour before his usual time, calling to Catherine
+for hot water. His shaving, always disagreeable, sometimes painful, was
+a joyous little labour on this day. Stropping his razor, he sang from
+sheer joy of living. Catherine had never seen him spring on the car with
+so light a step. And away went the old gray pulling at the bridle,
+little thinking of the twenty-five Irish miles that lay before him.
+
+The day was the same as yesterday, the meadows drying up for want of
+rain; and there was a thirsty chirruping of small birds in the
+hedgerows. Everywhere he saw rooks gaping on the low walls that divided
+the fields. The farmers were complaining; but they were always
+complaining--everyone was complaining. He had complained of the
+dilatoriness of the Board of Works, and now for the first time in his
+life he sympathized a little with the Board. If it had built the bridge
+he would not be enjoying this long drive; it would be built by-and-by;
+he couldn't feel as if he wished to be robbed of one half-hour of the
+long day in front of him; and he liked to think it would not end for him
+till nine o'clock.
+
+'These summer days are endless,' he said.
+
+After passing the strait the lake widened out. On the side the priest
+was driving the shore was empty and barren. On the other side there were
+pleasant woods and interspaces and castles. Castle Carra appeared, a
+great ivy-grown ruin showing among thorn-bushes and ash-trees, at the
+end of a headland. In bygone times the castle must have extended to the
+water's edge, for on every side fragments of arches and old walls were
+discovered hidden away in the thickets. Father Oliver knew the headland
+well and every part of the old fortress. Many a time he had climbed up
+the bare wall of the banqueting-hall to where a breach revealed a secret
+staircase built between the walls, and followed the staircase to a long
+straight passage, and down another staircase, in the hope of finding
+matchlock pistols. Many a time he had wandered in the dungeons, and
+listened to old stories of oubliettes.
+
+The moat which once cut the neck of land was now dry and overgrown; the
+gateway remained, but it was sinking--the earth claimed it. There were
+the ruins of a great house a little way inland, to which no doubt the
+descendants of the chieftain retired on the decline of brigandage; and
+the rough hunting life of its semi-chieftains was figured by the
+gigantic stone fox on a pillar in the middle of the courtyard and the
+great hounds on either side of the gateway.
+
+Castle Carra must have been the strongest castle in the district of
+Tyrawley, and it was built maybe by the Welsh who invaded Ireland in the
+thirteenth century, perhaps by William Barrett himself, who built
+certainl y the castle on the island opposite to Father Oliver's house.
+
+William Fion (i.e., the Fair) Barrett landed somewhere on the west
+coast, and no doubt came up through the great gaps between Slieve Cairn
+and Slieve Louan--it was not likely that he la nded on the east coast;
+he could hardly have marched his horde across Ireland--and Father Oliver
+imagined the Welshmen standing on the very hill on which his house now
+stood, and Fion telling his followers to build a castle on each island.
+Patsy Murphy, w ho knew more about the history of the country than
+anybody, thought that Castle Carra was of later date, and spoke of the
+Stantons, a fierce tribe. Over yonder was the famous causeway, and the
+gross tragedy that was enacted there he yesterday heard from the
+wood-cutter, William's party of Welshmen were followed by other
+Welshmen--the Cusacks, the Petits, and the Brownes; and these in time
+fell out with the Barretts, and a great battle fought, the Battle of
+Moyne, in 1281, in which William Barrett was killed. But in spite of
+their defeat, the Barretts held the upper hand of the country for many a
+long year, and the priest began to smile, thinking of the odd story the
+old woodman had told him about the Barretts' steward, Sgnorach bhuid
+bhearrtha, 'saving your reverence's presence,' the old man said, and,
+unable to translate the words into English fit for the priest's ears, he
+explained that they meant a glutton and a lewd fellow.
+
+The Barretts sent Sgnorach bhuid bhearrtha to collect rents from the
+Lynotts, another group of Welshmen, but the Lynotts killed him and
+threw his body into a well, called ever afterwards Tobar na Sgornaighe
+(the Well of the Glutton), near the townland of Moygawnagh, Barony of
+Tyrawley. To avenge the murder of their steward, the Barretts assembled
+an armed force, and, having defeated the Lynotts and captured many of
+them, they offered their prisoners two forms of mutilation: they were
+either to be blinded or castrated. After taking counsel with their wise
+men, the Lynotts chose blindness; for blind men could have sons, and
+these would doubtless one day revenge the humiliation that was being
+passed upon them. A horrible story it was, for when their eyes were
+thrust out with needles they were led to a causeway, and those who
+crossed the stepping-stones without stumbling were taken back; and the
+priest thought of the assembled horde laughing as the poor blind men
+fell into the water.
+
+The story rambled on, the Lynotts plotting how they could be revenged on
+the Barretts, telling lamely but telling how the Lynotts, in the course
+of generations, came into their revenge. 'A badly told story,' said the
+priest, 'with one good incident in it,' and, instead of trying to
+remember how victory came to the Lynotts, Father Oli ver's eyes strayed
+over the landscape, taking pleasure in the play of light along sides and
+crests of the hills.
+
+The road followed the shore of the lake, sometimes turning inland to
+avoid a hill or a bit of bog, but returning back again to the shore, 
+finding its way through the fields, if they could be called fields--a
+little grass and some hazel-bushes growing here and there between the
+rocks. Under a rocky headland, lying within embaying shores, was Church
+Island, some seven or eight acres, a handsome wooded island, the largest
+in the lake, with the ruins of a church hidden among the tall trees,
+only an arch of it remaining, but the paved path leading from the church
+to the hermit's cell could be followed. The hermit who used this paved
+path fourteen hundred years ago was a poet; and Father Oliver knew that
+Marban loved 'the shieling that no one knew save his God, the ash-tree
+on the hither side, the hazel-bush beyond it, its lintel of honeysuckle,
+the wood shedding its mast upon fat swine;' and on this sweet day he
+found it pleasanter to think of Ireland's hermits than of Ireland's
+savage chieftains always at war, striving against each other along the
+shores of this lake, and from island to island.
+
+His thoughts lingered in the seventh and eighth centuries, when the arts
+were fostered in monasteries--the arts of gold-work and illuminated
+missals--'Ireland's halcyon days,' he said; a deep peace brooded, and
+under the guidance of the monks Ireland was the centre of learning when
+England was in barbarism. The first renaissance was the Irish, centuries
+before a gleam showed in Italy or in France. But in the middle of the
+eighth century the Danes arrived to pillage the country, and no sooner
+were they driven out than the English came to continue the work of
+destruction, and never since has it ceased.' Father Oliver fell to
+thinking if God were reserving the bright destiny for Ireland which he
+withheld a thousand years ago, and looked out for the abbey that
+Roderick, King of Connaught, built in the twelfth century.
+
+It stood on a knoll, and in the distance, almost hidden in bulrushes,
+was the last arm of the lake. 'How admirable! how admirable!' he said.
+Kilronan Abbey seemed to bid him remember the things that he could never
+forget; and, touched by the beauty of the legended ruins, his doubts
+return ed to him regarding the right of the present to lay hands on
+these great wrecks of Ireland's past. He was no longer sure that he did
+not side with the Archbishop, who was against the restoration--for
+entirely insufficient reasons, it was true. 'Put a roof,' Father Oliver
+said, 'on the abbey, and it will look like any other church, and
+another link will be broken. "Which is the better--a great memory or
+some trifling comfort?"' A few moments after the car turned the corner
+and he caught sight of Father Moran, 'out for his morning's walk,' he
+said; and he compared Moran's walk up and down the highroad with his own
+rambles along the lake shores and through the pleasant woods of
+Carnecun.
+
+For seven years Father Oliver had walked up and down that road, for
+there was nowhere else for him to walk; he walked that road till he
+hated it, but he did not think that he had suffered from the loneliness
+of the parish as much as Moran. He had been happier than Moran in
+Bridget Clery's cottage--a great idea enabled him to forget every
+discomfort; and 'we are never lonely as long as our idea is with us,' he
+ejaculated. 'But Moran is a plain man, without ideas, enthusiasms, or
+exaltations. He does riot care for reading, or for a flower garden, only
+for drink. Drink gives him dreams, and man must dream,' he said.
+
+He knew that his curate was pledged to cure himself, and believed he was
+succeeding; but, all the same, it was terrible to think that the
+temptation might overpower him at any moment, and that he might st agger
+helpless through the village--a very shocking example to everybody.
+
+The people were prone enough in that direction, and for a priest to give
+scandal instead of setting a good example was about as bad as anything
+that could happen in the parish. But what was he to do? There was no
+hard-and-fast rule about anything, and Father Oliver felt that Moran
+must have his chance.
+
+'I was beginning to think we were never going to see you again;' and
+Father Moran held out a long, hard hand to Father Oliver. 'You'll put up
+your horse? Christy, will you take his reverence's horse? You'll stay
+and have some dinner with me?'
+
+'I can't stay more than half an hour. I'm on my way to Tinnick; I've
+business with my sister, and it will take me some time.'
+
+'You have plenty of time.'
+
+'No, I haven't? I ought to have taken the other road; I'm late as it
+is.'
+
+'But you will come into the house, if only for a few minutes.'
+
+Father Oliver had taught Bridget Clery cleanliness; at least, he had
+persuaded her to keep the f owls out of the kitchen, and he had put a
+paling in front of the house and made a little garden--an unassuming
+one, it is true, but a pleasant spot of colour in the summer-time--and
+he wondered how it was that Father Moran was not ashamed of its
+neglected state, nor of the widow's kitchen. These things were, after
+all, immaterial. What was important was that he should find no faintest
+trace of whisky in Moran's room. It was a great relief to him not to
+notice any, and no doubt that was why Moran insisted on bringing him
+into the house. The specifications were a pretext. He had to glance at
+them, however.
+
+'No doubt if the abbey is to be roofed at all the best roof is the one
+you propose.'
+
+'Then you side with the Archbishop?'
+
+'Perhaps I do in a way, but for different reasons. I know very well that
+the people won't kneel in the rain. Is it really true that he opposes
+the roofing of the abbey on account of the legend? I have heard the
+legend, but there are many variants. Let's go to the abbey and you'll
+tell the story on the way.'
+
+'You see, he'll only allow a portion of the abbey to be roofed.'
+
+'You don't mean that he is so senile and superstitious as that? Then the
+reason of his opposition really is that he believes his death to be
+implicit in the roofing of Kilronan.'
+
+'Yes; he thinks that;' and the priests turned out of the main road.
+
+'How beautiful it looks!' and Father Oliver stopped to admire.
+
+The abbey stood on one of the lower slopes, on a knoll overlooking rich
+water-meadows, formerly abbatial lands.
+
+'The legend says that the abbey shall be roofed when a De Stanton is
+Abbot, and the McEvillys were originally De Stantons; they changed their
+name in the fifteenth century on account of a violation of sanctuary
+committed by them. A roof shall be put on those walls, the legend says,
+when a De Stanton is again Abbot of Kilronan, and the Abbot shall be
+slain on the highroad.'
+
+'And to save himself from a violent death, he will only allow you to
+roof a part of the abbey. Now, what reason does he give for such an
+extraordinary decision?'
+
+'Are Bishops ever expected to have reasons?'
+
+The priests laughed, and Father Oliver said: 'We might appeal to Rome.'
+
+'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?'
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The flowered cottage on the road to Tinnick stood in the midst of trees,
+on a knoll some few feet above the roadway, and Father Oliver, when he
+was a boy, often walked out by himself from Tinnick to see the
+hollyhocks and the sunflowers; they overtopped the palings, the
+sunflowers looking like saucy country girls and the hollyhocks like
+grand ladies, delicate and refined, in pink muslin dresses. He used to
+stand by the gate looking into the garden, delighted by its luxuriance,
+for there were clumps of sweet pea and beds of red carnations and roses
+everywhere, and he always remembered the violets and pansies he saw
+before he went away to Maynooth. He never remembered seeing the garden
+in bloom again. He was seven years at Maynooth, and when he came home
+for his vacations it was too late or too early in the season. He was
+interested in other things; and during his curacy at Kilronan he rarely
+went to Tinnick, and when he did, he took the other road, so that he
+might see Father Peter.
+
+He was practically certain that the last time he saw the garden in bloom
+was just before he went to Maynooth. However this might be, it was
+certain he would never see it in bloom again. Mary had left the cottage
+a ruin, and it was sad to think of the clean thick thatch and the
+whitewashed walls covered with creeper and China roses, for now the
+thatch was black and mouldy; and of all the flowers only a few stocks
+survived; the rose-trees were gone--the rabbits had eaten them. Weeds
+overtopped the currant and gooseberry bushes; here and there was a trace
+of box edging. 'But soon,' he said, 'all traces will be gone, the roof
+will fall in, and the garden will become part of the waste.' His eyes
+roved over the country into which he was going--almost a waste; a meagre
+black soil, with here and there a thorn-bush and a peasant's cabin.
+Father Oliver knew every potato field and every wood, and he waited for
+the elms that lined the roadway a mile ahead of him, a long, pleasant
+avenue that he knew well, showing above the high wall that encircled a
+nobleman's domain. Somewhere in the middle of that park was a great
+white house with pillars, and the story he had heard from his mother,
+and that roused his childish imaginations, was that Lord Carra was hated
+by the town of Tinnick, for he cared nothing for Ireland and was said to
+be a man of loose living, in love with his friend's wife, who came to
+Tinnick for visits, sometimes with, sometimes without, her husband. It
+may have been his Lordship's absenteeism, as well as the scandal the
+lady gave, that had prompted a priest to speak against Lord Carra from
+the altar, if not directly, indirectly. 'Both are among the gone,'
+Father Oliver said to himself. 'No one speaks of them now; myself hasn't
+given them a thought this many a year--' His memories broke off
+suddenly, for a tree had fallen, carrying a large portion of the wall
+with it, but without revealing the house, only a wooded prospect through
+which a river glided. 'The Lord's mistress must have walked many a time
+by the banks of that river,' he said. But why was he thinking of her
+again? Was it the ugly cottage that put thoughts of her into his mind?
+for she had done nothing to alleviate the lives of the poor, who lived
+without cleanliness and without light, like animals in a den. Or did his
+thoughts run on that woman, whom he had never seen, because Tinnick was
+against her and the priest had spoken slightingly of the friends that
+Lord Carra brought from England? The cause of his thoughts might be that
+he was going to offer Nora Glynn to his sister as music-mistress. But
+what connection between Nora Glynn and this dead woman? None. But he was
+going to propose Nora Glynn to Eliza, and the best line of argument
+would be that Nora would cost less than anyone as highly qualified as
+she. Nuns were always anxious to get things cheap, but he must not let
+them get Nora too cheap. But the question of price wouldn't arise
+between him and Eliza. Eliza would see that the wrong he did to Nora was
+preying on his conscience, and that he'd never be happy until he had
+made atonement--that was the light in which she would view the matter,
+so it would be better to let things take their natural course and to
+avoid making plans. The more he thought of what he should say to Eliza,
+the less likely was he to speak effectively; and feeling that he had
+better rely on the inspiration of the moment, he sought distraction from
+his errand by noting the beauty of the hillside. He had always liked
+the way the road dipped and then ascended steeply to the principal
+street in the town. There were some pretty houses in the dip--houses
+with narrow doorways and long windows, built, no doubt, in the beginning
+of the nineteenth century--and his ambition was once to live in one of
+these houses.
+
+The bridge was an eighteenth-century bridge, with a foaming weir on the
+left, and on the right there was a sentimental walk under linden-trees,
+and there were usually some boys seated on the parapet fishing. He would
+have liked to stop the car, so remote did the ruined mills seem--so like
+things of long ago that time had mercifully weaned from the stress and
+struggle of life.
+
+At the corner of the main street was the house in which he was born. The
+business had passed into other hands, but the old name--'Gogarty's
+Drapery Stores'--remained. Across the way were the butcher and the
+grocer, and a little higher up the inn at which the commercial
+travellers lodged. He recalled their numerous leather trunks, and for a
+moment stood a child again, seeing them drive away on post-cars. A few
+more shops had been added--very few--and then the town dwindled quickly,
+slated roofs giving way to thatched cottages, and of the same miserable
+kind that was wont to provoke his antipathy when he was a boy.
+
+This sinful dislike of poverty he overcame in early manhood. A high
+religious enthusiasm enabled him to overcome it, but his instinctive
+dislike of the lowly life--intellectual lowliness as well as
+physical--gathered within these cottages, seemed to have returned again.
+He asked himself if he were wanting in natural compassion, and if all
+that he had of goodness in him were a debt he owed to the Church. It was
+in patience rather than in pity maybe that he was lacking; and pursuing
+this idea, he recalled the hopes he entertained when he railed off a
+strip of ground in front of Bridget Clery's house. But that strip of
+garden had inspired no spirit of emulation. Eliza was perhaps more
+patient than he, and he began to wonder if she had any definite aim in
+view, and if the spectacle of the convent, with its show of nuns walking
+under the trees, would eventually awaken some desire of refinement in
+the people, if the money their farms now yielded would produce some sort
+of improvement in their cottages, the removal of those dreadfully heavy
+smells, and a longing for colour that would find expression in the
+planting of flowers.
+
+They gave their money willingly enough for the adornment of their
+chapel, for stained glass, incense, candles, and for music, and were it
+not for the services of the Church he didn't know into what barbarism
+the people mightn't have fallen: the tones of the organ sustaining clear
+voices of nuns singing a Mass by Mozart must sooner or later inspire
+belief in the friendliness of pure air and the beauty of flowers.
+Flowers are the only beautiful things within the reach of these poor
+people. Roses all may have, and it was pleasant to think that there is
+nothing more entirely natural or charming in the life of man than his
+love of flowers: it preceded his love of music; no doubt an appreciation
+of something better in the way of art than a jig played on the pipes
+would follow close on the purification of the home.
+
+Nora Glynn was beautiful, and her personality was winning and charming,
+her playing delightful, and her singing might have inspired the people
+to cultivate beauty. But she was going to the convent. The convent had
+gotten her. It was a pity. Mrs. O'Mara's scandalous stories, insinuating
+lies, had angered him till he could bear with her no longer, and he had
+put her out the door. He didn't believe that Eliza had ever said she
+could give Nora more than she was earning in Garranard. It mattered very
+little if she had, for it had so fallen out that she was going to get
+her. He begrudged them Nora. But Eliza was going to get her, and he'd
+have to make the best terms he could.
+
+But he could not constrain his thoughts to the present moment. They
+would go back to the fateful afternoon when he ran across the fields to
+ask Nora if what Mrs. O'Mara had said of her were true. If he had only
+waited! If she had come to him to confession on Saturday, as he expected
+she would! If something had prevented him from preaching on Sunday! A
+bad cold might have prevented him from speaking, and she might have gone
+away for a while, and, when her baby was born, she might have come back.
+It could have been easily arranged. But fate had ordered her life
+otherwise, and here he was in the Tinnick Convent, hoping to make her
+some poor amends for the wrong he had done her. Would Eliza help
+him?--that was the question he asked himself as he crossed the
+beeswaxed floor and stood looking at the late afternoon sunlight
+glancing through the trees, falling across the green sward.
+
+'How do you do, Oliver?'
+
+His face lighted up, but it changed expression and became gray again. He
+had expected to see Eliza, tall and thin, with yellow eyebrows and pale
+eyes. Hers was a good, clearly-cut face, like his own, whereas Mary's
+was quite different. Yet a family likeness stared through Mary's heavy
+white face. Her eyes were smaller than his, and she already began to
+raise them and lower them, and to look at him askance, in just the way
+he hated. Somehow or other she always contrived to make him feel
+uncomfortable, and the present occasion was no exception. She was
+already reproving him, hoping he was not disappointed at seeing her, and
+he had to explain that he expected to see Eliza, and that was why he
+looked surprised. She must not confuse surprise with disappointment. He
+was very glad to see her.
+
+'I know I am not as interesting as Eliza,' she began, 'but I thought you
+might like to see me, and if I hadn't come at once I shouldn't have had
+an opportunity of seeing you alone.'
+
+'She has something to confide,' Father Oliver said to himself, and he
+hoped that her confidences might be cut short by the timely arrival of
+Eliza.
+
+'Eliza is engaged at present. She told Sister Agatha to tell you that
+she would be with you presently. I met Sister Agatha in the passage, and
+said I would take the message myself. I suppose I oughtn't to have done
+so, but if I hadn't I shouldn't have had an opportunity of speaking with
+you.'
+
+'Why is that?'
+
+'I don't think she likes me to see you alone.'
+
+'My dear Mary!'
+
+'You don't know, Oliver, what it is to live in a convent, and your own
+sister the head of it.'
+
+'I should have thought, Mary, that it was especially pleasant, and that
+you were especially fortunate. And as for thinking that Eliza is not
+wishing you to see me alone, I am sure--'
+
+'You are sure I'm mistaken.'
+
+'What reason could she have?'
+
+'Eliza doesn't wish the affairs of the convent discussed. You know, I
+suppose, that the building of the new wing has put a burden of debt on
+the convent.'
+
+'I know that; so why should Eliza--'
+
+'Eliza tries to prevent my seeing any of the visitors. Now, do you think
+that quite right and fair towards one's sister?'
+
+Father Oliver tried to prevent himself from smiling, but he sympathized
+so entirely with Eliza's efforts to prevent Mary from discussing the
+affairs of the convent that he could hardly keep down the smile that
+rose to his lips. He could see Eliza's annoyance on coming into the
+parlour and finding Mary detailing all the gossip and confiding her own
+special woes, for the most part imaginary, to a visitor. Nor would Mary
+refrain from touching on the Reverend Mother's shortcomings. He was so
+much amused that he might have smiled if it had not suddenly come to his
+mind that Mary might leave the convent and insist on living with him;
+and a little scared he began to think of what he could say to pacify
+her, remembering in the midst of his confusion and embarrassment that
+Mary was professed last year, and therefore could not leave the convent;
+and this knowledge filled him with such joy that he could not keep back
+the words, but must remind his sister that she had had ample opportunity
+of considering if she were suited to the religious life.
+
+'You see, Mary, you should have thought of all this before you were
+professed.'
+
+'I shan't take my final vows till next year.'
+
+'But, my dear Mary, once a woman has taken the black veil ... it is the
+same thing, you know.'
+
+'Not quite, otherwise there would be no meaning in the delay.'
+
+'You don't mean to say that you're thinking of leaving the convent,
+Mary?'
+
+'Not exactly, but it is very hard on me, Oliver. I was thinking of
+writing to you, but I hoped that you would come to see us. You have been
+a long time now without coming.'
+
+'Well, Mary--'
+
+'Eliza loves ruling everybody, and just because I am her sister she is
+harder on me than anyone else. Only the other day she was furious with
+me because I stopped at confession a few minutes longer than usual. "I
+think," she said, "you might spare Father Higgins your silly scruples."
+Now, how is one to stop in a convent if one's own sister interferes in
+one's confessions?'
+
+'Well, Mary, what are you thinking of doing?'
+
+'There are some French nuns who have just come over and want to open a
+school, and are looking for Irish subjects. I was thinking they'd like
+to have me. You see, I wouldn't have to go through the novitiate again,
+for they want an experienced person to teach them English and to mind
+the school for them. It is really a mistake to be under one's own
+sister.'
+
+At that moment the door opened and Eliza came in, apologizing for having
+kept her brother so long waiting.
+
+'You see, my dear Oliver, I've had two mothers here this morning, and
+you know what parents are. I suppose Mary has told you about our
+difficulties. Now, do you mean to say that you have found a person who
+will suit us?... It is really very kind of you.'
+
+'I can't say for certain, Eliza. Of course, it is difficult for me to
+know exactly what you want, but, so far as I know, I think the person I
+have in my mind will suit you.'
+
+'But has she a diploma from the Academy? We must have a certificate.'
+
+'I think she'll suit you, but we'll talk about her presently. Don't you
+think we might go into the garden?'
+
+'Yes, it will be pleasanter in the garden. And you, Mary--you've had
+your little chat with Oliver.'
+
+'I was just going, Eliza. If I'd known that Oliver wanted to speak
+privately to you, I'd have gone sooner.'
+
+'No, no, I assure you, Mary.'
+
+Mary held out her hand to her brother, saying:
+
+'I suppose I shall not see you again, unless, perhaps, you're stopping
+the night with Father Higgins. It would be nice if you could do that.
+You could say Mass for us in the morning.'
+
+Father Oliver shook his head.
+
+'I'm afraid I must get back to-night.'
+
+'Well, then, good-bye.' And Mary went out of the room regretfully, like
+one who knows that the moment her back is turned all her faults will
+become the subject of conversation.
+
+'I hear from Mary that some French nuns are coming over, and want to
+open a school. I hope that won't interfere with yours, Eliza; you spent
+a great deal of money upon the new wing.'
+
+'It will interfere very much indeed; but I'm trying to get some of the
+nuns to come here, and I hope the Bishop will not permit a new
+foundation. It's very hard upon us Irish women if we are to be eaten out
+of house and home by pious foreigners. I'm in correspondence with the
+Bishop about it. As for Mary--'
+
+'You surely don't think she's going to leave?'
+
+'No, I don't suppose she'll leave; it would be easier for me if she did,
+but it would give rise to any amount of talk. And where would she go if
+she did leave, unless she lived with you?'
+
+'My house is too small; besides, she didn't speak of leaving, only that
+she hadn't yet taken her final vows. I explained that no one will
+distinguish between the black veil and final vows. Am I not right?'
+
+'I think those vows will take a great weight off your mind, Oliver. I
+wish I could say as much for myself.'
+
+The Reverend Mother opened a glass door, and brother and sister stood
+for some time admiring the flower vases that lined the terrace.
+
+'I can't get her to water the geraniums.'
+
+'If you'll tell me where I can get a can--'
+
+'You'll excuse me, Reverend Mother.'
+
+It was the Sister in charge of the laundry, and, seeing her crippled
+arm, Father Oliver remembered that her dress had become entangled in the
+machinery. He didn't know, however, that the fault lay with Mary, who
+was told off to watch the machinery and to stop it instantly in case of
+necessity.
+
+'She can't keep her attention fixed on anything, not even on her
+prayers, and what she calls piety I should call idleness. It's terrible
+to have to do with stupid women, and the convent is so full of them that
+I often wonder what is the good of having a convent at all.'
+
+'But, Eliza, you don't regret--'
+
+'No, of course I don't regret. I should do just the same again. But
+don't let us waste our time talking about vocations. I hear enough of
+that here. I want you to tell me about the music-mistress; that's what
+interests me.'
+
+And when Father Oliver had told her the whole story and showed her
+Father O'Grady's letter, she said:
+
+'You know I always thought you were a little hard on Miss Glynn. Father
+O'Grady's letter convinces me that you were.'
+
+'My dear Eliza, I don't want advice; I've suffered enough.'
+
+'Oliver dear, forgive me.' And the nun put out her hand to detain him.
+
+'Well, don't say again, Eliza, that you always thought. It's irritating,
+and it does no good.'
+
+'Her story is known, but she could live in the convent; that would
+shelter her from any sort of criticism. I don't see why she shouldn't
+take the habit of one of the postulants, but--'
+
+The priest waited for his sister to speak, and after waiting a little
+while he asked her what she was going to say.
+
+'I was going to ask you,' said the nun, waking from her reverie, 'if you
+have written to Miss Glynn.'
+
+'Yes, I wrote to her.'
+
+'And she's willing to come back?'
+
+'I haven't spoken to her about that. It didn't occur to me until
+afterwards, but I can write at once if you consent.'
+
+'I may be wrong, Oliver, but I don't think she'll care to leave London
+and come back here, where she is known.'
+
+'But, Eliza, a girl likes to live in her own country. Mind you, I am
+responsible. I drove her out of her country among strangers. She's
+living among Protestants.'
+
+'I don't think that will trouble her very much.'
+
+'I don't know why you say that, Eliza. Do you think that a woman cannot
+repent? that because she happens to have sinned once--'
+
+'No; I suppose there are repentant sinners, but I think we most often go
+on as we begin. Now, you see, Father O'Grady says that she's getting on
+very well in London, and we like to live among those who appreciate us.'
+
+'Well, Eliza, of course, if you start with the theory that no one can
+repent--'
+
+'I didn't say that, Oliver. But she wouldn't tell you who the man was.
+She seems a person of character--I mean, she doesn't seem to be lacking
+in strength of character.'
+
+'She's certainly a most excellent musician. You'll find no one like her,
+and you may be able to get her very cheap. And if your school doesn't
+pay--'
+
+A shade passed across the Reverend Mother's face.
+
+'There's no doubt that the new wing has cost us a great deal of money.'
+
+'Then there are the French nuns--'
+
+'My dear Oliver, if you wish me to engage Miss Glynn as music-mistress
+I'll do so. There's no use speaking to me about the French nuns. I'll
+engage her because you ask me, but I cannot pay her as much as those who
+have diplomas. How much do you think she'd come for?'
+
+'I don't know what she's earning in London, but I suppose you can pay
+her an average wage. You could pay her according to results.'
+
+'What you say is quite true, Oliver.' The priest and the nun continued
+their walk up and down in front of the unfinished building. 'But you
+don't know, Oliver, if she's willing to leave London. You'll have to
+write and find out.'
+
+'Very well, Eliza, I'll write. You'll be able to offer her as much as
+she was earning in my parish as schoolmistress. That's fifty pounds a
+year.'
+
+'It's more than we can afford, Oliver, but if you wish it.'
+
+'I do wish it, Eliza. Thank you. You've taken a great weight off my
+mind.'
+
+They passed into the house, and, stopping in front of the writing-table,
+the nun looked to see if there were paper and envelopes in the blotter.
+
+'You'll find everything you want, even sealing-wax,' she said. 'Now I'll
+leave you.'
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'TINNICK CONVENT,
+
+'_June 4, 19--_.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'I take it for granted that you received the letter I sent you two days
+ago, telling you how much I appreciated your kindness in asking Father
+O'Grady to write to tell me that you were quite safe and getting on
+well. Since writing that letter I feel more keenly than ever that I owe
+you reparation, for it was through an error of judgment on my part that
+you are now an exile from your own country. Everyone is agreed that I
+have committed an error of judgment. My sister, the Mother Superior of
+this convent from where I am writing, is of that opinion. The moment I
+mentioned your name she began, "I always thought that--" and I begged of
+her to spare me advice on the subject, saying that it was not for advice
+that I came to her, but to ask her to help me to make atonement, which
+she could do by engaging you to teach music in her convent. You see, I
+had heard that my sister was in a difficulty. The new wing is nearly
+completed, and she could get the best families in Ireland to send their
+daughters to be educated in her convent if she could provide sufficient
+musical instruction. I thought you might like to live in your own
+country, now that your thoughts have again turned towards God, and I can
+imagine the unpleasantness it must be to a Catholic to live in a
+Protestant country. I told my sister this, and she answered that if you
+wish to come over here, and if Father O'Grady advises it, she will take
+you as music-mistress. You will live in the convent. You can enter it,
+if you wish, as a postulant, or if you should remain an extern teacher
+the salary they will give you will be fifty pounds a year. I know you
+can make more than that in London, but you can live more cheaply here,
+and you will be among friends.
+
+'I shall be glad to hear from you on this subject.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P.'
+
+
+When he looked up, the darkness under the trees surprised him, and the
+geraniums so faintly red on the terrace, and his sister passing up and
+down like a phantom.
+
+'Eliza.'
+
+He heard her beads drop, and out of a loose sleeve a slim hand took the
+letter. There was not enough light in the room to read by, and she
+remained outside, leaning against the glass door.
+
+'You haven't written exactly the letter I should have written, but,
+then, we're quite different. I should have written a cold and more
+business-like letter.' His face changed expression, and she added: 'I'm
+sorry if I'm unsympathetic, Oliver.'
+
+The touch of her hand and the look in her eyes surprised him, for Eliza
+was not demonstrative, and he wondered what had called forth this sudden
+betrayal of feeling. He expected her to ask him not to send the letter,
+but instead of doing so she said:
+
+'If the letter were written otherwise it wouldn't be like yourself,
+Oliver. Send it, and if she leaves London and comes back here, I will
+think better of her. It will be proof that she has repented. I see
+you'll not have an easy mind until you make atonement. You exaggerate, I
+think; but everyone for himself in a matter like this.'
+
+'Thank you, Eliza. You always understand.'
+
+'Not always. I failed to understand when you wanted to set up a
+hermitage on Castle Island.'
+
+'Yes, you did; you have better sense than I. Yet I feel we are more
+alike than the others. You have counted for a great deal in my life,
+Eliza. Do you remember saying that you intended to be Reverend Mother?
+And now you are Reverend Mother.'
+
+'I don't think I said "I intended." But I felt that if I became a nun,
+one day or another I should be Reverend Mother; one knows most often
+than not what is going to happen--one's own fate, I mean.'
+
+'I wonder if Mary knows?'
+
+'If she does, I wish she'd tell us.'
+
+'We'll have time to walk round the garden once more. You have no idea
+what a pleasure it is for me to see you--to talk with you like this.'
+
+And, talking of Mary, they walked slowly, forgetful of everything but
+each other.
+
+A bell rang.
+
+'I must be going; it will be late before I get home.'
+
+'Which way are you going? Round by Kilronan or across the Bridge of
+Keel?'
+
+'I came by Kilronan. I think I'll take the other way. There will be a
+moon to-night.'
+
+Brother and sister entered the convent.
+
+'You'll enjoy the drive?'
+
+'Yes.' And he fell to thinking of the drive home by the southern road,
+the mountains unfolding their many aspects in the gray moonlight, and
+melting away in misty perspectives.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+_From Miss Nora Glynn to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+
+'4, WILSON STREET, LONDON,
+
+'_June_ 8, 19--,
+
+'FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'I did not answer your first letter because the letters that came into
+my mind to write, however they might begin, soon turned to bitterness,
+and I felt that writing bitter letters would not help me to forget the
+past. But your second letter with its proposal that I should return to
+Ireland to teach music in a convent school forces me to break silence,
+and it makes me regret that I gave Father O'Grady permission to write to
+you; he asked me so often, and his kindness is so winning, that I could
+not refuse him anything. He said you would certainly have begun to see
+that you had done me a wrong, and I often answered that I saw no reason
+why I should trouble to soothe your conscience. I do not wish to return
+to Ireland; I am, as Father O'Grady told you, earning my own living, my
+work interests me, and very soon I shall have forgotten Ireland. That is
+the best thing that can happen, that I should forget Ireland, and that
+you should forget the wrong you did me. Put the whole thing, and me,
+out of your mind; and now, good-bye, Father Gogarty.
+
+'NORA GLYNN.'
+
+
+'Good heavens! how she hates me, and she'll hate me till her dying day.
+She'll never forget. And this is the end of it, a bitter, unforgiving
+letter.' He sat down to think, and it seemed to him that she wouldn't
+have written this letter if she had known the agony of mind he had been
+through. But of this he wasn't sure. No, no; he could not believe her
+spiteful. And he walked up and down the room, trying to quell the
+bitterness rising up within him. No other priest would have taken the
+trouble; they would have just forgotten all about it, and gone about
+congratulating themselves on their wise administration. But he had acted
+rightly, Father O'Grady had approved of what he had done; and this was
+his reward. She'll never come back, and will never forgive him; and ever
+since writing to her he had indulged in dreams of her return to Ireland,
+thinking how pleasant it would be to go down to the lake in the
+mornings, and stand at the end of the sandy spit looking across the lake
+towards Tinnick, full of the thought that she was there with his sisters
+earning her living. She wouldn't be in his parish, but they'd have been
+friends, neighbours, and he'd have accepted the loss of his organist as
+his punishment. Eva Maguire was no good; there would never be any music
+worth listening to in his parish again. Such sternness as her letter
+betrayed was not characteristic of her; she didn't understand, and
+never would. Catherine's step awoke him; the awaking was painful, and he
+couldn't collect his thoughts enough to answer Catherine; and feeling
+that he must appear to her daft, he tried to speak, but his speech was
+only babble.
+
+'You haven't read your other letter, your reverence.'
+
+He recognized the handwriting; it was from Father O'Grady.
+
+
+_From Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'_June_ 8, 19--.
+
+'MY DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'I was very glad to hear that Miss Glynn told her story truthfully; for
+if she exaggerated or indulged in equivocation, it would be a great
+disappointment to me and to her friends, and would put me in a very
+difficult position, for I should have to tell certain friends of mine,
+to whom I recommended her, that she was not all that we imagined her to
+be. But all's well that ends well; and you will be glad to hear that I
+have appointed her organist in my church. It remains, therefore, only
+for me to thank you for your manly letter, acknowledging the mistake you
+have made.
+
+'I can imagine the anxiety it must have caused you, and the great relief
+it must have been to you to get my letter. Although Miss Glynn spoke
+with bitterness, she did not try to persuade me that you were naturally
+hard-hearted or cruel. The impression that her story left on my mind was
+that your allusions to her in your sermon were unpremeditated. Your
+letter is proof that I was not mistaken, and I am sure the lesson you
+have received will bear fruit. I trust that you will use your influence
+to restrain other priests from similar violence. It is only by
+gentleness and kindness that we can do good. I shall be glad to see you
+if you ever come to London.
+
+'I am, sir, 'Very sincerely yours, 'MICHAEL O'GRADY.'
+
+
+'All's well that ends well. So that's how he views it! A different point
+of view.' And feeling that he was betraying himself to Catherine, he put
+both letters into his pocket and went out of the house. But he had not
+gone many yards when he met a parishioner with a long story to tell,
+happily not a sick call, only a dispute about land. So he invented an
+excuse postponing his intervention until the morrow, and when he
+returned home tired with roaming, he stopped on his door-step. 'The
+matter is over now, her letter is final,' he said. But he awoke in a
+different mood next morning; everything appeared to him in a different
+light, and he wondered, surprised to find that he could forget so
+easily; and taking her letter out of his pocket, he read it again. 'It's
+a hard letter, but she's a wise woman. Much better for us both to forget
+each other. "Good-bye, Father Gogarty," she said; "Good-bye, Nora
+Glynn," say I.' And he walked about his garden tending his flowers,
+wondering at his light-heartedness.
+
+She thought of her own interests, and would get on very well in London,
+and Father O'Grady had been lucky too. Nora was an excellent organist.
+But if he went to London he would meet her. A meeting could hardly be
+avoided--and after that letter! Perhaps it would be wiser if he didn't
+go to London. What excuse? O'Grady would write again. He had been so
+kind. In any case he must answer his letter, and that was vexatious. But
+was he obliged to answer it? O'Grady wouldn't misunderstand his silence.
+But there had been misunderstandings enough; and before he had walked
+the garden's length half a dozen conclusive reasons for writing occurred
+to him. First of all Father O'Grady's kindness in writing to ask him to
+stay with him, added to which the fact that Nora would, of course, tell
+Father O'Grady she had been invited to teach in the convent; her vanity
+would certainly urge her to do this, and Heaven only knows what account
+she would give of his proposal. There would be his letter, but she
+mightn't show it. So perhaps on the whole it would be better that he
+should write telling O'Grady what had happened. And after his dinner as
+he sat thinking, a letter came into his mind; the first sentences
+formulated themselves so suddenly that he was compelled to go to his
+writing-table.
+
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Father O'Grady._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_June_ 12, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER O'GRADY,
+
+'I enclose a letter which I received three days ago from Miss Nora
+Glynn, and I think you will agree with me that the letter is a harsh
+one, and that, all things considered, it would have been better if she
+had stinted herself to saying that I had committed an error of judgment
+which she forgave. She did not, however, choose to do this. As regards
+my sister's invitation to her to come over here to teach, she was, of
+course, quite right to consider her own interests. She can make more
+money in London than she could in Ireland. I forgot that she couldn't
+bring her baby with her, remembering only that my eldest sister is
+Mother Abbess in the Tinnick Convent--a very superior woman, if I may
+venture to praise my own sister. The convent was very poor at one time,
+but she has made the school a success, and, hearing that she wanted
+someone who would teach music and singing, I proposed to her that she
+should engage Miss Glynn, with whose story she was already acquainted.
+She did not think that Miss Glynn would return to Ireland; and in this
+opinion she showed her good judgment. She was always a wonderful judge
+of character. But she could see that I was anxious to atone for any
+wrong that I might have done Miss Glynn, and after some hesitation she
+consented, saying: "Well, Oliver, if you wish it."
+
+'Miss Glynn did not accept the proposal, and I suppose that the episode
+now ends so far as I am concerned. She has fallen into good hands; she
+is making her living, thanks to your kindness. But I dare not think what
+might not have happened if she had not met you. Perhaps when you have
+time you will write again; I shall be glad to hear if she succeeds in
+improving your choir. My conscience is now at rest; there is a term,
+though it may not be at the parish boundary, when our responsibility
+ceases.
+
+'Thanking you again, and hoping one of these days to have the pleasure
+of making your acquaintance,
+
+'I am very truly yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+_From Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'_June_ 18, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'Thank you for sending me Miss Glynn's letter, and I agree with you when
+you describe it as harsh; but I understand it in a way. Miss Glynn came
+over to London almost penniless, and expecting the birth of her
+illegitimate child. She suffered all that a woman suffers in such
+circumstances. I do not want to harass you unnecessarily by going over
+it all again, but I do wish you to forgive her somewhat intemperate
+letter. I'll speak to her about it, and I am sure she will write to you
+in a more kindly spirit later on; meanwhile, rest assured that she is
+doing well, and not forgetful of the past. I shall try to keep a
+watchful eye over her, seeing that she attends to her duties every
+month; there is no better safeguard. But in truth I have no fear for
+her, and am unable to understand how she could have been guilty of so
+grave a sin, especially in Ireland. She seems here most circumspect,
+even strict, in her manner. She is an excellent musician, and has
+improved my choir. I have been tempted to comply with her request and
+spend some more money upon the singing....
+
+'While writing these lines I was interrupted. My servant brought me a
+letter from Miss Glynn, telling me that a great chance had come her way.
+It appears that Mr. Walter Poole, the father of one of her pupils, has
+offered her the post of secretaryship, and she would like to put into
+practice the shorthand and typewriting that she has been learning for
+the last six months. Her duties, she says, will be of a twofold nature:
+she will help Mr. Poole with his literary work and she will also give
+music lessons to his daughter Edith. Mr. Poole lives in Berkshire, and
+wants her to come down at once, which means she will have to leave me in
+the lurch. "You will be without an organist," she writes, "and will have
+to put up with Miss Ellen McGowan until you can get a better. She may
+improve--I hope and think she will; and I'm sorry to give trouble to one
+who has been so kind to me, but, you see, I have a child to look after,
+and it is difficult to make both ends meet on less than three pounds a
+week. More money I cannot hope to earn in my present circumstances; I am
+therefore going down to Berkshire to-morrow, so I shall not see you
+again for some time. Write and tell me you are not angry with me."
+
+'On receiving this letter, I went round to Miss Glynn's lodgings, and
+found her in the midst of her packing. We talked a long while, and very
+often it seemed to me that I was going to persuade her, but when it came
+to the point she shook her head. Offer her more money I could not, but I
+promised to raise her wages to two pounds a week next year if it were
+possible to do so. I don't think it is the money; I think it is change
+that tempts her. Well, it tempts us all, and though I am much
+disappointed at losing her, I cannot be angry with her, for I cannot
+forget that I often want change myself, and the longing to get out of
+London is sometimes almost irresistible. I do not know your part of the
+country, but I do know what an Irish lake is like, and I often long to
+see one again. And very often, I suppose, you would wish to exchange the
+romantic solitude of your parish for the hurly-burly of a town, and for
+its thick, impure air you would be willing--for a time only, of
+course--to change the breezes of your mountain-tops.
+
+'Very truly yours,
+
+'MICHAEL O'GRADY.'
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Father O'Grady._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_June_ 22, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER O'GRADY,
+
+'No sooner had I begun to feel easier in my conscience and to dream that
+my responsibilities were at an end than your letter comes, and I am
+thrown back into all my late anxieties regarding Nora Glynn's future,
+for which I am and shall always be responsible.
+
+'It was my words that drove her out of Ireland into a great English city
+in which some dreadful fate of misery and death might have befallen her
+if you had not met her. But God is good, and he sent you to her, and
+everything seems to have happened for the best. She was in your hands,
+and I felt safe. But now she has taken her life into her own hands
+again, thinking she can manage it without anybody's help!
+
+'The story you tell seems simple enough, but it doesn't sound all right.
+Why should she go away to Berkshire to help Mr. Walter Poole with his
+literature without giving you longer notice? It seems strange to write
+to one who has taken all the trouble you have to find her work--"I have
+discovered a post that suits me better and am going away to-morrow." Of
+course she has her child to think of. But have you made inquiries? I
+suppose you must have done. You would not let her go away to a man of
+whom you know nothing. She says that he is the father of one of her
+pupils. But she doesn't know him, yet she is going to live in his house
+to help him with his literature. Have you inquired, dear Father O'Grady,
+what this man's writings are, if he is a Catholic or a Protestant? I
+should not like Miss Nora Glynn to go into a Protestant household, where
+she would hear words of disrespect for the religion she has been brought
+up in.
+
+'As I write I ask myself if there is a Catholic chapel within walking
+distance; and if there isn't, will he undertake to send her to Mass
+every Sunday? I hope you have made all these inquiries, and if you have
+not made them, will you make them at once and write to me and relieve my
+anxiety? You are aware of the responsibilities I have incurred and will
+appreciate the anxiety that I feel.
+
+'Yours very sincerely,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+It seemed to Father Oliver so necessary that Father O'Grady should get
+his letter as soon as possible that he walked to Bohola; but soon after
+dropping the letter in the box he began to think that he might have
+written more judiciously, and on his way home he remembered that he had
+told Father O'Grady, and very explicitly, that he should have made
+inquiries regarding Mr. Walter Poole's literature before he allowed Nora
+Glynn to go down to Berkshire to help him with his literary work. Of
+course he hoped, and it was only natural that he should hope, that
+Father O'Grady had made all reasonable inquiries; but it seemed to him
+now that he had expressed himself somewhat peremptorily. Father O'Grady
+was an old man--how old he did not know--but himself was a young man,
+and he did not know in what humour Father O'Grady might read his letter.
+If the humour wasn't propitious he might understand it as an
+impertinence. It vexed him that he had shown so much agitation, and he
+stopped to think. But it was so natural that he should be concerned
+about Nora Glynn. All the same, his anxiety might strike Father O'Grady
+as exaggerated. A temperate letter, he reflected, is always better; and
+the evening was spent in writing another letter to Father O'Grady, a
+much longer one, in which he thanked Father O'Grady for asking him to
+come to see him if he should ever find himself in London. 'Of course,'
+he wrote, 'I shall be only too pleased to call on you, and no doubt we
+shall have a great deal to talk about--two Irishmen always have; and
+when I feel the need of change imminent, I will try to go to London,
+and do you, Father O'Grady, when you need a change, come to Ireland. You
+write: "I do not know your part of the country, but I know what an Irish
+lake is like, and I often long to see one again." Well, come and see my
+lake; it's very beautiful. Woods extend down to the very shores with
+mountain peaks uplifting behind the woods, and on many islands there are
+ruins of the castles of old time. Not far from my house it narrows into
+a strait, and after passing this strait it widens out into what might
+almost be called another lake. We are trying to persuade the Government
+to build a bridge, but it is difficult to get anything done. My
+predecessor and myself have been in correspondence on this subject with
+the Board of Works; it often seems as if success were about to come, but
+it slips away, and everything has to be begun again. I should like to
+show you Kilronan Abbey, an old abbey unroofed by Cromwell. The people
+have gone there for centuries, kneeling in the snow and rain. We are
+sadly in need of subscription. Perhaps one of these days you will be
+able to help us; but I shall write again on this subject, and as soon as
+I can get a photograph of the abbey I will send it.
+
+'Yours very sincerely,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+'Now, what will Father O'Grady answer to all this?' he said under his
+breath as he folded up his letter. 'A worthy soul, an excellent soul,
+there's no doubt about that.' And he began to feel sorry for Father
+O'Grady. But his sorrow was suddenly suspended. If he went to London he
+wouldn't be likely to see her. 'Another change,' he said; 'things are
+never the same for long. A week ago I knew where she was; I could see
+her in her surroundings. Berkshire is not very far from London. But who
+is Mr. Poole?' And he sat thinking.
+
+A few days after he picked up a letter from his table from Father
+O'Grady, a long garrulous letter, four pages about Kilronan Abbey, Irish
+London, convent schools--topics interesting enough in themselves, but
+lacking in immediate interest. The letter contained only three lines
+about her. That Mr. Poole explained everything to her, and that she
+liked her work. The letter dropped from his hand; the hand that had held
+the letter fell upon his knee, and Father Oliver sat looking through the
+room. Awaking suddenly, he tried to remember what he had been thinking
+about, for he had been thinking a long while; but he could not recall
+his thoughts, and went to his writing-table and began a long letter
+telling Father O'Grady about Kilronan Abbey and enclosing photographs.
+And then, feeling compelled to bring himself into as complete union as
+possible with his correspondent, he sat, pen in hand, uncertain if he
+should speak of Nora at all. The temptation was by him, and he found
+excuse in the thought that after all she was the link; without her he
+would not have known Father O'Grady. And so convinced was he of this
+that when he mentioned her he did so on account of a supposed obligation
+to sympathize once again with Father O'Grady's loss of his organist.
+His letter rambled on about the Masses Nora used to play best and the
+pieces she used to sing.
+
+A few days after he caught sight of her handwriting on his
+breakfast-table, and he sat reading the letter, to Catherine's
+annoyance, who said the rashers were getting cold.
+
+
+_From Miss Nora Glynn to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'BEECHWOOD HALL, BERKSHIRE,
+
+'_July_ 20, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'One is not always in a mood to give credit to others for good
+intentions, especially when one returns home at the close of day
+disappointed, and I wrote a hard, perhaps a cruel, letter; but I'm
+feeling differently now. The truth is that your letter arrived at an
+unfortunate moment when things were going badly with me.'
+
+'I'm forgiven,' Father Oliver cried--'I'm forgiven;' and his joy was so
+great that the rest of the letter seemed unnecessary, but he continued
+to read:
+
+'Father O'Grady has no doubt told you that I have given up my post of
+organist in his church, Mr. Poole having engaged me to teach his
+daughter music and to act as his secretary. In a little letter which I
+received about a fortnight ago from him he told me he had written to
+you, and it appears that you have recovered from your scruples of
+conscience, and have forgotten the wrong you did me; but if I know you
+at all, you are deceiving yourself. You will never forget the wrong you
+did me. But I shall forget. I am not sure that it has not already passed
+out of my mind. This will seem contradictory, for didn't I say that I
+couldn't forget your cruelty in my first letter? I wonder if I meant it
+when I wrote, "Put the whole thing and me out of your mind...." I
+suppose I did at the time, and yet I doubt it. Does anyone want to be
+forgotten utterly?
+
+'I should have written to you before, but we have been busy. Mr. Poole's
+book has been promised by the end of the year. It's all in type, but he
+is never satisfied. To-day he has gone to London to seek information
+about the altars of the early Israelites. It's a wonderful book, but I
+cannot write about it to-day; the sun is shining, the country is looking
+lovely, and my pupil is begging me to finish my letter and go out with
+her.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'NORA GLYNN.'
+
+
+'So forgiveness has come at last,' he said; and as he walked along the
+shore he fell to thinking that very soon all her life in Garranard would
+be forgotten. 'She seems interested in her work,' he muttered; and his
+mind wandered over the past, trying to arrive at a conclusion, if there
+was or was not a fundamental seriousness in her character, inclining on
+the whole to think there was, for if she was not serious fundamentally,
+she would not have been chosen by Mr. Poole for his secretary. 'My
+little schoolmistress, the secretary of a great scholar! How very
+extraordinary! But why is it extraordinary? When will she write again?'
+And every night he wished for the dawn, and every morning he asked if
+there were any letters for him. 'No, your reverence, no letters this
+morning;' and when Catherine handed him some envelopes they only
+contained bills or uninteresting letters from the parishioners or
+letters from the Board of Works about the bridge in which he could no
+longer feel any interest whatever.
+
+At last he began to think he had said something to offend her, and to
+find out if this were so he would have to write to Father O'Grady
+telling him that Miss Glynn had written saying she had forgiven him. Her
+forgiveness had brought great relief; but Miss Glynn said in her letter
+that she was alone in Berkshire, Mr. Poole having gone to London to seek
+information regarding the altars of the early Israelites.
+
+
+_From Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'_August_ 1, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'I am sorry I cannot give you the information you require regarding the
+nature of Mr. Poole's writings, and if I may venture to advise you, I
+will say that I do not think any good will come to her by your inquiry
+into the matter. She is one of those women who resent all control; and,
+if I may judge from a letter she wrote to me the other day, she is bent
+now on educating herself regardless of the conclusions to which her
+studies may lead her. I shall pray for her, and that God may watch over
+and guide her is my hope. I am sure it is yours too. She is in God's
+hands, and we can do nothing to help her. I am convinced of that, and it
+would be well for you to put her utterly out of your mind.
+
+'I am, very truly yours,
+
+'MICHAEL O'GRADY.'
+
+
+'Put her utterly out of my mind,' Father Oliver cried aloud; 'now what
+does he mean by that?' And he asked himself if this piece of advice was
+Father O'Grady's attempt to get even with him for having told him that
+he should have informed himself regarding Mr. Poole's theological
+opinions before permitting her to go down to Berkshire.
+
+It did not seem to him that Father O'Grady would stoop to such meanness,
+but there seemed to be no other explanation, and he fell to thinking of
+what manner of man was Father O'Grady--an old man he knew him to be, and
+from the tone of his letters he had judged him a clever man, experienced
+in the human weakness and conscience. But this last letter! In what
+light was he to read it? Did O'Grady fail to understand that there is no
+more intimate association than that of an author and his secretary. If
+we are to believe at all in spiritual influences--and who denies
+them?--can we minimize these? On his way to the writing-table he
+stopped. Mr. Poole's age--what was it? He imagined him about sixty. 'It
+is at that age,' he said, 'that men begin to think about the altars of
+the early Israelites,' and praying at intervals that he might be
+seventy, he wrote a short note thanking Father O'Grady for his advice
+and promising to bear it in mind. He did not expect to get an answer,
+nor did he wish for an answer; for he had begun to feel that he and
+Father O'Grady had drifted apart, and had no further need one for the
+other.
+
+'Are there no letters this morning?' he asked Catherine.
+
+'None, sir. You haven't had one from London for a long time.'
+
+He turned away. 'An intolerable woman--intolerable! I shall be obliged
+to make a change soon,' he said, turning away so that Catherine should
+not see the annoyance that he felt on his face.
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_August_ 6, 19--.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'You said in your very kind letter, which I received a fortnight ago,
+and which I answered hastily, that on some future occasion you would
+perhaps tell me about the book Mr. Poole is writing. I wonder if this
+occasion will ever arise, and, if so, if it be near or far--near, I
+hope, for interested as I naturally am in your welfare, I have begun to
+feel some anxiety regarding this book. On the day that--'
+
+
+'Father O'Grady, your reverence.' Father Oliver laid his letter aside,
+and then hid it in the blotter, regretting his haste and his fumbling
+hands, which perhaps had put the thought into O'Grady's mind that the
+letter was to Nora. And so he came forward faintly embarrassed to meet a
+small pale man, whom he judged to be seventy or thereabouts, coming
+forward nimbly, bent a little, with a long, thin arm and bony hand
+extended in a formal languor of welcome. A little disappointing was the
+first moment, but it passed away quickly, and when his visitor was
+seated Father Oliver noticed a large nose rising out of the pallor and
+on either side of it dim blue eyes and some long white locks.
+
+'You're surprised to see me,' Father O'Grady said in a low, winning
+voice. 'Of course you're surprised--how could it be otherwise? but I
+hope you're glad.'
+
+'Very glad,' Father Oliver answered. 'Glad, very glad,' he repeated; and
+begged his visitor to allow him to help him off with his overcoat.
+
+'How pleasant,' Father O'Grady said, as soon as he was back in the
+armchair, as if he felt that the duty fell upon him to find a
+conversation that would help them across the first five minutes--'how
+pleasant it is to see a turf fire again! The turf burns gently, mildly,
+a much pleasanter fire than coal; the two races express themselves in
+their fires.'
+
+'Oh, we're fiery enough over here,' Father Oliver returned; and the
+priests laughed.
+
+'I did not feel that I was really in Ireland,' Father O'Grady continued,
+'till I saw the turf blazing and falling into white ash. You see I
+haven't been in Ireland for many years.'
+
+Father Oliver threw some more sods of turf into the grate, saying: 'I'm
+glad, Father O'Grady, that you enjoy the fire, and I'm indeed glad to
+see you. I was just thinking--'
+
+'Of me?' Father O'Grady asked, raising his Catholic eyes.
+
+The interruption was a happy one, for Father Oliver would have found
+himself embarrassed to finish the sentence he had begun. For he would
+not have liked to have admitted that he had just begun a letter to Nora
+Glynn, to say, 'There it is on the table.' Father O'Grady's interruption
+gave him time to revise his sentence.
+
+'Yes, I was thinking of you, Father O'Grady. Wondering if I might dare
+to write to you again.'
+
+'But why should you be in doubt?' Father O'Grady asked; and then,
+remembering a certain asperity in Father Oliver's last letter, he
+thought it prudent to change the conversation. 'Well, here I am and
+unexpected, but, apparently, welcome.'
+
+'Very welcome,' Father Oliver murmured.
+
+'I'm glad of that,' the old man answered; 'and now to my story.' And he
+told how a variety of little incidents had come about, enabling him to
+spend his vacation in Ireland. 'A holiday is necessary for every man.
+And, after all, it is as easy to go from London to Ireland as it is to
+go to Margate, and much more agreeable. But I believe you are
+unacquainted with London, and Margate is doubtless unknown to you. Well,
+I don't know that you've missed much;' and he began to tell of the month
+he had spent wandering in the old country, and how full of memories he
+had found it--all sorts of ideas and associations new and old. 'Maybe it
+was you that beguiled me to Ireland; if so, I ought to thank you for a
+very pleasant month's holiday. Now I'm on my way home, and finding that
+I could fit in the railway journey I went to Tinnick, and I couldn't go
+to Tinnick without driving over to Garranard.'
+
+'I should think not, indeed,' Father Oliver answered quickly. 'It was
+very good of you to think of me, to undertake the journey to Tinnick and
+the long drive from Tinnick over here.'
+
+'One should never be praised for doing what is agreeable to one to do. I
+liked you from your letters; you're like your letters, Father Oliver--at
+least I think you are.'
+
+'I'm certain you're like yours,' Father Oliver returned, 'only I
+imagined you to speak slower.'
+
+'A mumbling old man,' Father O'Grady interjected.
+
+'You know I don't mean that,' Father Oliver replied, and there was a
+trace of emotion in his voice.
+
+'It was really very good of you to drive over from Tinnick. You say that
+you only undertook the journey because it pleased you to do so. If that
+philosophy were accepted, there would be no difference between a good
+and an evil action; all would be attributed to selfishness.' He was
+about to add: 'This visit is a kindness that I did not expect, and one
+which I certainly did not deserve;' but to speak these words would
+necessitate an apology for the rudeness he felt he was guilty of in his
+last letter, and the fact that he knew that Father O'Grady had come to
+talk to him about Nora increased his nervousness. But their talk
+continued in commonplace and it seemed impossible to lift it out of the
+rut. Father O'Grady complimented Father Oliver on his house and Oliver
+answered that it was Peter Conway that built it, and while praising its
+comfort, he enlarged on the improvements that had been made in the
+houses occupied by priests.
+
+'Yes, indeed,' Father O'Grady answered, 'the average Irish priest lived
+in my time in a cottage not far removed from those the peasants lived
+in. All the same, there was many a fine scholar among them. Virgil,
+Horace, Ovid, Catullus, Cicero in the bookcases. Do you ever turn to
+these books? Do you like reading Latin?'
+
+And Father Oliver replied that sometimes he took down his Virgil. 'I
+look into them all sometimes,' he added.
+
+'And you still read Latin, classical Latin, easily?' Father O'Grady
+inquired.
+
+'Fairly,' Father Oliver replied; 'I read without turning to the
+dictionary, though I often come to words I have never seen or have
+forgotten the meaning of. I read on. The Latin poets are more useful
+than the English to me.'
+
+'More useful?' Father O'Grady repeated.
+
+'More useful,' Father Oliver rejoined, 'if your object is a new point of
+view, and one wants that sometimes, living alone in the silent country.
+One sometimes feels frightened sitting by the fire all alone listening
+to the wind. I said just now that I was thinking of you. I often think
+of you, Father O'Grady, and envy you your busy parish. If I ever find
+myself in London I shall go for long tram drives, and however sordid the
+district I shall view the dim congregation of houses with pleasure and
+rejoice in the hub of the streets.'
+
+'You would soon weary of London, I promise you that, Father Oliver.'
+
+'A promise for which it would be an affectation to thank you,' Father
+Oliver answered. And Father O'Grady spoke of the miles and miles of
+docks.
+
+'The great murky Thames,' he said, 'wearies, but it is very wonderful.
+Ah, Landor's "Hellenics" in the original Latin: how did that book come
+here?'
+
+'A question I've often asked myself,' Father Oliver returned. 'A most
+intellectual volume it is to find in the house of an Irish priest. Books
+travel, and my predecessor, Father Peter, is the last man in the world
+who would have cared to spend an hour on anything so literary as Landor.
+He used to read the newspaper--all the newspapers he could get hold of.'
+
+Father Peter's personality did not detain them long, and feeling
+somewhat ashamed of their inability to talk naturally, without thinking
+of what they were to say next, Father O'Grady ventured to doubt if
+Horace would approve of Landor's Latin and of the works written in
+comparatively modern times. Buchanan, for instance. At last the
+conversation became so trite and wearisome that Father O'Grady began to
+feel unable to continue it any longer.
+
+'You've a nice garden, Father Oliver.'
+
+'You'd like to see my garden?' Father Oliver asked, very much relieved
+at having escaped from Buchanan so easily. And the two priests went out,
+each hoping that the other would break the ice; and to encourage Father
+Oliver to break it, Father O'Grady mentioned that he was going back that
+evening to Tinnick--a remark that was intended to remind Father Oliver
+that the time was passing by. Father Oliver knew that the time for
+speaking of her was passing by, but he could not bring himself to speak,
+and instead he tried to persuade Father O'Grady to stay to dinner, but
+he could not be persuaded; and they walked to and fro, talking about
+their different parishes, Father O'Grady asking Father Oliver questions
+about his school and his church. And when Father O'Grady had contributed
+a great deal of unnecessary information, he questioned Father O'Grady
+about his parish, and gained much information regarding the difficulties
+that a Catholic priest met with in London, till religion became as
+wearisome as the Latin language. At last it suddenly struck Father
+Oliver that if he allowed the talk to continue regarding the
+difficulties of the Catholic priest in London, Father O'Grady might
+speak of girls that had been driven out of Ireland by the priests, to
+become prostitutes in London. A talk on this subject would be too
+painful, and to escape from it he spoke of the beauty of the trees about
+the garden and the flowers in the garden, calling Father O'Grady's
+attention to the chrysanthemums, and, not willing to be outdone in
+horticulture, the London priest began to talk about the Japanese mallow
+in his garden, Father Oliver listening indifferently, saying, when it
+came to him to make a remark, that the time had come to put in the
+bulbs.
+
+'Miss Glynn was very fond of flowers,' he said Suddenly, 'and she
+helped me with my garden; it was she who told me to plant roses in that
+corner, and to cover the wall with rambling robin. Was it not a very
+pretty idea to cover that end of the garden with rambling roses?'
+
+'It was indeed. She is a woman of great taste in music and in many other
+things. She must have regretted your garden.'
+
+'Why do you think she regretted my garden?' Father Oliver asked.
+
+'Because she always regretted that mine wasn't larger. She helped me
+with my garden;' and feeling that they had at last got into a
+conversation that was full of interest for them both, Father Oliver
+said:
+
+'Shall we go into the house? We shall be able to talk more agreeably by
+the fireside.'
+
+'I should like to get back to that turf fire; for it is the last that I
+shall probably see. Let us get back to it.'
+
+'I'm quite agreeable to return to the fire. Catherine will bring in the
+tea presently.'
+
+And as soon as they were back in the parlour, Father Oliver said:
+
+'Father O'Grady, that is your chair. It was very good of you to take the
+trouble to drive over.'
+
+'I wished to make my correspondent's acquaintance,' Father O'Grady
+murmured; 'and there is much that it is difficult to put down on paper
+without creating a wrong impression, whereas in talk one is present to
+rectify any mistakes one may drop into. I am thinking now of the last
+subject dealt with in our correspondence, that I should have informed
+myself regarding Mr. Poole's writing before I consented to allow Nora
+Glynn to accept the post of secretary.'
+
+'You must forgive me, Father O'Grady,' Father Oliver cried.
+
+'There is nothing to forgive, Father Oliver; but this criticism
+surprised me, for you have known Miss Nora Glynn longer than I have, and
+it seems strange that you should have forgotten already her
+steadfastness. Nothing that I could have said would have availed, and it
+seems to me that you were mistaken in asking me to urge Miss Glynn to
+decline the chance of improving her circumstances. I could not compel
+Miss Glynn even if I had wished to compel her. But we have discussed
+that question; let it pass.'
+
+'All the same,' Father Oliver interjected, 'if one sees a woman going
+into danger, surely one may warn her. A word of warning dropped casually
+is sometimes effective.'
+
+'But it is fatal to insist,' Father O'Grady remarked; 'and one should
+not try to bar the way--that is my experience at least.'
+
+'Well, your experiences are longer than mine, Father O'Grady, I submit.
+The mistake I made will certainly not be repeated. But since hearing
+from you I've heard from Miss Glynn, and the remarks she makes in her
+letters about Mr. Poole's literary work, unless indeed he be a Catholic,
+alarm me.'
+
+'Biblical criticism is not a Catholic characteristic,' Father O'Grady
+answered. 'So Miss Glynn has written to you?'
+
+'Yes, but nothing definite about Mr. Poole's work--nothing definite. Do
+you know anything, Father O'Grady, about this man's writing? What is his
+reputation in the literary world?'
+
+'I've heard a great deal about him,' Father O'Grady answered. 'I've made
+inquiries and have read some of Mr. Poole's books, and have seen them
+reviewed in the newspapers; I've heard his opinions discussed, and his
+opinions are anti-Christian, inasmuch as he denies the divinity of our
+Lord.'
+
+'Could anybody be more anti-Christian than that?' Father Oliver asked.
+
+'Yes, very much more,' Father O'Grady replied. 'There have always been
+people, and their number is increasing, who say that Christianity is not
+only untruthful but, what is worse, a great evil, having set men one
+against the other, creating wars innumerable. Millions have owed their
+deaths to tortures they have received because they differed regarding
+some trifling passage in Scripture. There can be no doubt of that, but
+it is equally true that Christianity has enabled many more millions to
+live as much from a practical point of view as from a spiritual. If
+Christianity had not been a necessity it would not have triumphed;' and
+Father O'Grady continued to speak of Mr. Poole's historical accounts of
+the history of the rise and influence of Christianity till Father Oliver
+interrupted him, crying out:
+
+'And it is with that man her life will henceforth be passed, reading the
+books he reads and writes, and, what is worse, listening to his
+insidious conversation, to his subtle sophistries, for, no doubt, he is
+an eloquent and agreeable talker.'
+
+'You think, then,' Father O'Grady said, 'that a Christian forfeits his
+faith if he inquires?'
+
+'No, if I thought that I should cease to be a Christian. She is not
+inquiring the matter out of her own account; she is an enforced
+listener, and hears only one side. Every day a plausible account is
+being poured into her ears, and her circumstances are such as would
+tempt her to give a willing ear to Mr. Poole's beliefs that God has not
+revealed his existence, and that we are free to live as we please,
+nature being our only guide. I cannot imagine a young woman living in a
+more dangerous atmosphere than this.
+
+'All you tell me, Father O'Grady, frightens me. I discovered my
+suspicions to you in my letters, but I can express myself better in
+talking than on paper--far better. It is only now that I realize how
+wrongly I acted towards this young woman. I was frightened in a measure
+before, but the reality of my guilt has never appeared so distinctly to
+me till now. You have revealed it to me, and I'm thinking now of what
+account I could give to God were I to die to-morrow. "Thou hast caused a
+soul to be lost," he would say. "The sins of the flesh are transitory
+like the flesh, the sins of the faith are deeper," may be God's
+judgment. Father O'Grady, I'm frightened, frightened; my fear is great,
+and at this moment I feel like a man on his deathbed. My agony is worse,
+for I'm in good health and can see clearly, whereas the dying man
+understands little. The senses numb as death approaches.'
+
+'Have you spoken of the mistake you made in confession, Father Oliver?'
+
+'No, why should I?' he answered, 'for none here would understand me. But
+I'll confess to you. You may have been sent to hear me. Who knows? Who
+can say?' and he dropped on his knees crying: 'Can I be forgiven if that
+soul be lost to God? Tell me if such a sin can be forgiven?'
+
+'We must not fall into the sin of despair,' Father O'Grady answered. And
+he murmured the Latin formula _Absolve te_, etc., making the sign of the
+cross over the head of his penitent. For a while after the priests knelt
+together in prayer, and it was with a feeling that his burden had been
+lifted from him that Father Oliver rose from his knees, and, subdued in
+body and mind, stood looking through the room, conscious of the green
+grass showing through his window, lighted by a last ray of the setting
+sun. It was the wanness of this light that put the thought into his mind
+that it would soon be time to send round to the stables for his
+visitor's car. His visitor! That small, frail man sitting in his
+armchair would soon be gone, carrying with him this, Father Oliver's,
+confession. What had he confessed? Already he had forgotten, and both
+men stood face to face thinking of words wherewith they might break the
+silence.
+
+'I do not know,' Father O'Grady said, 'that I altogether share your fear
+that an anti-Christian atmosphere necessarily implies that the Catholic
+who comes into it will lose her faith, else faith would not be a pure
+gift from God. God doesn't overload his creatures unbearably, nor does
+he put any stress upon them from which they cannot extricate themselves.
+I could cite many instances of men and women whose faith has been
+strengthened by hostile criticism; the very arguments that have been
+urged against their faith have forced them to discover other arguments,
+and in this way they have been strengthened in their Catholic
+convictions.' And to Father Oliver's question if he discerned any other
+influence except an intellectual influence in Mr. Poole, he answered
+that he had not considered this side of the question.
+
+'I don't know what manner of man he is in his body,' said Father Oliver,
+'but his mind is more dangerous. An intellectual influence is always
+more dangerous than a sensual influence, and the sins of faith are worse
+than the sins of the flesh. I never thought of him as a possible
+seducer. But there may be that danger too. I still think, Father
+O'Grady, that you might have warned Nora of her danger. Forgive me; I'm
+sure you did all that was necessary. You do forgive me?'
+
+The men's eyes met, and Father O'Grady said, as if he wished to change
+the subject:
+
+'You were born at Tinnick, were you not?'
+
+'Yes, I was born in Tinnick,' Father Oliver repeated mechanically,
+almost as if he had not heard the question.
+
+'And your sisters are nuns?'
+
+'Yes, yes.'
+
+'Tell me how it all came about.'
+
+'How all what came about?' Father Oliver asked, for he was a little
+dazed and troubled in his mind, and was, therefore, easily led to relate
+the story of the shop in Tinnick, his very early religious enthusiasms,
+and how he remembered himself always as a pious lad. On looking into the
+years gone by, he said that he saw himself more often than not by his
+bedside rapt in innocent little prayers. And afterwards at school he had
+been considered a pious lad. He rambled on, telling his story almost
+unconsciously, getting more thoughtful as he advanced into it, relating
+carefully the absurd episode of the hermitage in which, to emulate the
+piety of the old time, he chose Castle Island as a suitable spot for him
+to live in.
+
+Father O'Grady listened, seriously moved by the story; and Father Oliver
+continued it, telling how Eliza, coming to see the priest in him, gave
+up her room to him as soon as their cousin the Bishop was consulted. And
+it was at this point of the narrative that Father O'Grady put a
+question.
+
+'Was no attempt,' he asked, 'made to marry you to some girl with a big
+fortune?'
+
+And Father Oliver told of his liking for Annie McGrath and of his
+aversion for marriage, acquiescing that aversion might be too strong a
+word; indifference would more truthfully represent him.
+
+'I wasn't interested in Annie McGrath nor in any woman as far as I can
+remember until this unfortunate conduct of mine awakened an interest in
+Nora Glynn. And it would be strange, indeed, if it hadn't awakened an
+interest in me,' he muttered to himself. Father O'Grady suppressed the
+words that rose up in his mind, 'Now I'm beginning to understand.' And
+Father Oliver continued, like one talking to himself: 'I'm thinking that
+I was singularly free from all temptations of the sensual life,
+especially those represented by womankind. I was ordained early, when I
+was twenty-two, and as soon as I began to hear confessions, the things
+that surprised me the most were the stories relating to those passionate
+attachments that men experience for women and women for men--attachments
+which sometimes are so intense that if the sufferer cannot obtain relief
+by the acquiescence of the object of their affections, he, if it be he,
+she, if it be she, cannot refrain from suicide. There have been cases of
+men and women going mad because their love was not reciprocated, and I
+used to listen to these stories wonderingly, unable to understand, bored
+by the relation.'
+
+If Father Oliver had looked up at that moment, Father O'Grady's eyes
+would have told him that he had revealed himself, and that perhaps
+Father O'Grady now knew more about him than he knew himself. But without
+withdrawing his eyes from the fire he continued talking till Catherine's
+step was heard outside.
+
+'She's coming to lay the cloth for our tea,' Father Oliver said. And
+Father O'Grady answered:
+
+'I shall be glad of a cup of tea.'
+
+'Must you really go after tea?' Father Oliver asked; and again he begged
+Father O'Grady to stay for dinner. But Father O'Grady, as if he felt
+that the object of his visit had been accomplished, spoke of the drive
+back to Tinnick and of the convenience of the branch line of railway. It
+was a convenience certainly, but it was also an inconvenience, owing to
+the fact that the trains run from Tinnick sometimes missed the mail
+train; and this led Father Oliver to speak of the work he was striving
+to accomplish, the roofing of Kilronan Abbey, and many other things, and
+the time passed without their feeling it till the car came round to take
+Father O'Grady away.
+
+'He goes as a dream goes,' Father Oliver said, and a few minutes
+afterwards he was sitting alone by his turf fire, asking himself in what
+dreams differed from reality. For like a dream Father O'Grady had come
+and he had gone, never to return. 'But does anything return?' he asked
+himself, and he looked round his room, wondering why the chairs and
+tables did not speak to him, and why life was not different from what it
+was. He could hear Catherine at work in the kitchen preparing his
+dinner, she would bring it to him as she had done yesterday, he would
+eat it, he would sit up smoking his pipe for a while, and about eleven
+o'clock go to his bed. He would lie down in it, and rise and say Mass
+and see his parishioners. All these things he had done many times
+before, and he would go on doing them till the day of his death--Until
+the day of my death,' he repeated, 'never seeing her again, never seeing
+him. Why did he come here?' And he was surprised that he could find no
+answer to any of the questions that he put to himself. 'Nothing will
+happen again in my life--nothing of any interest. This is the end! And
+if I did go to London, of what should I speak to him? It will be better
+to try to forget it all, and return, if I can, to the man I was before I
+knew her;' and he stood stock still, thinking that without this memory
+he would not be himself.
+
+Father O'Grady's coming had been a pleasure to him, for they had talked
+together; he had confessed to him; had been shriven. At that moment he
+caught sight of a newspaper upon his table. '_Illustrated England_,' he
+muttered, his thoughts half away; and he fell to wondering how it had
+come into the house. 'Father O'Grady must have left it,' he said, and
+began to unroll the paper. But while unrolling it he stopped. Half his
+mind was still away, and he sat for fully ten minutes lost in sad
+sensations, and it was the newspaper slipping from his hand that awoke
+him. The first thing that caught his eye on opening the paper was an
+interview with Mr. Walter Poole, embellished with many photographs of
+Beechwood Hall.
+
+'Did O'Grady leave this paper here for me to read,' he asked himself,
+'or did he forget to take it away with him? We talked of so many things
+that he may have forgotten it, forgotten even to mention it. How very
+strange!'
+
+The lodge gates and the long drive, winding between different woods,
+ascending gradually to the hilltop on which Beechwood Hall was placed by
+an early eighteenth-century architect, seemed to the priest to be
+described with too much unction by the representative of _Illustrated
+England_. To the journalist Beechwood Hall stood on its hill, a sign and
+symbol of the spacious leisure of the eighteenth century and the long
+tradition that it represented, one that had not even begun to drop into
+decadence till 1850, a tradition that still existed, despite the fact
+that democracy was finding its way into the agricultural parts of
+England. The journalist was impressed, perhaps unduly impressed, by the
+noble hall and the quiet passages that seemed to preserve a memory of
+the many generations that had passed through them on different errands,
+now all hushed in the family vault.
+
+Father Oliver looked down the column rapidly, and it was not until the
+footman who admitted the journalist was dismissed by the butler, who
+himself conducted the journalist to the library, that Father Oliver
+said: 'We have at last arrived at the castle of learning in which the
+great Mr. Poole sits sharpening the pen which is to slay Christianity.
+But Christianity will escape Mr. Poole's pen. It, has outlived many such
+attacks in the past. We shall see, however, what kind of nib he uses,
+fine or blunt?' The journalist followed the butler down the long library
+overlooking green sward to a quiet nook, if he might venture to speak
+of Mr. Walter Poole's study as a quiet nook. It seemed to surprise him
+that Mr. Walter Poole should rise from his writing-table and come
+forward to meet him, and he expressed his gratitude to Mr. Walter Poole,
+whose time was of great importance, for receiving him. And after all
+this unction came a flattering description of Mr. Walter Poole himself.
+
+He was, in the interviewer's words, a young man, tall and clean-shaven,
+with a high nose which goes well with an eye-glass. The chin is long and
+drops straight; his hair is mustard-coloured and glossy, and it curls
+very prettily about the broad, well-shapen forehead. He is reserved at
+first, and this lends a charm to the promise, which is very soon granted
+you, of making the acquaintance with the thoughts and ideas which have
+interested Mr. Walter Poole since boyhood--in fine, which have given him
+his character. If he seems at first sight to conceal himself from you,
+it is from shyness, or because he is reluctant to throw open his mind to
+the casual curious. Why should he not keep his mind for his own
+enjoyment and for the enjoyment of his friends, treating it like his
+pleasure grounds or park? His books are not written for the many but for
+the few, and he does not desire a larger audience than those with whom
+he is in natural communion from the first, and this without any faintest
+appearance of affectation.
+
+'I suppose it isn't fair,' the priest said, 'to judge a man through his
+interviewer; but if this interviewer doesn't misrepresent Mr. Walter
+Poole, Mr. Walter Poole is what is commonly known as a very superior
+person. He would appear from this paper,' the priest said, 'to be a man
+between thirty and forty, not many years older than myself.' The
+priest's thoughts floated away back into the past, and, returning
+suddenly with a little start to the present, he continued reading the
+interview, learning from it that Mr. Walter Poole's conversation was
+usually gentle, like a quiet river, and very often, like a quiet river,
+it rushed rapidly when Mr. Walter Poole became interested in his
+subject.
+
+'How very superior all this is,' the priest said. 'The river of thought
+in him,' the interviewer continued, 'is deep or shallow, according to
+the need of the moment. If, for instance, Mr. Walter Poole is asked if
+he be altogether sure that it is wise to disturb people in their belief
+in the traditions and symbols that have held sway for centuries, he will
+answer quickly that if truth lies behind the symbols and traditions, it
+will be in the interest of the symbols and traditions to inquire out the
+truth, for blind belief--in other words, faith--is hardly a merit, or if
+it be a merit it is a merit that cannot be denied to the savages who
+adore idols. But the civilized man is interested in his history, and the
+Bible deserves scientific recognition, for it has a history certainly
+and is a history. "We are justified, therefore," Mr. Walter Poole
+pleaded, "in seeking out the facts, and the search is conducted as much
+in the interests of theology as of science; for though history owes
+nothing to theology, it cannot be denied that theology owes a great deal
+to history."'
+
+'He must have thought himself very clever when he made that remark to
+the interviewer,' the priest muttered; and he walked up and down his
+room, thinking of Nora Glynn living in this unchristian atmosphere.
+
+He picked up the paper again and continued reading, for he would have to
+write to Nora about Father O'Grady's visit and about the interview in
+_Illustrated England_.
+
+The interviewer inquired if Mr. Walter Poole was returning to Palestine,
+and Mr. Walter Poole replied that there were many places that he would
+like to revisit, Galilee, for instance, a country that St. Paul never
+seemed to have visited, which, to say the least, was strange. Whereupon
+a long talk began about Paul and Jesus, Mr. Walter Poole maintaining
+that Paul's teaching was identical with that of Jesus, and that Peter
+was a clown despised by Paul and Jesus.
+
+'How very superior,' Father Oliver muttered--how very superior.' He read
+that Mr. Walter Poole was convinced that the three Synoptic Gospels were
+written towards the close of the first century; and one of the reasons
+he gave for this attribution was as in Matthew, chapter xxvii., verse 7,
+'And they took counsel, and bought with them (the thirty pieces of
+silver) the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field
+was called, The field of blood, unto this day'--a passage which showed
+that the Gospel could not have been written till fifty or sixty years
+after the death of Jesus.
+
+'England must be falling into atheism if newspapers dare to print such
+interviews,' Father Oliver said; and he threw the paper aside angrily.
+'And it was I,' he continued, dropping into his armchair, 'that drove
+her into this atheistical country. I am responsible, I alone.'
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_August_ 10, 19--.
+
+'DEAR Miss Glynn,
+
+'I have a piece of news for you. Father O'Grady has been here, and left
+me a few hours ago. Catherine threw open the door, saying, "Father
+O'Grady, your reverence," and the small, frail man whom you know so well
+walked into the room, surprising me, who was altogether taken aback by
+the unexpectedness of his visit.
+
+'He was the last person in the world I expected at that moment to meet,
+yet it was natural that an Irish priest, on the mission in England,
+would like to spend his holidays in Ireland, and still more natural
+that, finding himself in Ireland, Father O'Grady should come to see me.
+He drove over from Tinnick, and we talked about you. He did not seem on
+the whole as anxious for your spiritual safety as I am, which is only
+what one might expect, for it was not he that drove you out of a
+Catholic country into a Protestant one. He tried to allay my fears,
+saying that I must not let remorse of conscience get hold of me, and he
+encouraged me to believe that my responsibility had long ago ended. It
+was pleasant to hear these things said, and I believed him in a way;
+but he left by accident or design a copy of _Illustrated England_ on my
+table. I am sufficiently broad-minded to believe that it is better to be
+a good Protestant than a bad Catholic; but Mr. Walter Poole is neither
+Catholic nor Protestant, but an agnostic, which is only a polite word
+for an atheist. Week in and week out you will hear every argument that
+may be used against our holy religion. It is true that you have the
+advantage of being born a Catholic, and were well instructed in your
+religion; and no doubt you will accept with caution his statements,
+particularly that very insidious statement that Jesus lays no claim to
+divinity in the three Synoptic Gospels, and that these were not written
+by the apostles themselves, but by Greeks sixty, seventy, or perhaps
+eighty years after his death. I do not say he will try to undermine your
+faith, but how can he do otherwise if he believe in what he writes?
+However careful he may be to avoid blasphemy in your presence, the fact
+remains that you are living in an essentially unchristian atmosphere,
+and little by little the poison which you are taking in will accumulate,
+and you will find that you have been influenced without knowing when or
+how.
+
+'If you lose your faith, I am responsible for it; and I am not
+exaggerating when I say the thought that I may have lost a soul to God
+is always before me. I can imagine no greater responsibility than this,
+and there seems to be no way of escaping from it. Father O'Grady says
+that you have passed out of our care, that all we can do is to pray for
+you. But I would like to do something more, and if you happen upon some
+passages in the books you are reading that seem in contradiction to the
+doctrines taught by the Catholic Church, I hope you will not conclude
+that the Church is without an answer. The Church has an answer ready for
+every single thing that may be said against her doctrines. I am not
+qualified to undertake the defence of the Church against anyone. I quite
+recognize my own deficiency in this matter, but even I may be able to
+explain away some doubts that may arise. If so, I beg of you not to
+hesitate to write to me. If I cannot do so myself, I may be able to put
+you in the way of finding out the best Catholic opinion on matters of
+doctrine.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+_From Miss Nora Glynn to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'BEECHWOOD HALL, BERKSHIRE,
+
+'_August_ 15, 19--.
+
+'I am sorry indeed that I am causing you so much trouble of conscience.
+You must try to put it out of your mind that you are responsible for me.
+The idea is too absurd. When I was in your parish I was interested in
+you, and that was why I tried to improve the choir and took trouble to
+decorate the altar. Have you forgotten how anxious I was that you should
+write the history of the lake and its castles? Why don't you write it
+and send it to me? I shall be interested in it, though for the moment I
+have hardly time to think of anything but Jewish history. Within the
+next few weeks, for certain, the last chapter of Mr. Poole's book will
+be passed for press, and then we shall go abroad and shall visit all the
+great men in Europe. Some are in Amsterdam, some are in Paris, some live
+in Switzerland. I wish I understood French a little better. Isn't it all
+like a dream? Do you know, I can hardly believe I ever was in forlorn
+Garranard teaching little barefooted children their Catechism and their
+A, B, C.
+
+'Good-bye, Father Gogarty. We go abroad next week. I lie awake thinking
+of this trip--the places I shall see and the people I shall meet.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'NORA GLYNN.'
+
+
+It seemed to him that her letter gave very little idea of her. Some can
+express themselves on paper, and are more real in the words they write
+than in the words they speak. But hardly anything of his idea of her
+transpired in that letter--only in her desire of new ideas and new
+people. She was interested in everything--in his projected book about
+the raiders faring forth from the island castles, and now in the source
+of the Christian River; and he began to meditate a destructive criticism
+of Mr. Poole's ideas in a letter addressed to the editor of _Illustrated
+England_, losing heart suddenly, he knew not why, feeling the task to be
+beyond him. Perhaps it would be better not to write to Nora again.
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_August_ 22, 19--.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'I gather from your letter that religion has ceased to interest you,
+except as a subject for argument, and I will not begin to argue with
+you, but will put instead a simple question to you: In what faith do you
+intend to bring up your child? and what will be your answer when your
+child asks: "Who made me?" Mr. Poole may be a learned man, but all the
+learning in the world will not tell you what answer to make to your
+child's questions; only the Church can do that.
+
+'I have thought a great deal about the danger that your post of
+secretary to Mr. Poole involves and am not sure that the state of
+indifference is not the worst state of all. One day you will find that
+indifference has passed into unbelief, and you will write to me (if we
+continue to write to each other) in such a way that I shall understand
+that you have come to regard our holy religion as a tale fit only for
+childhood's ears. I write this to you, because I have been suddenly
+impelled to write, and it seems to me that in writing to you in this
+simple way I am doing better than if I spent hours in argument. You will
+not always think as you do now; the world will not always interest you
+as much as it does now. I will say no more on this point but will break
+off abruptly to tell you that I think you are right when you say that we
+all want change. I feel I have lived too long by the side of this lake,
+and I am thinking of going to London....'
+
+
+The room darkened gradually, and, going to the window, he longed for
+something to break the silence, and was glad when the rain pattered
+among the leaves. The trees stood stark against the sky, in a green that
+seemed unnatural. The sheep moved as if in fear towards the sycamores,
+and from all sides came the lowing of cattle. A flash drove him back
+from the window. He thought he was blinded. The thunder rattled; it was
+as if a God had taken the mountains in his arms and was shaking them
+together. Crash followed crash; the rain came down; it was as if the
+rivers of heaven had been opened suddenly. Once he thought the storm was
+over; but the thunder crashed again, the rain began to thicken; there
+was another flash and another crash, and the pour began again. But all
+the while the storm was wearing itself out, and he began to wonder if a
+sullen day, ending in this apocalypse, would pass into a cheerful
+evening. It seemed as if it would, for some blue was showing between the
+clouds drifting westward, threatening every moment to blot out the blue,
+but the clouds continued to brighten at the edges. 'The beginning of the
+sunset,' the priest said; and he went out on his lawn and stood watching
+the swallows in the shining air, their dipping, swerving flight showing
+against a background of dappled clouds. He had never known so
+extraordinary a change; and he walked to and fro in the freshened air,
+thinking that Nora's health might not have withstood the strain of
+trudging from street to street, teaching the piano at two shillings an
+hour, returning home late at night to a poky little lodging, eating any
+food a landlady might choose to give her. As a music teacher she would
+have had great difficulty in supporting herself and her baby, and it
+pleased him to imagine the child as very like her mother; and returning
+to the house, he added this paragraph:
+
+'I was interrupted while writing this letter by a sudden darkening of
+the light, and when I went to the window the sky seemed to have sunk
+close to the earth, and there was a dreadful silence underneath it. I
+was driven back by a flash of lightning, and the thunder was terrifying.
+A most extraordinary storm lasting for no more than an hour, if that,
+and then dispersing into a fine evening. It was a pleasure to see the
+change--the lake shrouded in mist, with ducks talking softly in the
+reeds, and swallows high up, advancing in groups like dancers on a
+background of dappled clouds.
+
+
+'I have come back to my letter to ask if you would like me to go to see
+your baby? Father O'Grady and I will go together if I go to London, and
+I will write to you about it. You will be glad, no doubt, to hear that
+the child is going on well.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_September_ 4, 19--.
+
+'Forgive me, my dear friend, but I am compelled to write to apologize
+for the introduction of my troubles of conscience and my anxiety for
+your spiritual welfare into my last letter. You found a way out of
+difficulties--difficulties into which I plunged you. But we will say no
+more on that point: enough has been said. You have created a life for
+yourself. You have shown yourself to be a strong woman in more ways than
+one, and are entitled to judge whether your work and the ideas you live
+among are likely to prove prejudicial to your faith and morals. By a
+virtue of forgiveness which I admire and thank you for, you write
+telling me of the literary work you are engaged upon. If I had thought
+before writing the letter I am now apologizing for, I could not have
+failed to see that you write to me because you would relieve my
+loneliness as far as you are able. But I did not think: I yielded to my
+mood, and see now that my letters are disgracefully egotistical, and
+very often absurd; for have I not begged of you to remember that since
+God will hold me responsible for your soul, it would be well that you
+should live a life of virtue and renunciation, so that I shall be saved
+the humiliation of looking down from above upon you in hell?
+
+'Loneliness begets sleeplessness, and sleeplessness begets a sort of
+madness. I suffer from nightmare, and I cannot find words to tell you
+how terrible are the visions one sees at dawn. It is not so much that
+one sees unpleasant and ugly things--life is not always pretty or
+agreeable, that we know--but when one lies between sleeping and waking,
+life itself is shown in mean aspects, and it is whispered that one has
+been duped till now; that now, and for the first time, one knows the
+truth. You remember how the wind wails about the hilltop on which I
+live. The wailing of wind has something to do with my condition of mind;
+one cannot sit from eight o'clock in the evening till twelve at night
+staring at the lamp, hearing the wind, and remain perfectly sane.
+
+'But why am I writing about myself? I want to escape from myself, and
+your letters enable me to do so. The names of the cities you are going
+to visit transport me in imagination, and last night I sat a long while
+wondering why I could not summon courage to go abroad. Something holds
+me back. I think if I once left Garranard, I should never return to the
+lake and its island. I hope you haven't forgotten Marban, the hermit who
+lived at the end of the lake in Church Island. I visited his island
+yesterday. I should have liked to have rowed myself through the strait
+and along the shores, seeing Castle Cara and Castle Burke as I passed;
+but Church Island is nearly eight miles from here, and I don't know if I
+should have been man enough to pull the fisherman's boat so far, so I
+put the gray horse into the shafts and went round by road.
+
+'Church Island lies in a bay under a rocky shore, and the farmer who
+cuts the grass there in the summer-time has a boat to bring away the
+hay. It was delightful to step into it, and as the oars chimed I said to
+myself, "I have Marban's poem in my pocket--and will read it walking up
+the little path leading from his cell to his church." The lake was like
+a sheet of blue glass, and the island lay yellow and red in it. As we
+rowed, seeking a landing-place under the tall trees that grow along the
+shores, the smell of autumn leaves mingled with the freshness of the
+water. We rowed up a beautiful little inlet overhung with bushes. The
+quay is at the end of it, and on getting out of the boat, I asked the
+boatman to point out to me what remained of Marban's Church. He led me
+across the island--a large one, the largest in the lake--not less than
+seven acres or nine, and no doubt some parts of it were once cultivated
+by Marban. Of his church, however, very little remains--only one piece
+of wall, and we had great difficulty in seeing it, for it is now
+surrounded by a dense thicket. The little pathway leading from his cell
+to the church still exists; it is almost the same as he left it--a
+little overgrown, that is all.
+
+'Marban was no ordinary hermit; he was a sympathetic naturalist, a true
+poet, and his brother who came to see him, and whose visit gave rise to
+the colloquy, was a king. I hope I am not wronging Marban, but the
+island is so beautiful that I cannot but think that he was attracted by
+its beauty and went there because he loved Nature as well as God. His
+poem is full of charming observations of nature, of birds and beasts and
+trees, and it proves how very false the belief is that primitive man had
+no eyes to see the beauties of the forest and felt no interest in the
+habits of animals or of birds, but regarded them merely as food. It
+pleases me to think of the hermit sitting under the walls of his church
+or by his cell writing the poem which has given me so much pleasure,
+including in it all the little lives that cams to visit him--the birds
+and the beasts--enumerating them as carefully as Wordsworth would, and
+loving them as tenderly. Marban! Could one find a more beautiful name
+for a hermit? Guaire is the brother's name. Marban and King Guaire. Now,
+imagine the two brothers meeting for a poetic disputation regarding the
+value of life, and each speaking from his different point of view! True
+that Guaire's point of view is only just indicated--he listens to his
+brother, for a hermit's view of life is more his own than a king's. It
+pleases me to think that the day the twain met to discourse of life and
+its mission was the counterpart of the day I spent on the island. My day
+was full of drifting cloud and sunshine, and the lake lay like a mirror
+reflecting the red shadow of the island. So you will understand that the
+reasons Marban gave for living there in preference to living the life of
+the world seemed valid, and I could not help peering into the bushes,
+trying to find a rowan-tree--for he speaks of one. The rowan is the
+mountain-ash. I found several. One tree was covered with red berries,
+and I broke off a branch and brought it home, thinking that perchance it
+might have come down to us from one planted by Marban's hand. Of
+blackthorns there are plenty. The adjective he uses is "dusky." Could he
+have chosen a more appropriate one? I thought, too, of "the clutch of
+eggs, the honey and the mast" that God sent him, of "the sweet apples
+and red whortleberries," and of his dish of "strawberries of good taste
+and colour."
+
+'It is hard to give in an English translation an idea of the richness of
+the verse, heavily rhymed and winningly alliterated, but you will see
+that he enumerates the natural objects with skill. The eternal
+summer--the same in his day as in ours--he speaks of as "a coloured
+mantle," and he mentions "the fragrance of the woods." And seeing the
+crisp leaves--for the summer was waning--I repeated his phrase, "the
+summer's coloured mantle," and remembered:
+
+
+  "Swarms of bees and chafers, the little musicians of the world--
+  A gentle chorus."
+
+
+"The wren," he says, "is an active songster among the hazel boughs.
+Beautifully hooded birds, wood-peckers, fair white birds, herons,
+sea-gulls, come to visit me." There is no mournful music in his island;
+and as for loneliness, there is no such thing in
+
+
+  "My lowly little abode, hidden in a mane of green-barked yew-tree.
+  Near is an apple-tree,
+  Big like a hostel;
+  A pretty bush thick as a fist of hazel-nuts, a choice spring and
+          water fit for a Prince to drink.
+  Round it tame swine lie down,
+  Wild swine, grazing deer,
+  A badger's brood,
+  A peaceful troop, a heavy host of denizens of the soil
+  A-trysting at my house.
+  To meet them foxes come.
+  How delightful!"
+
+
+'The island is about a hundred yards from the shore, and I wondered how
+the animals crossed from the mainland as I sat under the porch of the
+ruined church. I suppose the water was shallower than it is now. But why
+and how the foxes came to meet the wild swine is a matter of little
+moment; suffice it that he lived in this island aware of its
+loneliness, "without the din of strife, grateful to the Prince who
+giveth every good to me in my bower." To which Guaire answered:
+
+
+  '"I would give my glorious kingship
+  With my share of our father's heritage,--
+  To the hour of my death let me forfeit it,
+  So that I may be in thy company, O Marban."
+
+
+'There are many such beautiful poems in early Irish. I know of another,
+and I'll send it to you one of these days. In it is a monk who tells how
+he and his cat sit together, himself puzzling out some literary or
+historical problem, the cat thinking of hunting mice, and how the
+catching of each is difficult and requires much patience.
+
+'Ireland attained certainly to a high degree of civilization in the
+seventh and eighth centuries, and if the Danes had not come, Ireland
+might have anticipated Italy. The poems I have in mind are the first
+written in Europe since classical times, and though Italy and France be
+searched, none will be found to match them.
+
+'I write these things to you because I wish you to remember that, when
+religion is represented as hard and austere, it is the fault of those
+who administer religion, and not of religion itself. Religion in Ireland
+in the seventh and eighth centuries was clearly a homely thing, full of
+tender joy and hope, and the inspiration not only of poems, but of many
+churches and much ornament of all kinds, illuminated missals, carven
+porches. If Ireland had been left to herselfif it had not been for the
+invasion of the Danes, and the still worse invasion of the
+English--there is no saying what high place she might not have taken in
+the history of the world. But I am afraid the halcyon light that paused
+and passed on in those centuries will never return. We have gotten the
+after-glow, and the past should incite us; and I am much obliged to you
+for reminding me that the history of the lake and its castles would make
+a book. I will try to write this book, and while writing will look
+forward to the day when I shall send you a copy of the work, if God
+gives me strength and patience to complete it. Little is ever completed
+in Ireland.... But I mustn't begin to doubt before I begin the work, and
+while you and Mr. Poole are studying dry texts, trying to prove that the
+things that men have believed and loved for centuries are false, I shall
+be engaged in writing a sympathetic history--the history of natural
+things and natural love.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+_From Miss Nora Glynn to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'ANTWERP,
+
+'_September_ 3, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'You are a very human person after all, and it was very kind of you to
+think about my baby and kind of you to write to me about her. My baby is
+a little girl, and she has reddish hair like mine, and if ever you see
+her I think you will see me in her. The address of the woman who is
+looking after her is Mrs. Cust, 25, Henry Street, Guildford. Do go to
+see her and write me a long letter, telling me what you think of her. I
+am sure a trip to London will do you a great deal of good. Pack up your
+portmanteau, Father Gogarty, and go to London at once. Promise me that
+you will, and write to me about your impressions of London and Father
+O'Grady, and when you are tired of London come abroad. We are going on
+to Munich, that is all I know, but I will write again.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'NORA GLYNN.'
+
+
+Father Oliver sat wondering, and then, waking up suddenly, he went about
+his business, asking himself if she really meant all she said, for why
+should she wish him to go abroad, for his health or in the hope of
+meeting him--where? In Munich!
+
+'A riddle, a riddle, which'--he reflected a moment--'which my experience
+of life is not sufficient to solve.'
+
+On his way to Derrinrush he was met by a man hurrying towards him. 'Sure
+it is I that am in luck this day, meeting your reverence on the road,
+for we shall be spared half a mile if you have the sacred elements about
+you.' So much the peasant blurted out between the gasps, and when his
+breath came easier the priest learnt that Catherine, the man's wife, was
+dying. 'Me brother's run for the doctor, but I, being the speedier, came
+for yourself, and if your reverence has the sacred elements about you,
+we'll go along together by a short cut over the hill.' 'I'm afraid I
+have not got the oil and there's nothing for it but to go back to the
+house.' 'Then I'm afeard that Catherine will be too late to get the
+Sacrament. But she is a good woman, sorra better, and maybe don't need
+the oil,' which indeed proved to be a fact, for when they reached the
+cabin they found the doctor there before them, who rising from his chair
+by the bedside, said, 'The woman is out of danger, if she ever was in
+any.' 'All the same,' cried the peasant, 'Catherine wouldn't refuse the
+Sacrament.' 'But if she be in no danger, of what use would the Sacrament
+be to her?' the doctor asked; the peasant answering, 'Faith, you must
+have been a Protestant before you were a Catholic to be talking like
+that,' and Father Oliver hesitated, and left the cabin sorrowed by the
+unseemliness of the wrangle. He was not, however, many yards down the
+road when the dispute regarding the efficacy of the Sacrament
+administered out of due time was wiped out by a memory of something Nora
+had told him of herself: she had announced to the monitresses, who were
+discussing their ambitions, that hers was to be the secretary of a man
+of letters. 'So it would seem that she had an instinct of her destiny
+from the beginning, just as I had of mine. But had I? Her path took an
+odd turn round by Garranard. But she has reached her goal, or nearly.
+The end may be marriage--with whom? Poole most likely. Be that as it
+may, she will pass on to middle age; we shall grow older and seas and
+continents will divide our graves. Why did she come to Garranard?'
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'_September_ 10, 19--.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'I received your letter this morning, written from Antwerp, and it has
+set me thinking that Mr. Poole's interests in scholarship must have
+procured for him many acquaintances among Dutch scholars, men with whom
+he has been in correspondence. You will meet them and hear them pour
+their vast erudition across dinner-tables. Rubens' great picture, "The
+Descent from the Cross," is in Antwerp; you will go to see it, and in
+Munich Mr. Poole will treat you to the works of Wagner and Mozart. You
+are very happy; everything has gone well with you, and it would ill
+befit me, who brought so much unhappiness upon you, to complain that you
+are too happy, too much intent on the things of this world. Yet, if you
+will allow me to speak candidly, I will tell you what I really think.
+You are changing; the woman I once knew hardly corresponds with the
+woman who writes to me. In reading the letters of the English Nora, I
+perceive many traces here and there of the Irish Nora, for the Irish
+Nora was not without a sense of duty, of kindness towards others, but
+the English Nora seems bent upon a life of pleasure, intellectual and
+worldly adventures. She delights in foreign travel, and no doubt places
+feelings above ideas, and regards our instincts as our sovereign guides.
+Now, when we find ourselves delighting to this extent in the visible,
+we may be sure that our lives have wandered far away from spiritual
+things. There is ever a divorce between the world of sense and the world
+of spirit, and the question of how much love we may expend upon external
+things will always arise, and will always be a cause of perplexity to
+those who do not choose to abandon themselves to the general drift of
+sensual life. This question is as difficult as the cognate question of
+what are our duties toward ourselves and our duties toward others. And
+your letters raise all these questions. I ponder them in my walks by the
+lake in the afternoon. In the evening in my house on the hilltop I sit
+thinking, seeing in imagination the country where I have been born and
+where I have always lived--the lake winding in and out of headlands, the
+highroad shaded by sycamores at one spot, a little further on wandering
+like a gray thread among barren lands, with here and there a village;
+and I make application of all the suggestions your letters contain to my
+own case. Every house in Garranard I know, and I see each gable end and
+each doorway as I sit thinking, and all the faces of my parishioners. I
+see lights springing up far and near. Wherever there is a light there is
+a poor family.
+
+'Upon these people I am dependent for my daily bread, and they are
+dependent upon me for spiritual consolation. I baptize them, I marry
+them, and I bury them. How they think of me, I know not. I suppose they
+hardly think at all. When they return home at night they have little
+time for thinking; their bodies are too fatigued with the labour of the
+fields. But as I sit thinking of them, I regret to say that my fear
+often is that I shall never see any human beings but them; and I dream
+of long rambles in the French country, resting at towns, reading in
+libraries. A voice whispers, "You could do very well with a little of
+her life, but you will never know any other life but your present one."
+A great bitterness comes up, a little madness gathers behind the eyes; I
+walk about the room and then I sit down, stunned by the sudden
+conviction that life is, after all, a very squalid thing--something that
+I would like to kick like an old hat down a road.
+
+'The conflict going on within me goes on within every man, but without
+this conflict life would be superficial; we shouldn't know the deeper
+life. Duty has its rewards as well as its pain, and the knowledge that I
+am passing through a time of probationship sustains me. I know I shall
+come out of it all a stronger man.
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+After posting his letter he walked home, congratulating himself that he
+had made it plain to her that he was not a man she could dupe. Her
+letter was written plainly, and the more he thought of her letter the
+clearer did it seem that it was inspired by Poole. But what could
+Poole's reason be for wishing him to leave Ireland, to go abroad? It was
+certain that if Poole were in love with Nora he would do all in his
+power to keep a poor priest (was it thus they spoke of him?) in Ireland.
+Poole might wish to make a fool of him, but what was her reason for
+advising him to go abroad? Revenge was too strong a word.
+
+In the course of the evening it suddenly struck him that, after all,
+she might have written her letter with a view of inducing him to come to
+Rome. She was so capricious that it was not impossible that she had
+written quite sincerely, and wished him out there with her. She was so
+many-sided, and he fell to thinking of her character, without being able
+to arrive at any clear estimate of it, with this result, however--that
+he could not drive out the belief that she had written him an insincere
+letter. Or did she wish to revenge herself? The thought brought him to
+his feet, for he could never forget how deeply he had wronged her--it
+was through his fault that she had become Mr. Poole's secretary--maybe
+his mistress. If he had not preached that sermon, she would be teaching
+the choir in his parish. But, good heavens! what use was there in going
+over all that again? He walked to the window and stood there watching
+the still autumn weather--a dull leaden sky, without a ray of light upon
+the grass, or a wind in the trees--thinking that these gray days
+deprived him of all courage. And then he remembered suddenly how a
+villager's horse coming from market had tripped and fallen by the
+roadside. Would that he, too, might fall by the roadside, so weary was
+he. 'If I could only make known my suffering, she would take pity on me;
+but no one knows another's suffering.' He walked from his window
+sighing, and a moment after stopped in front of his writing-table.
+Perhaps it was the writing-table that put the thought into his mind that
+she might like to read a description of an Irish autumn.
+
+ _From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_September_.
+
+'You know the wind is hardly ever at rest about the hilltop on which my
+house stands. Even in summer the wind sighs, a long, gentle little sigh,
+sometimes not unpleasant to hear. You used to speak of an Æolian harp,
+and say that I should place one on my window-sill. A doleful instrument
+it must be--loud wailing sound in winter-time, and in the summer a
+little sigh. But in these autumn days an Æolian harp would be mute.
+There is not wind enough to-day on the hillside to cause the faintest
+vibration. Yesterday I went for a long walk in the woods, and I can find
+no words that would convey an idea of the stillness. It is easy to speak
+of a tomb, but it was more than that. The dead are dead, and
+somnambulism is more mysterious than death. The season seemed to stand
+on the edge of a precipice, will-less, like a sleep-walker. Now and
+then the sound of a falling leaf caught my ear, and I shall always
+remember how a crow, flying high overhead towards the mountains, uttered
+an ominous "caw"; another crow answered, and there was silence again.
+The branches dropped, and the leaves hung out at the end of long stems.
+One could not help pitying the trees, though one knew one's pity was
+vain.
+
+'As I wandered in Derrinrush, I came suddenly upon some blood-red
+beech-trees, and the hollow was full of blood-red leaves. You have been
+to Derrinrush: you know how mystic and melancholy the wood is, full of
+hazels and Druid stones. After wandering a long while I turned into a
+path. It led me to a rough western shore, and in front of me stood a
+great Scotch fir. The trunk has divided, and the two crowns showed
+against the leaden sky. It has two birch-trees on either side, and their
+graceful stems and faint foliage, pale like gold, made me think of
+dancers with sequins in their hair and sleeves. There seemed to be
+nothing but silence in the wood, silence, and leaves ready to fall. I
+had not spoken to anyone for a fortnight--I mean I had no conversation
+with anyone--and my loneliness helped me to perceive the loneliness of
+the wood, and the absence of birds made me feel it. The lake is never
+without gulls, but I didn't see one yesterday. "The swallows are gone,"
+I said; "the wild geese will soon be here," and I remembered their
+doleful cry as I scrambled under some blackthorn bushes, glad to get out
+of the wood into the fields. Though I knew the field I was in well, I
+didn't remember the young sycamores growing in one corner of it.
+Yesterday I could not but notice them, for they seemed to be like
+children dying of consumption in a hospital ward--girls of twelve or
+thirteen. You will think the comparison far-fetched and unhealthy, one
+that could only come out of a morbidly excited imagination. Well, I
+cannot help that; like you, I must write as I feel.
+
+'Suddenly I heard the sound of an axe, and I can find no words to tell
+you how impressive its sound was in the still autumn day. "How soon
+will the tree fall?" I thought; and, desirous of seeing it fall, I
+walked on, guided by the sound, till I saw at the end of the glade--whom
+do you think? Do you remember an old man called Patsy Murphy? He had
+once been a very good carpenter, and had made and saved money. But he is
+now ninety-five, and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him
+trying to cut down a larch. What his object could be in felling the tree
+I could not tell, and, feeling some curiosity, I walked forward. He
+continued to chip away pieces of the bark till his strength failed him,
+and he had to sit down to rest. Seeing me, he took off his hat--you know
+the tall hat he wears--a hat given him twenty or thirty years ago by
+whom? Patsy Murphy's mind is beginning to wander. He tells stories as
+long as you will listen to him, and it appears now that his
+daughter-in-law turned him out of his house--the house he had built
+himself, and that he had lived in for half a century. This, however, is
+not the greatest wrong she had done him. He could forgive her this
+wrong, but he cannot forgive her stealing of his sword. "There never was
+a Murphy," he said, "who hadn't a sword." Whether this sword is an
+imagination of Patsy's fading brain, I cannot say; perhaps he had some
+old sword and lost it. The tale he tells to-day differs wholly from the
+tale he told yesterday and the tale he will tell to-morrow. He told me
+once he had been obliged to give up all his savings to his son. I went
+to interview the son, determined to sift the matter to the bottom, and
+discovered that Patsy had still one hundred and twenty pounds in the
+bank. Ten pounds had been taken out for--I needn't trouble you with
+further details. Sufficient has been said to enable you to understand
+how affecting it was to meet this old man in the red and yellow woods,
+at the end of a breathless autumn day, trying to fell a young larch. He
+talked so rapidly, and one story flowed so easily into another, that it
+was a long time before I could get in a word. At last I was able to get
+out of him that the Colonel had given him leave to build a house on the
+shore, where he would be out of everybody's way. "All my old friends are
+gone, the Colonel's father and his mother. God be merciful to her! she
+was a good woman, the very best. And all I want now is time to think of
+them that's gone.... Didn't I know the Colonel's grandfather and his
+grandmother? They're all buried in the cemetery yonder in Kiltoon, and
+on a fine evenin' I do like to be sittin' on a stone by the lake,
+thinking of them all."
+
+'It was at once touching and impressive to see this old man, weak as a
+child, the only trembling thing in a moveless day, telling these
+wanderings of an almost insane brain. You will say, "But what matter?
+They may not be true in fact, but they are his truth, they are himself,
+they are his age." His ninety-five years are represented in his confused
+talk, half recollection, half complaints about the present. He knew my
+father and mother, too, and, peering into my face, he caught sight of a
+gray hair, and I heard him mutter:
+
+'"Ah! they grow gray quicker now than they used to."
+
+'As I walked home in the darkening light, I bethought myself of the few
+years left to me to live, though I am still a young man, that in a few
+years, which would pass like a dream, I should be as frail as Patsy
+Murphy, who is ninety-five. "Why should I not live as long?" I asked
+myself, losing my teeth one by one and my wits.'
+
+'_September_.
+
+'I was interrupted in my description of the melancholy season, and I
+don't know how I should have finished that letter if I had not been
+interrupted. The truth is that the season was but a pretext. I did not
+dare to write asking you to forgive me for having returned your letter.
+I do not do so now. I will merely say that I returned the letter because
+it annoyed me, and, shameful as the admission may be, I admit that I
+returned it because I wished to annoy you. I said to myself, "If this be
+so--if, in return for kind thought--Why shouldn't she suffer? I
+suffer." One isn't--one cannot be--held responsible for every base
+thought that enters the mind. How long the mind shall entertain a
+thought before responsibility is incurred I am not ready to say. One's
+mood changes. A storm gathers, rages for a while, and disperses; but the
+traces of the storm remain after the storm has passed away. I am
+thinking now that perhaps, after all, you were sincere when you asked me
+to leave Garranard and take my holiday in Rome, and the baseness of
+which for a moment I deemed you capable was the creation of my own soul.
+I don't mean that my mind, my soul, is always base. At times we are more
+or less unworthy. Our tempers are part of ourselves? I have been
+pondering this question lately. Which self is the true self--the
+peaceful or the choleric? My wretched temper aggravated my
+disappointment, and my failure to write the history of the lake and its
+castles no doubt contributed to produce the nervous depression from
+which I am suffering. But this is not all; it seems to me that I may
+point out that your--I hardly know what word to use: "irrelevancy" does
+not express my meaning; "inconsequences" is nearer, yet it isn't the
+word I want--well, your inconsequences perplex and distract my thoughts.
+If you will look through the letter you sent me last you will find that
+you have written many things that might annoy a man living in the
+conditions in which I live. You follow the current of your mood, but the
+transitions you omit, and the reader is left hopelessly
+conjecturing....'
+
+
+She seemed so strange, so inconclusive. There seemed to be at least two,
+if not three, different women in the letters she had written to him, and
+he sat wondering how a woman with cheeks like hers, and a voice like
+hers, and laughter like hers, could take an interest in such arid
+studies. Her very name, Nora Glynn, seemed so unlike the woman who would
+accompany Mr. Poole into National Libraries, and sit by him surrounded
+by learned tomes. Moreover a mistress does not read Hebrew in a
+National Library with her paramour. But what did he know about such
+women? He had heard of them supping in fashionable restaurants covered
+with diamonds, and he thought of them with painted faces and dyed hair,
+and he was sure that Nora did not dye her hair or paint her face. No,
+she was not Poole's mistress. It was only his ignorance of life that
+could have led him to think of anything so absurd.... And then, weary of
+thinking and debating with himself, he took down a book that was lent
+some months ago, a monograph on a learned woman, a learned philosophical
+writer and translator of exegetical works from the German. Like Nora,
+she came from the middle classes, and, like Nora, she transgressed, how
+often he did not know, but with another woman's husband certainly. A
+critical writer and exponent of serious literature. Taste for learned
+studies did not preclude abstinence from those sins which in his
+ignorance of life he had associated with worldlings! Of course, St.
+Augustine was such a one. But is a man's truth also woman's truth?
+Apparently it is, and if he could believe the book he had been reading,
+Nora might very well be Poole's mistress. Therewith the question came up
+again, demanding answer: Why did she write declining any correspondence
+with him, and three weeks afterwards write another letter inveigling
+him, tempting him, bringing him to this last pitch of unhappiness? Was
+the letter he returned to her prompted by Mr. Poole and by a spirit of
+revenge? Three days after he took up his pen and added this paragraph to
+his unfinished letter:
+
+
+'I laid aside my pen, fearing I should ask what are your relations with
+Mr. Poole. I have tried to keep myself from putting this question to
+you, but the torture of doubt overcomes me, and even if you should never
+write to me again, I must ask it. Remember that I am responsible to God
+for the life you lead. Had it not been for me, you would never have
+known Poole. You must grant to every man his point of view, and, as a
+Christian, I cannot put my responsibility out of mind. If you lose your
+soul, I am responsible for it. Should you write that your relations with
+Mr. Poole are not innocent, I shall not be relieved of my
+responsibility, but it will be a relief to me to know the truth. I shall
+pray for you, and you will repent your sins if you are living in sin.
+Forgive me the question I am putting to you. I have no right to do so
+whatever. Whatever right I had over you when you were in my parish has
+passed from me. I exceeded that right, but that is the old story. Maybe
+I am repeating my very fault again. It is not unlikely, for what do we
+do all through our lives but to repeat ourselves? You have forgiven me,
+and, having forgiven me once, maybe you will forgive me again. However
+this may be, do not delay writing, for every day will be an agony till I
+hear from you. At the end of an autumn day, when the dusk is sinking
+into the room, one lacks courage to live. Religion seems to desert one,
+and I am thinking of the leaves falling, falling in Derrinrush. All
+night long they will be falling, like my hopes. Forgive me this
+miserable letter. But if I didn't write it, I should not be able to get
+through the evening. Write to me. A letter from Italy will cheer me and
+help me to live. All my letters are not like this one. Not very long ago
+I wrote to you about a hermit who never wearied of life, though he lived
+upon an island in this lake. Did you receive that letter? I wonder. It
+is still following you about maybe. It was a pleasant letter, and I
+should be sorry if you did not get it. Write to me about Italy--about
+sunshine, about statues and pictures.
+
+'Ever sincerely yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_October_ 20, 19--.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'I wrote last week apologizing for troubling you again with a letter,
+pleading that the melancholy of autumn and the falling of the leaf
+forced me to write to someone. I wrote asking for a letter, saying that
+a letter about Italian sunshine would help me to live. I am afraid my
+letter must have seemed exaggerated. One writes out of a mood. The mood
+passes, but when it is with one, one is the victim of it. And this
+letter is written to say I have recovered somewhat from my depression of
+spirits.... I have found consolation in a book, and I feel that I must
+send it to you, for even you may one day feel depressed and lonely. Did
+you ever read "The Imitation of Christ"? There is no book more soothing
+to the spirit than it; and on the very first page I found some lines
+which apply marvellously well to your case:
+
+'"If thou didst know the whole Bible outwardly, and the sayings of all
+the philosophers, what would it all profit thee without charity and the
+grace of God?"
+
+'Over the page the saint says: "Every man naturally desireth to know;
+but what doth knowledge avail without the fear of God?"
+
+'"Truly, a lowly rustic that serveth God is better than a proud
+philosopher who pondereth the course of the stars and neglecteth
+himself."
+
+'"He that knoweth himself becometh vile to himself, and taketh no
+delight in the praises of men."
+
+'"If I knew all things that are in the world, and were not in charity,
+what would it profit me in the sight of God, who will judge according to
+deeds?"
+
+'"Cease from overweening desire of knowledge, because many distractions
+are found there, and much delusion."
+
+'I might go on quoting till I reached the end, for on every page I note
+something that I would have you read. But why quote when I can send you
+the book? You have lost interest in the sentimental side of religion,
+but your loss is only momentary. You will never find anyone who will
+understand you better than this book. You are engaged now in the vain
+pursuit of knowledge, but some day, when you are weary of knowledge, you
+will turn to it. I do not ask you to read it now, but promise me that
+you will keep it. It will be a great consolation to me to know that it
+is by you.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P.'
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_November_ 3, 19--.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'I sent you--I think it must be a fortnight ago--a copy of "The
+Imitation of Christ." The copy I sent is one of the original Elizabethan
+edition, a somewhat rare book and difficult to obtain. I sent you this
+copy in order to make sure that you would keep it; the English is better
+than the English of our modern translations. You must not think that I
+feel hurt because you did not write to thank me at once for having sent
+you the book. My reason for writing is merely because I should like to
+know if it reached you. If you have not received it, I think it would be
+better to make inquiries at once in the post. It would be a pity that a
+copy of the original Elizabethan edition should be lost. Just write a
+little short note saying that you have received it.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY, P.P.'
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+'The Imitation' dropped on his knees, and he wondered if the spiritual
+impulse it had awakened in him was exhausted, or if the continual
+splashing of the rain on the pane had got upon his nerves.
+
+'But it isn't raining in Italy,' he said, getting up from his chair;
+'and I am weary of the rain, of myself--I am weary of everything.' And
+going to the window, he tried to take ant interest in the weather,
+asking himself if it would clear up about 3 o'clock. It cleared usually
+late in the afternoon for a short while, and he would be able to go out
+for half an hour. But where should he go? He foresaw his walk from end
+to end before he began it: the descent of the hill, the cart-track and
+the old ruts full of water, the dead reeds on the shore soaking, the
+dripping trees. But he knew that about 3 o'clock the clouds would lift,
+and the sunset begin in the gaps in the mountains. He might go as far as
+the little fields between Derrinrush and the plantations, and from there
+he could watch the sunset. But the sunset would soon be over, and he
+would have to return home, for a long evening without a book. Terrible!
+And he began to feel that he must have an occupation--his book! To write
+the story of the island castles would pass the time, and wondering how
+he might write it, whether from oral tradition or from the books and
+manuscripts which he might find in national libraries, he went out about
+3 o'clock and wandered down the old cart-track, getting his feet very
+wet, till he came to the pine-wood, into which he went, and stood
+looking across the lake, wondering if he should go out to Castle Island
+in a boat--there was no boat, but he might borrow one somewhere--and
+examine what remained of the castle. But he knew every heap of old
+stones, every brown bush, and the thick ivy that twined round the last
+corner wall. Castle Hag had an interest Castle Island had not. The
+cormorants roosted there; and they must be hungry, for the lake had been
+too windy for fishing this long while. A great gust whirled past, and he
+stood watching the clouds drifting overhead--the same thick vapour
+drifting and going out. For nearly a month he was waiting for a space of
+blue sky, and a great sadness fell upon him, a sick longing for a
+change; but if he yielded to this longing he would never return to
+Garranard. There seemed to be no way out of the difficulty--at least, he
+could see none.
+
+A last ray lit up a distant hillside, his shadow floated on the wet
+sand. The evening darkened rapidly, and he walked in a vague diffused
+light, inexpressibly sad to find Moran waiting for him at the end of an
+old cart-track, where the hawthorns grew out of a tumbled wall. He would
+keep Moran for supper. Moran was a human being, and--
+
+'I've come to see you, Gogarty; I don't know if I'm welcome.'
+
+'It's joking you are. You'll stay and have some supper with me?'
+
+'Indeed I will, if you give me some drink, for it's drink that I'm
+after, and not eating. I'd better get the truth out at once and have
+done with it. I've felt the craving coming on me for the last few
+days--you know what I mean--and now it's got me by the throat. I must
+have drink. Come along, Gogarty, and give me some, and then I'll say
+good-bye to you for ever.'
+
+'Now what are you saying?'
+
+'Don't stand arguing with me, for you can't understand, Gogarty--no one
+can; I can't myself. But it doesn't matter what anybody understands--I'm
+done for.'
+
+'We'll have a bit of supper together. It will pass from you.'
+
+'Ah, you little know;' and the priests walked up the hill in silence.
+
+'Gogarty, there's no use talking; I'm done for. Let me go.'
+
+'Come in, will you?' and he took him by the arm. 'Come in. I'm a bigger
+man than you, Moran; come in!'
+
+'I'm done for,' Father Moran said again.
+
+Father Oliver made a sign of silence, and when they were in the parlour,
+and the door shut behind them, he said:
+
+'You mustn't talk like that, and Catherine within a step of you.'
+
+'I've told you, Gogarty, I'm done for, and I've just come here to bid
+you good-bye; but before we part I'd like to hear you say that I haven't
+been wanting in my duties--that in all the rest, as far as you know,
+I've been as good a man as another.'
+
+'In all but one thing I know no better man, and I'll not hear that
+there's no hope.'
+
+'Better waste no time talking. Just let me hear you say again that I've
+been a good man in everything but one thing.'
+
+'Yes, indeed;' and the priests grasped hands.
+
+And Catherine came into the room to ask if Father Moran was stopping to
+supper. Father Oliver answered hurriedly: 'Yes, yes, he's staying. Bring
+in supper as soon as you can;' and she went away, to come back soon
+after with the cloth. And while she laid it the priests sat looking at
+each other, not daring to speak, hoping that Catherine did not suspect
+from their silence and manner that anything was wrong. She seemed to be
+a long while laying the cloth and bringing in the food; it seemed to
+them as if she was delaying on purpose. At last the door was closed, and
+they were alone.
+
+'Now, Moran, sit down and eat a bit, won't you?'
+
+'I can't eat anything. Give me some whisky; that is what I want. Give me
+some whisky, and I will go away and you'll never see me again. Just a
+glass to keep me going, and I will go straight out of your parish, so
+that none of the disgrace will fall upon you; or--what do you think? You
+could put me up here; no one need know I'm here. All I want are a few
+bottles of whisky.'
+
+'You mean that I should put you up here and let you get drunk?'
+
+'You know what I mean well enough. I'm like that. And it's well for you
+who don't want whisky. But if it hadn't been for whisky I should have
+been in a mad-house long ago. Now, just tell me if you'll give me drink.
+If you will, I'll stay and talk with you, for I know you're lonely; if
+not, I'll just be off with myself.'
+
+'Moran, you'll be better when you've had something to eat. It will pass
+from you. I will give you a glass of beer.'
+
+'A glass of beer! Ah, if I could tell you the truth! We've all our
+troubles, Gogarty--trouble that none knows but God. I haven't been
+watching you--I've been too tormented about myself to think much of
+anyone else--but now and then I've caught sight of a thought passing
+across your mind. We all suffer, you like another, and when the ache
+becomes too great to be borne we drink. Whisky is the remedy; there's
+none better. We drink and forget, and that is the great thing. There are
+times, Gogarty, when one doesn't want to think, when one's afraid,
+aren't there?--when one wants to forget that one's alive. You've had
+that feeling, Gogarty. We all have it. And now I must be off. I must
+forget everything. I want to drink and to feel the miles passing under
+my feet.'
+
+And on that he got up from the fire.
+
+'Come, Moran, I won't hear you speak like that.'
+
+'Let me go. It's no use; I'm done for;' and Father Oliver saw his eyes
+light up.
+
+'I'll not keep you against your will, but I'll go a piece of the road
+with you.'
+
+'I'd sooner you didn't come, Gogarty.'
+
+Without answering, Father Oliver caught up his hat and followed Father
+Moran out of the house. They walked without speaking, and when they got
+to the gate Father Oliver began to wonder which way his unhappy curate
+would choose for escape. 'Now why does he take the southern road?' And a
+moment after he guessed that Moran was making for Michael Garvey's
+public-house, 'and after drinking there,' he said to himself, 'he'll go
+on to Tinnick.' After a couple of miles, however, Moran turned into a
+by-road leading through the mountains, and they walked on without saying
+a word.
+
+And they walked mile after mile through the worn mountain road.
+
+'You've come far enough, Gogarty; go back. Regan's public-house is
+outside of your parish.'
+
+'If it's outside my parish, it's only the other side of the boundary;
+and you said, Moran, that you wouldn't touch whisky till to-morrow
+morning.'
+
+The priests walked on again, and Father Oliver fell to thinking now what
+might be the end of this adventure. He could see there was no hope of
+persuading Father Moran from the bottle of whisky.
+
+'What time do you be making it, Gogarty?'
+
+'It isn't ten o'clock yet.'
+
+'Then I'll walk up and down till the stroke of twelve ... I'll keep my
+promise to you.'
+
+'But they'll all be in bed by twelve. What will you do then?'
+
+Father Moran didn't give Father Gogarty an answer, but started off
+again, and this time he was walking very fast; and when they got as far
+as Regan's public-house Father Oliver took his friend by the arm,
+reminding him again of his promise.
+
+'You promised not to disgrace the parish.'
+
+'I said that.... Well, if it's walking your heart is set upon, you
+shall have your bellyful of it.'
+
+And he was off again like a man walking for a wager. But Father Oliver,
+who wouldn't be out-walked, kept pace with him, and they went striding
+along, walking without speaking.
+
+Full of ruts and broken stones, the road straggled through the hills,
+and Father Oliver wondered what would happen when they got to the top of
+the hill. For the sea lay beyond the hill. The road bent round a
+shoulder of the hill, and when Father Oliver saw the long road before
+him his heart began to fail him, and a cry of despair rose to his lips;
+but at that moment Moran stopped.
+
+'You've saved me, Gogarty.'
+
+He did not notice that Father Gogarty was breathless, almost fainting,
+and he began talking hurriedly, telling Father Oliver how he had
+committed himself to the resolution of breaking into a run as soon as
+they got to the top of the hill.
+
+'My throat was on fire then, but now all the fire is out of it; your
+prayer has been answered. But what's the matter, Gogarty? You're not
+speaking.'
+
+'What you say is wonderful indeed, Moran, for I was praying for you. I
+prayed as long as I had breath; one can't pray without breath or speak.
+We'll talk of this presently.'
+
+The priests turned back, walking very slowly.
+
+'I feel no more wish to drink whisky than I do to drink bog-water. But
+I'm a bit hot, and I think I'd like a drink, and a drink of water will
+do me first-rate. Now look here, Gogarty: a miracle has happened, and
+we should thank God for it. Shall we kneel down?'
+
+The road was very wet, and they thought it would do as well if they
+leant over the little wall and said some prayers together.
+
+'I've conquered the devil; I know it. But I've been through a terrible
+time, Gogarty. It's all lifted from me now. I'm sorry I've brought you
+out for such a walk as this.'
+
+'Never mind the walk, Moran, so long as the temptation has passed from
+you--that's the principal thing.'
+
+To speak of ordinary things was impossible, for they believed in the
+miracle, and, thanking God for this act of grace, they walked on until
+they reached Father Oliver's gate.
+
+'I believe you're right, Moran; I believe that a miracle has happened.
+You'll go home straight, won't you?'
+
+Father Moran grasped Father Oliver's hand.
+
+'Indeed I will.'
+
+And Father Oliver stood by his gate looking down the road, and he didn't
+open it and go through until Father Moran had passed out of sight.
+Pushing it open, he walked up the gravel path, saying to himself, 'A
+miracle, without doubt. Moran called it a miracle and it seems like one,
+but will it last? Moran believes himself cured, that is certain;' and
+Father Oliver thought how his curate had gripped his hand, and felt sure
+that the grip meant, 'You've done me a great service, one I can never
+repay.'
+
+It was a pleasure to think that Moran would always think well of him.
+'Yes, Moran will always think well of me,' he repeated as he groped his
+way into the dark and lonely house in search of a box of matches. When
+his lamp was lighted he threw himself into his armchair so that he might
+ponder better on what had happened. 'I've been a good friend to him, and
+it's a great support to a man to think that he's been a good friend to
+another, that he kept him in the straight path, saved him from himself.
+Saved himself from himself,' he repeated;' can anybody be saved from
+himself?' and he began to wonder if Moran would conquer in the end and
+take pride in his conquest over himself.
+
+There was no sound, only an occasional spit of the lamp, and in the
+silence Father Oliver asked if it were the end of man's life to trample
+upon self or to encourage self. 'Nora,' he said, 'would answer that self
+is all we have, and to destroy it and put in its place conventions and
+prejudices is to put man's work above God's. But Nora would not answer
+in these words till she had spoken with Mr. Walter Poole.' The name
+brought a tightening about his heart, and when Father Oliver stumbled to
+his feet--he had walked many miles, and was tired--he began to think he
+must tell Nora of the miracle that had happened about a mile--he thought
+it was just a mile--beyond Patsy Regan's public-house. The miracle would
+impress her, and he looked round the room. It was then he caught sight
+of a letter--her letter. The envelope and foreign stamp told him that
+before he read the address--her writing! His hand trembled and his cheek
+paled, for she was telling him the very things he had longed to know.
+She was in love with Poole! she was not only in love with him--she was
+his mistress!
+
+The room seemed to tumble about him, and he grasped the end of the
+chimney-piece. And then, feeling that he must get out into the open air,
+he thought of Moran. He began to feel he must speak to him. He couldn't
+remember exactly what he had to say to him, but there was something on
+his mind which he must speak to Moran about. It seemed to him that he
+must go away with Moran to some public-house far away and drink. Hadn't
+Moran said that there were times when we all wanted drink? He tried to
+collect his thoughts.... Something had gone wrong, but he couldn't
+remember what had gone wrong or where he was. It seemed to him that
+somebody had lost her soul. He must seek it. It was his duty. Being a
+priest, he must go forth and find the soul, and bring it back to God. He
+remembered no more until he found himself in the midst of a great wood,
+standing in an open space; about him were dripping trees, and a ghostly
+sky overhead, and no sound but that of falling leaves. Large leaves
+floated down, and each interested him till it reached the wet earth.
+
+And then he began to wonder why he was in the wood at night, and why he
+should be waiting there, looking at the glimmering sky, seeing the
+oak-leaves falling, remembering suddenly that he was looking for her
+soul, for her lost soul, and that something had told him he would find
+the soul he was seeking in the wood; so he was drawn from glade to glade
+through the underwoods, and through places so thickly overgrown that it
+seemed impossible to pass through. And then the thorn-bushes gave way
+before him, for he was no longer alone. She had descended from the trees
+into his arms, white and cold, and every moment the wood grew dimmer;
+but when he expected it to disappear, when he thought he was going to
+escape for ever with her, an opening in the trees discovered the lake,
+and in fear he turned back into the wood, seeking out paths where there
+was little light.
+
+Once he was within the wood, the mist seemed to incorporate again; she
+descended again into his arms, and this time he would have lifted the
+veil and looked into her face, but she seemed to forbid him to recognize
+her under penalty of loss. His desire overcame him, and he put out his
+hand to lift the veil. As he did so his eyes opened, he saw the wet
+wood, the shining sky, and she sitting by a stone waiting for him. A
+little later she came to meet him from behind the hawthorns that grew
+along the cart-track--a tall woman with a little bend in her walk.
+
+He wondered why he was so foolish as to disobey her, and besought her to
+return to him, and they roamed again in the paths that led round the
+rocks overgrown with briars, by the great oak-tree where the leaves were
+falling. And wandering they went, smiling gently on each other, till she
+began to tell him that he must abide by the shores of the lake--why, he
+could not understand, for the wood was much more beautiful, and he was
+more alone with her in the wood than by the lake.
+
+The sympathy was so complete that words were not needed, but they had
+begun in his ears. He strove to apprehend the dim words sounding in his
+ears. Not her words, surely, for there was a roughness in the voice, and
+presently he heard somebody asking him why he was about this time of
+night, and very slowly he began to understand that one of his
+parishioners was by him, asking him whither he was going.
+
+'You'll be catching your death at this hour of the night, Father
+Oliver.'
+
+And the man told Father Oliver he was on his way to a fair, and for a
+short-cut he had come through the wood. And Father Oliver listened,
+thinking all the while that he must have been dreaming, for he could
+remember nothing.
+
+'Now, your reverence, we're at your own door, and the door is open.
+When you went out you forgot to close it.'
+
+The priest didn't answer.
+
+'I hope no harm will come to your reverence; and you'll be lucky if you
+haven't caught your death.'
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+He stopped in his undressing to ponder how Moran had come to tell him
+that he was going away on a drinking-bout, and all their long walk
+together to within a mile of Regan's public-house returned to him bit by
+bit, how Moran knelt down by the roadside to drink bog-water, which he
+said would take the thirst from him as well as whisky; and after bidding
+Moran good-night he had fallen into his armchair. It was not till he
+rose to his feet to go to bed that he had caught sight of the letter.
+Nora wrote--he could not remember exactly what she wrote, and threw
+himself into bed. After sleeping for many hours, his eyes at last
+opened, and he awoke wondering, asking himself where he was. Even the
+familiar room surprised him. And once more he began the process of
+picking his way back, but he couldn't recall what had happened from the
+time he left his house in search of Moran till he was overtaken by Alec
+in the wood. In some semi-conscious state he must have wandered off to
+Derrinrush. He must have wandered a long while--two hours, maybe more
+--through the familiar paths, but unaware that he was choosing them. To
+escape from the effort of remembrance he was glad to listen to
+Catherine, who was telling him that Alec was at the door, come up from
+the village to inquire how the priest was.
+
+She waited to hear Father Oliver's account of himself, but not having a
+story prepared, he pretended he was too tired to speak; and as he lay
+back in his chair he composed a little story, telling how he had been
+for a long walk with Father Moran, and, coming back in the dark, had
+missed his way on the outskirts of the wood. She began to raise some
+objections, but he said she was not to excite herself, and went out to
+see Alec, who, not being a quick-witted fellow, was easily persuaded
+into an acceptance of a very modified version of the incident, and
+Father Oliver lay back in his chair wondering if he had succeeded in
+deceiving Catherine. It would seem that he had, for when she came to
+visit him again from her kitchen she spoke of something quite different,
+which surprised him, for she was a very observant woman of inexhaustible
+curiosity. But this time, however, he had managed to keep his secret
+from her, and, dismissing her, he thought of Nora's letter.
+
+
+_From Miss Nora Glynn to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'RAPALLO, ITALY,
+
+'_December_ 12, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'I received "The Imitation" to-day and your two letters, one asking me
+if I had got the book. We had left Munich without giving instructions
+about our letters, so please accept my apologies and my best thanks.
+The Elizabethan translation, as you point out, is beautiful English, and
+I am glad to have the book; it will remind me of you, and I will keep it
+by me even if I do not read it very often. I passed the book over to Mr.
+Poole; he read it for a few minutes, and then returned it to me. "A
+worthy man, no doubt," he said, "but prone to taking things for granted.
+'The Imitation,'" he continued, "reminds me of a flower growing in the
+shade of a cloister, dying for lack of sun, and this is surely not the
+right kind of reading for you or your friend Father Oliver." I feel sure
+you want a change. Change of scene brings a change of mind. Why don't
+you come to Italy? Italy is the place for you. Italy is your proper
+mind. Mr. Poole says that Italy is every man's proper mind, and you're
+evidently thinking of Italy, for you ask for a description of where I am
+staying, saying that a ray of Italian sunlight will cheer you. Come to
+Italy. You can come here without danger of meeting us. We are leaving at
+the end of the month.
+
+'But I could go on chattering page after page, telling you about gardens
+and orange-trees (the orange-trees are the best part of the decoration;
+even now the great fruit hangs in the green leaves); and when I had
+described Italy, and you had described all the castles and the islands,
+we could turn back and discuss our religious differences. But I doubt if
+any good would come of this correspondence. You see, I have got my work
+to do, and you have got yours, and, notwithstanding all you say, I do
+not believe you to be unable to write the history of the lake and its
+castles. Your letters prove that you can, only your mind is unhinged by
+fears for my spiritual safety, and depressed by the Irish climate. It is
+very depressing, I know. I remember how you used to attribute the
+history of Ireland to the climate: a beautiful climate in a way, without
+extremes of heat and cold, as you said once, without an accent upon it.
+But you are not the ordinary Irishman; there is enough vitality in you
+to resist the languor of the climate. Your mood will pass away.... Your
+letter about the hermit that lived on Church Island is most beautiful.
+You have struck the right note--the wistful Irish note--and if you can
+write a book in that strain I am sure it will meet with great success.
+Go on with your book, and don't write to me any more--at least, not for
+the present. I have got too much to do, and cannot attend to a lengthy
+correspondence. We are going to Paris, and are looking forward to
+spending a great deal of time reading in the National Library. Some day
+we may meet, or take up this correspondence again. At present I feel
+that it is better for you and better for me that it should cease. But
+you will not think hardly of me because I write you this. I am writing
+in your own interests, dear Father Gogarty.
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'NORA GLYNN.'
+
+
+He read the letter slowly, pondering every sentence and every word, and
+when he had finished it his hand dropped upon his knee; and when the
+letter fell upon the hearthrug he did not stoop to pick it up, but sat
+looking into the fire, convinced that everything was over and done.
+There was nothing to look forward to; his life would drag on from day to
+day, from week to week, month to month, year to year, till at last he
+would be taken away to the grave. The grave is dreamless! But there
+might be a long time before he reached it, living for years without
+seeing or even hearing from her, for she would weary of writing to him.
+He began to dream of a hunt, the quarry hearing with dying ears the
+horns calling to each other in the distance, and cast in his chair, his
+arms hanging like dead arms, his senses mercifully benumbed, he lay, how
+long he knew not, but it must have been a long time.
+
+Catherine came into the room with some spoons in her hands, and asked
+him what was the matter, and, jumping up, he answered her rudely, for
+her curiosity annoyed him. It was irritating to have to wait for her to
+leave the room, but he did not dare to begin thinking while she was
+there. The door closed at last; he was alone again, and his thoughts
+fixed themselves at once on the end of her letter, on the words, 'Go on
+with your book, and don't write to me any more--at least, not for the
+present. I have too much to do, and cannot attend to a lengthy
+correspondence.' The evident cruelty of her words surprised him. There
+was nothing like this in any of her other letters. She intended these
+words as a _coup de grâce_. There was little mercy in them, for they
+left him living; he still lived--in a way.
+
+There was no use trying to misunderstand her words. To do so would be
+foolish, even if it were possible for him to deceive himself, and the
+rest of her letter mattered nothing to him. The two little sentences
+with which she dismissed him were his sole concern; they were the keys
+to the whole of this correspondence which had beguiled him. Fool that he
+had been not to see it! Alas! we see only what we want to see. He
+wandered about the lake, trying to bring himself to hate her. He even
+stopped in his walks to address insulting words to her. Words of common
+abuse came to his tongue readily, but there was an unconquerable
+tenderness in his heart always; and one day the thought went by that it
+was nobler of her to make him suffer than to have meekly forgiven him,
+as many women would have done, because he was a priest. He stopped
+affrighted, and began to wonder if this were the first time her easy
+forgiveness of his mistake had seemed suspicious. No, he felt sure that
+some sort of shadow of disappointment had passed at the back of his mind
+when he read her first letter, and after having lain for months at the
+back of his mind, this idea had come to the surface. An extraordinary
+perversion, truly, which he could only account for by the fact that he
+had always looked upon her as being more like what the primitive woman
+must have been than anybody else in the world; and the first instinct of
+the primitive woman would be to revenge any slight on her sexual pride.
+He had misread her character, and in this new reading he found a
+temporary consolation.
+
+As he sat thinking of her he heard a mouse gnawing under the boards,
+and every night after the mouse came to gnaw. 'The teeth of regret are
+the same; my life is being gnawed away. Never shall I see her.' It
+seemed impossible that life would close on him without his seeing her
+face or hearing her voice again, and he began to think how it would be
+if they were to meet on the other side. For he believed in heaven, and
+that was a good thing. Without such belief there would be nothing for
+him to do but to go down to the lake and make an end of himself. But
+believing as he did in heaven and the holy Catholic Church to be the
+surest way of getting there, he had a great deal to be thankful for.
+Poole's possession of her was but temporary, a few years at most,
+whereas his possession of her, if he were so fortunate as to gain
+heaven, and by his prayers to bring her back to the true fold, would
+endure for ever and ever. The wisest thing, therefore, for him to do
+would be to enter a Trappist monastery. But our Lord says that in heaven
+there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage, and what would heaven
+be to him without Nora? No more than a union of souls, and he wanted her
+body as well as her soul. He must pray. He knew the feeling well--a sort
+of mental giddiness, a delirium in the brain; and it increased rapidly,
+urging him to fall on his knees. If he resisted, it was because he was
+ashamed and feared to pray to God to reserve Nora for him. But the whirl
+in his brain soon deprived him of all power of resistance, and, looking
+round the room hurriedly to assure himself he was not watched, he fell
+on his knees and burst into extemporary prayer: '_O my God, whatever
+punishment there is to be borne, let me bear it. She sinned, no doubt,
+and her sins must be atoned for. Let me bear the punishment that thou,
+in thine infinite wisdom, must adjudge to her, poor sinful woman that
+she is, poor woman persecuted by men, persecuted by me. O my God,
+remember that I lent a willing ear to scandalmongers, that I went down
+that day to the school and lost my temper with her, that I spoke against
+her in my church. All the sins that have been committed are my sins; let
+me bear the punishment. O my Lord Jesus Christ, do thou intercede with
+thy Father and ask him to heap all the punishment on my head. Oh, dear
+Lord Jesus, if I had only thought of thee when I went down to the
+school, if I had remembered thy words, "Let him who is without sin cast
+the first stone," I should have been spared this anguish. If I had
+remembered thy words, she might have gone to Dublin and had her baby
+there, and come back to the parish. O my God, the fault is mine; all the
+faults that have been committed can be traced back to me, therefore I
+beseech of thee, I call upon thee, to let me bear all the punishment
+that she has earned by her sins, poor erring creature that she is. O my
+God, do this for me; remember that I served thee well for many years
+when I lived among the poor folk in the mountains. For all these years I
+ask this thing of thee, that thou wilt let me bear her punishment. Is it
+too much I am asking of thee, O my God, is it too much?'_
+
+When he rose from his knees, bells seemed to be ringing in his head,
+and he began to wonder if another miracle had befallen him, for it was
+as if someone had laid hands on him and forced him on his knees. But to
+ask the Almighty to extend his protection to him rather than to Mr.
+Poole, who was a Protestant, seemed not a little gross. Father Oliver
+experienced a shyness that he had never known before, and he hoped the
+Almighty would not be offended at the familiarity of the language, or
+the intimate nature of the request, for to ask for Nora's body as well
+as her soul did not seem altogether seemly.
+
+It was queer to think like that. Perhaps his brain was giving way. And
+he pushed the plates aside; he could not eat any dinner, nor could he
+take any interest in his garden.
+
+The dahlias were over, the chrysanthemums were beginning. Never had the
+country seemed so still: dead birds in the woods, and the sounds of
+leaves, and the fitful December sunlight on the strands--these were his
+distractions when he went out for a walk, and when he came in he often
+thought it would be well if he did not live to see another day, so heavy
+did the days seem, so uneventful, and in these languid autumn days the
+desire to write to Nora crept nearer, until it always seemed about him
+like some familiar animal.
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_December_ 30, 19--.
+
+'DEAR MISS GLYNN,
+
+'I should have written to you before, but I lacked courage. Do you
+remember saying that the loneliness of the country sometimes forced you
+to kneel down to pray that you might die? I think the loneliness that
+overcame you was the loneliness that comes at the end of an autumn day
+when the dusk gathers in the room. It seems to steal all one's courage
+away, and one looks up from one's work in despair, asking of what value
+is one's life. The world goes on just the same, grinding our souls away.
+Nobody seems to care; nothing seems to make any difference.
+
+'Human life is a very lonely thing, and for that it is perhaps
+religious. But there are days when religion fails us, when we lack
+courage, lonesomeness being our national failing. We were always
+lonesome, hundreds of years ago as much as to-day. You know it, you have
+been through it and will sympathize. A caged bird simply beats its wings
+and dies, but a human being does not die of loneliness, even when he
+prays for death. You have experienced it all, and will know what I feel
+when I tell you that I spend my time watching the rain, thinking of
+sunshine, picture-galleries, and libraries.
+
+'But you were right to bid me go on with the book I spoke to you about.
+If I had gone away, as you first suggested, I should have been unhappy;
+I should have thought continually of the poor people I left behind; my
+abandonment of them would have preyed on my mind, for the conviction is
+dead in me that I should have been able to return to them; we mayn't
+return to places where we have been unhappy. I might have been able to
+get a parish in England or a chaplaincy, but I should have always looked
+upon the desertion of my poor people as a moral delinquency. A quiet
+conscience is, after all, a great possession, and for the sake of a
+quiet conscience I will remain here, and you will be able to understand
+my scruple when you think how helpless my people are, and how essential
+is the kindly guidance of the priest.
+
+'Without a leader, the people are helpless; they wander like sheep on a
+mountain-side, falling over rocks or dying amid snowdrifts. Sometimes
+the shepherd grows weary of watching, and the question comes, Has a man
+no duty towards himself? And then one begins to wonder what is one's
+duty and what is duty--if duty is something more than the opinions of
+others, something more than a convention which we would not like to hear
+called into question, because we feel instinctively that it is well for
+everyone to continue in the rut, for, after all, a rut means a road, and
+roads are necessary. If one lets one's self go on thinking, one very
+soon finds that wrong and right are indistinguishable, so perhaps it is
+better to follow the rut if one can. But the rut is beset with
+difficulties; there are big holes on either side. Sometimes the road
+ends nowhere, and one gets lost in spite of one's self. But why am I
+writing all these things to you?'
+
+
+Why, indeed? If he were to send this letter she would show it to Mr.
+Poole, and they would laugh over it together. 'Poor priesty!' they would
+say, and the paper was crumpled and thrown into the fire. 'My life is
+unendurable, and it will grow worse,' he said, and fell to thinking how
+he would grow old, getting every day more like an old stereotyped plate,
+the Mass and the rosary at the end of his tongue, and nothing in his
+heart. He had seen many priests like this. Could he fall into such
+miserable decadence? Could such obedience to rule be any man's duty? But
+where should he go? It mattered little whither he went, for he would
+never see her any more, and she was, after all, the only real thing in
+the world for him.
+
+So did he continue to suffer like an animal, mutely, instinctively,
+mourning his life away, forgetful of everything but his grief; unmindful
+of his food, and unable to sleep when he lay down, or to distinguish
+between familiar things--the birds about his house, the boys and girls
+he had baptized. Very often he had to think a moment before he knew
+which was Mary and which was Bridget, which was Patsy and which was
+Mike, and very often Catherine was in the parlour many minutes before he
+noticed her presence. She stood watching him, wondering of what he was
+thinking, for he sat in his chair, getting weaker and thinner; and soon
+he began to look haggard as an old man or one about to die. He seemed to
+grow feebler in mind; his attention wandered away every few minutes from
+the book he was reading. Catherine noticed the change, and, thinking
+that a little chat would be of help, she often came up from her kitchen
+to tell him the gossip of the parish; but he could not listen to her,
+her garrulousness seemed to him more than ever tiresome, and he kept a
+book by him, an old copy of 'Ivanhoe,' which he pretended he was reading
+when he heard her step.
+
+Father Moran came to discuss the business of the parish with him and
+insisted on relieving Father Oliver of a great deal of it, saying that
+he wanted a rest, and he often urged Father Oliver to go away for a
+holiday. He was kind, but his talk was wearisome, and Father Oliver
+thought he would prefer to read about the fabulous Rowena than to hear
+any more about the Archbishop. But when Father Moran left Rowena bored
+him, and so completely that he could not remember at what point he had
+left off reading, and his thoughts wandered from the tournament to some
+phrase he had made use of in writing to Nora, or, it might be, some
+phrase of hers that would suddenly spring into his mind. He sought no
+longer to discover her character from her letters, nor did he criticize
+the many contradictions which had perplexed him: it seemed to him that
+he accepted her now, as the phrase goes, 'as she was,' thinking of her
+as he might of some supernatural being whom he had offended, and who had
+revenged herself. Her wickedness became in his eyes an added grace, and
+from the rack on which he lay he admired his executioner. Even her
+liking for Mr. Poole became submerged in a tide of suffering, and of
+longing, and weakness of spirit. He no longer had any strength to
+question her liking for the minor prophets: there were discrepancies in
+everyone, and no doubt there were in him as well as in her. He had once
+been very different from what he was to-day. Once he was an ardent
+student in Maynooth, he had been an energetic curate; and now what was
+he? Worse still, what was he becoming? And he allowed his thoughts to
+dwell on the fact that every day she was receding from him. He, too, was
+receding. All things were receding--becoming dimmer.
+
+He piled the grate up with turf, and when the blaze came leaned over it,
+warming his hands, asking himself why she liked Mr. Poole rather than
+him. For he no longer tried to conceal from himself the fact that he
+loved her. He had played the hypocrite long enough; he had spoken about
+her soul, but it was herself that he wanted. This admission brought some
+little relief, but he felt that the relief would only be temporary.
+Alas! it was surrender. It was worse than surrender--it was abandonment.
+He could sink no deeper. But he could; we can all sink deeper. Now what
+would the end be? There is an end to everything; there must be an end
+even to humiliation, to self-abasement. It was Moran over again. Moran
+was ashamed of his vice, but he had to accept it, and Father Oliver
+thought how much it must have cost his curate to come to tell him that
+he wanted to lie drunk for some days in an outhouse in order to escape
+for a few days from the agony of living. 'That is what he called it, and
+I, too, would escape from it.'
+
+His thoughts turned suddenly to a poem written by a peasant in County
+Cork a hundred years ago to a woman who inspired a passion that wrecked
+his mind altogether in the end. And he wondered if madness would be the
+end of his suffering, or if he would go down to the lake and find rest
+in it.
+
+
+  'Oh, succour me, dear one, give me a kiss from thy mouth,
+    And lift me up to thee from death,
+  Or bid them make for me a narrow bed, a coffin of boards,
+    In the dark neighbourhood of the worm and his friends.
+  My life is not life but death, my voice is no voice but a wind,
+    There is no colour in me, nor life, nor richness, nor health;
+  But in tears and sorrow and weakness, without music, without
+          sport, without power,
+  I go into captivity and woe, and in the pain of my love of thee.'
+
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_March_ 12, 19--.
+
+'A long time has passed without your hearing from me, and I am sure you
+must have said more than once: "Well, that priest has more sense than I
+gave him credit for. He took the hint. He understood that it would be
+useless for us to continue to write long letters to each other about
+remorse of conscience and Mr. Poole's criticism of the Bible." But the
+sight of my handwriting will call into question the opinion you have
+formed of my good sense, and you will say: "Here he is, beginning it all
+over again." No, I am not. I am a little ashamed of my former letters,
+and am writing to tell you so. My letters, if I write any, will be quite
+different in the future, thanks to your candour. Your letter from
+Rapallo cured me; like a surgeon's knife, it took out the ulcer that was
+eating my life away. The expression will seem exaggerated, I know; but
+let it remain. You no doubt felt that I was in ignorance of my own state
+of feelings regarding you, and you wrote just such a letter as would
+force me to look into my heart and to discover who I really was. You
+felt that you could help me to some knowledge of myself by telling me
+about yourself.
+
+'The shock on reading your confession--for I look upon your Rapallo
+letter as one--was very great, for on reading it I felt that a good deal
+that I had written to you about the salvation of your soul was inspired,
+not by any pure fear that I had done anything that might lose a soul to
+God, but by pure selfishness. I did not dare to write boldly that I
+loved yourself, and would always love you; I wore a mask and a disguise,
+and in order to come to terms with myself I feel it necessary to confess
+to you; otherwise all the suffering I have endured would be wasted.
+
+'But this is not all my confession; worse still remains. I have
+discovered that when I spoke against you in church, and said things that
+caused you to leave the parish, I did not do so, as I thought, because I
+believed that the morality of my parish must be maintained at any cost.
+I know now that jealousy--yes, sensual jealousy--prompted me. And when I
+went to my sisters to ask them to appoint you to the post of
+music-teacher in their school, I did not do so for their sake, but for
+my own, because I wished to have you back in the parish. But I do not
+wish you to think that when I wrote about atonement I wrote what I knew
+to be untrue. I did not; the truth was hidden from me. Nor did I wish to
+get you back to the parish in order that I might gratify my passion. All
+these things were very vague, and I didn't understand myself until now.
+I never had any experience of life till I met you. And is it not curious
+that one should know so little of one's self, for I might have gone down
+to my grave without knowing how false I was at heart, if I had not been
+stricken down with a great illness.
+
+'One day, Catherine told me that the lake was frozen over, and, as I had
+been within doors a long while, she advised me to go out and see the
+boys sliding on the ice. Her advice put an idea into my head, that I
+might take out my skates and skate recklessly without trying to avoid
+the deeper portions where the ice was likely to be thin, for I was weary
+of life, and knowing that I could not go back upon the past, and that no
+one would ever love me, I wished to bring my suffering to an end. You
+will wonder why I did not think of the sufferings that I might have
+earned for myself in the next world. I had suffered so much that I could
+think of nothing but the present moment. God was good, and he saved me,
+for as I stood irresolute before a piece of ice which I knew wouldn't
+bear me, I felt a great sickness creeping over me. I returned home, and
+for several days the doctor could not say whether I would live or die.
+You remember Catherine, my servant? She told me that the only answer the
+doctor would give her was that if I were not better within a certain
+time there would be no hope of my recovery. At the end of the week he
+came into my room. Catherine was waiting outside, and I hear that she
+fell on her knees to thank God when the doctor said: "Yes, he is a
+little better; if there's no relapse he'll live."
+
+'After a severe illness one is alone with one's self, the whole of one's
+life sings in one's head like a song, and listening to it, I learned
+that it was jealousy that prompted me to speak against you, and not any
+real care for the morality of my parish. I discovered, too, that my
+moral ideas were not my own. They were borrowed from others, and badly
+assimilated. I remembered, too, how at Maynooth the tradition was always
+to despise women, and in order to convince myself I used to exaggerate
+this view, and say things that made my fellow-students look at me
+askance, if not with suspicion. But while dozing through long
+convalescent hours many things hitherto obscure to me became clear, and
+it seems now to me to be clearly wrong to withhold our sympathy from any
+side of life. It seems to me that it is only by our sympathy we can do
+any good at all. God gave us our human nature; we may misuse and degrade
+our nature, but we must never forget that it came originally from God.
+
+'What I am saying may not be in accordance with current theology, but I
+am not thinking of theology, but of the things that were revealed to me
+during my sickness. It was through my fault that you met Mr. Walter
+Poole, and I must pray to God that he will bring you back to the fold. I
+shall pray for you both. I wish you all happiness, and I thank you for
+the many kind things you have said, for the good advice you have given
+me. You are quite right: I want a change. You advise me to go to Italy,
+and you are right to advise me to go there, for my heart yearns for
+Italy. But I dare not go; for I still feel that if I left my parish I
+should never return to it; and if I were to go away and not return a
+great scandal would be caused, and I am more than ever resolved not to
+do anything to grieve the poor people, who have been very good to me,
+and whose interests I have neglected this long while.
+
+'I send this letter to Beechwood Hall, where you will find it on your
+return. As I have already said, you need not answer it; no good will
+come by answering it. In years to come, perhaps, when we are both
+different, we may meet again.
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+_From Miss Nora Glynn to Father Oliver Gogarty._
+
+'IMPERIAL HOTEL, CAIRO, EGYPT,
+
+'_May_ 5, 19--.
+
+'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
+
+'By the address on the top of this sheet of paper you will see that I
+have travelled a long way since you last heard from me, and ever since
+your letter has been following me about from hotel to hotel. It is lucky
+that it has caught me up in Egypt, for we are going East to visit
+countries where the postal service has not yet been introduced. We leave
+here to-morrow. If your letter had been a day later it would have missed
+me; it would have remained here unclaimed--unless, indeed, we come back
+this way, which is not likely. You see what a near thing it was; and as
+I have much to say to you, I should be sorry not to have had an
+opportunity of writing.
+
+'Your last letter put many thoughts into my head, and made me anxious to
+explain many things which I feel sure you do not know about my conduct
+since I left London, and the letters I have written to you. Has it not
+often seemed strange to you that we go through life without ever being
+able to reveal the soul that is in us? Is it because we are ashamed, or
+is it that we do not know ourselves? It is certainly a hard task to
+learn the truth about ourselves, and I appreciate the courage your last
+letter shows; you have faced the truth, and having learned it, you write
+it to me in all simplicity. I like you better now, Oliver Gogarty, than
+I ever did before, and I always liked you. But it seems to me that to
+allow you to confess yourself without confessing myself, without
+revealing the woman's soul in me as you have revealed the man's soul in
+yourself, would be unworthy.
+
+'Our destinies got somehow entangled, there was a wrench, the knot was
+broken, and the thread was wound upon another spool. The unravelling of
+the piece must have perplexed you, and you must have wondered why the
+shape and the pattern should have passed suddenly away into thread
+again, and then, after a lapse of time, why the weaving should have
+begun again.
+
+'You must have wondered why I wrote to you, and you must have wondered
+why I forgave you for the wrong you did me. I guessed that our
+friendship when I was in the parish was a little more than the platonic
+friendship that you thought it was, so when you turned against me, and
+were unkind, I found an excuse for you. When my hatred was bitterest, I
+knew somehow, at the back of my mind--for I only allowed myself to think
+of it occasionally--that you acted from--there is but one word--jealousy
+(not a pretty word from your point of view); and it must have shocked
+you, as a man and as a priest, to find that the woman whom you thought
+so much of, and whose society gave you so much pleasure (I know the
+times we passed together were as pleasant to you as they were to me),
+should suddenly without warning appear in a totally different light, and
+in a light which must have seemed to you mean and sordid. The discovery
+that I was going to have a baby threw me suddenly down from the pedestal
+on which you had placed me; your idol was broken, and your feelings--for
+you are one of those men who feel deeply--got the better of you, and you
+indulged in a few incautious words in your church.
+
+'I thought of these things sometimes, not often, I admit, in the little
+London lodging where I lived till my baby was born, seeing my gown in
+front getting shorter, and telling lies to good Mrs. Dent about the
+husband whom I said was abroad, whom I was expecting to return. That was
+a miserable time, but we won't talk of it any more. When Father O'Grady
+showed me the letter that you wrote him, I forgave you in a way. A woman
+forgives a man the wrongs he does when these wrongs are prompted by
+jealousy, for, after all, a woman is never really satisfied if a man is
+not a little jealous. His jealousy may prove inconvenient, and she may
+learn to hate it and think it an ugly thing and a crooked thing, but,
+from her point of view, love would not be complete without it.
+
+'I smiled, of course, when I got your letter telling me that you had
+been to your sisters to ask them if they would take me as a
+schoolmistress in the convent, and I walked about smiling, thinking of
+your long innocent drive round the lake. I can see it all, dear man that
+you are, thinking you could settle everything, and that I would return
+to Ireland to teach barefooted little children their Catechism and their
+A, B, C. How often has the phrase been used in our letters! It was a
+pretty idea of yours to go to your sisters; you did not know then that
+you cared for me--you only thought of atonement. I suppose we must
+always be deceived. Mr. Poole says self-deception is the very law of
+life. We live enveloped in self-deception as in a film; now and again
+the film breaks like a cloud and the light shines through. We veil our
+eyes, for we do not like the light. It is really very difficult to tell
+the truth, Father Gogarty; I find it difficult now to tell you why I
+wrote all these letters. Because I liked you? Yes, and a little bit
+because I wished you to suffer; I don't think I shall ever get nearer
+the truth than that. But when I asked you to meet us abroad, I did so in
+good faith, for you are a clever man, and Mr. Poole's studies would
+please you. At the back of my mind I suppose I thought to meet him
+would do you good; I thought, perhaps, that he might redeem you from
+some conventions and prejudices. I don't like priests; the priest was
+the only thing about you I never liked. Was it in some vain,
+proselytizing idea that I invited you? Candidly, I don't know, and I
+don't think I ever shall. We know so very little about this world that
+it seems to me waste of time to think about the next. My notion is that
+the wisest plan is to follow the mood of the moment, with an object more
+or less definite in view.... Nothing is worth more than that. I am at
+the present moment genuinely interested in culture, and therefore I did
+not like at all the book you sent me, "The Imitation," and I wrote to
+tell you to put it by, to come abroad and see pictures and statues in a
+beautiful country where people do not drink horrid porter, but nice
+wine, and where Sacraments are left to the old people who have nothing
+else to interest them. I suppose it was a cruel, callous letter, but I
+did not mean it so; I merely wanted to give you a glimpse of my new life
+and my new point of view. As for this letter, Heaven knows how you will
+take it--whether you will hate me for it or like me; but since you wrote
+quite frankly to me, confessing yourself from end to end, I feel bound
+to tell you everything I know about myself--and since I left Ireland I
+have learned a great deal about myself and about life. Perhaps I should
+have gone on writing to you if Mr. Poole had not one day said that no
+good would come of this long correspondence; he suspected I was a
+disturbing influence, and, as you were determined to live in Ireland,
+he said it were better that you should live in conventions and
+prejudices, without them your life would be impossible.
+
+'Then came your last letter, and it showed me how right Mr. Poole was.
+Nothing remains now but to beg your forgiveness for having disturbed
+your life. The disturbance is, perhaps, only a passing one. You may
+recover your ideas--the ideas that are necessary to you--or you may go
+on discovering the truth, and in the end may perhaps find a way whereby
+you may leave your parish without causing scandal. To be quite truthful,
+that is what I hope will happen. However this may be, I hope if we ever
+meet again it will not be till you have ceased to be a priest. But all
+this is a long way ahead. We are going East, and shall not be back for
+many months; we are going to visit the buried cities in Turkestan. I do
+not know if you have ever heard about these cities. They were buried in
+sand somewhere about a thousand years ago, and some parts have been
+disinterred lately. Vaults were broken into in search of treasure. Gold
+and precious stones were discovered, but far more valuable than the gold
+and silver, so says Mr. Poole, are certain papyri now being deciphered
+by the learned professors of Berlin.
+
+'You know the name of Mr. Poole's book, "The Source of the Christian
+River"? He had not suspected that its source went further back than
+Palestine, but now he says that some papyri may be found that will take
+it far back into Central Asia.
+
+'I am going with him on this quest. It sounds a little absurd, doesn't
+it? my going in quest of the Christian river? But if one thinks for a
+moment, one thing is as absurd as another. Do you know, I find it
+difficult to take life seriously, and I walk about the streets thinking
+of you, Father Gogarty, and the smile that will come over your face,
+half angry, half pleased, when you read that your schoolmistress is
+going to Central Asia in quest of the Christian river. What will you be
+doing all this time? You say that you cannot leave your parish because
+you fear to give scandal; you fear to pain the poor people, who have
+been good to you and who have given you money, and your scruple is a
+noble one; I appreciate and respect it. But we must not think entirely
+of our duties to others; we must think of our duties to ourselves. Each
+one must try to realize himself--I mean that we must try to bring the
+gifts that Nature gave us to fruition. Nature has given you many gifts:
+I wonder what will become of you?
+
+'Very sincerely yours,
+
+'NORA GLYNN.'
+
+
+'Good God, how I love that woman!' the priest said, awaking from his
+reverie, for the clock told him that he had sat for nearly
+three-quarters of an hour, her letter in his hand, after having read it.
+And lying back in his armchair, his hands clasped, his eyes fixed on the
+window, listening to the birds singing in the vine--it was already in
+leaf, and the shadows of the leaves danced across the carpet--he sought
+to define that sense of delight--he could find no other words for
+it--which she exhaled unconsciously as a flower exhales its perfume,
+that joy of life which she scattered with as little premeditation as the
+birds scattered their songs. But though he was constantly seeking some
+new form of expression of her charm, he always came back to the words
+'sense of delight.' Sometimes he added that sense of delight which we
+experience when we go out of the house on an April morning and find
+everything growing about us, the sky wilful and blue, and the clouds
+going by, saying, 'Be happy, as we are.'
+
+She was so different from every other woman. All other women were plain
+instincts, come into the world for the accomplishment of things that
+women had accomplished for thousands of years. Other women think as
+their mothers thought, and as their daughters will think, expressing the
+thoughts of the countless generations behind and in front of them. But
+this woman was moved merely by impulses; and what is more inexplicable
+than an impulse? What is the spring but an impulse? and this woman was
+mysterious, evanescent as its breath, with the same irresponsible
+seduction. He was certain that she was at last clear to him, though she
+might become dark to him again. One day she had come to gather flowers,
+and while arranging her posy she said casually: 'You are a ruler in this
+parish; you direct it, the administration of the parish is your
+business, and I am the little amusement that you turn to when your
+business is done.' He had not known how to answer her. In this way her
+remarks often covered him with confusion. She just thought as she
+pleased, and spoke as she pleased, and he returned to his idea that she
+was more like the primitive woman than anybody else.
+
+Pondering on her words for the hundredth time, they seemed to him
+stranger than ever. That any human being should admit that she was but
+the delight of another's life seemed at first only extraordinary, but if
+one considered her words, it seemed to signify knowledge--latent, no
+doubt--that her beauty was part of the great agency. Her words implied
+that she was aware of her mission. It was her unconscious self that
+spoke, and it was that which gave significance to her words.
+
+His thoughts melted into nothingness, and when he awoke from his reverie
+he was thinking that Nora Glynn had come into his life like a fountain,
+shedding living water upon it, awakening it. And taking pleasure in the
+simile, he said, 'A fountain better than anything else expresses this
+natural woman,' controlled, no doubt, by a law, but one hidden from him.
+'A fountain springs out of earth into air; it sings a tune that cannot
+be caught and written down in notes; the rising and falling water is
+full of iridescent colour, and to the wilting roses the fountain must
+seem not a natural thing, but a spirit, and I too think of her as a
+spirit.' And his thoughts falling away again he became vaguely but
+intensely conscious of all the beauty and grace and the enchantment of
+the senses that appeared to him in the name of Nora Glynn.
+
+At that moment Catherine came into the room. 'No, not now,' he said; and
+he went into the garden and through the wicket at the other end,
+thinking tenderly how he had gone out last year on a day just like the
+present day, trying to keep thoughts of her out of his mind.
+
+The same fifteenth of May! But last year the sky was low and full of
+cotton-like clouds; and he remembered how the lake warbled about the
+smooth limestone shingle, and how the ducks talked in the reeds, how the
+reeds themselves seemed to be talking. This year the clouds lifted;
+there was more blue in the sky, less mist upon the water, and it was
+this day last year that sorrow began to lap about his heart like soft
+lakewater. He thought then that he was grieving deeply, but since last
+year he had learned all that a man could know of grief. For last year he
+was able to take an interest in the spring, to watch for the
+hawthorn-bloom; but this year he did not trouble to look their way.
+What matter whether they bloomed a week earlier or a week later? As a
+matter of fact they were late, the frost having thrown them back, and
+there would be no flowers till June. How beautifully the tasselled
+branches of the larches swayed, throwing shadows on the long May grass!
+'And they are not less beautiful this year, though they are less
+interesting to me,' he said.
+
+He wandered through the woods, over the country, noting the different
+signs of spring, for, in spite of his sorrow, he could not but admire
+the slender spring. He could not tell why, perhaps because he had always
+associated Nora with the gaiety of the spring-time. She was thin like
+the spring, and her laughter was blithe like the spring. She seemed to
+him like a spirit, and isn't the spring like a spirit? She was there in
+the cow-parsley just coming up, and the sight of the campions between
+the white spangles reminded him of the pink flowers she wore in her hat.
+The underwood was full of bluebells, but her eyes were not blue. The
+aspens were still brown, but in a month the dull green leaves, silvery
+underneath, would be fluttering at the end of their long stems. And the
+continual agitation of the aspen-leaf seemed to him rather foolish,
+reminding him of a weak-minded woman clamouring for sympathy always. The
+aspen was an untidy tree; he was not sure that he liked the tree, and if
+one is in doubt whether one likes or dislikes, the chances are that one
+dislikes. Who would think of asking himself if he liked beech-trees, or
+larches, or willows? A little later he stood lost in admiration of a
+line of willows all a-row in front of a stream; they seemed to him like
+girls curtseying, and the delicacy of the green and yellow buds induced
+him to meditate on the mysteries that common things disclose.
+
+Seeing a bird disappear into a hole in the wall, he climbed up. The bird
+pecked at him, for she was hatching. 'A starling,' he said. In the field
+behind his house, under the old hawthorn-tree, an amiable-looking donkey
+had given birth to a foal, and he watched the little thing, no bigger
+than a sheep, covered with long gray hair ... There were some
+parishioners he would be sorry to part with, and there was Catherine. If
+he went away he would never see her again, nor those who lived in the
+village. All this present reality would fade, his old church,
+surrounded with gravestones and stunted Scotch firs, would become like a
+dream, every year losing a little in colour and outline. He was going,
+he did not know when, but he was going. For a long time the feeling had
+been gathering in him that he was going, and her letter increased that
+feeling. He would go just as soon as a reputable way of leaving his
+parish was revealed to him.
+
+By the help of his reason he could not hope to find out the way. Nothing
+seemed more impossible than that a way should be found for him to leave
+his parish without giving scandal; but however impossible things may
+seem to us, nothing is impossible to Nature. He must put his confidence
+in Nature; he must listen to her. She would tell him. And he lay all the
+afternoon listening to the reeds and the ducks talking together in the
+lake. Very often the wood was like a harp; a breeze touched the strings,
+and every now and then the murmur seemed about to break into a little
+tune, and as if in emulation, or because he remembered his part in the
+music, a blackbird, perched near to his mate, whose nest was in the
+hawthorns growing out of the tumbled wall, began to sing a joyful lay in
+a rich round contralto, soft and deep as velvet. 'All nature,' he said,
+'is talking or singing. This is talking and singing time. But my heart
+can speak to no one, and I seek places where no one will come.' And he
+began to ask if God would answer his prayer if he prayed that he might
+die.
+
+The sunlit grass, already long and almost ready for the scythe, was
+swept by shadows of the larches, those long, shelving boughs hung with
+green tassels, moving mysteriously above him. Birds came and went, each
+on its special errand. Never was Nature more inveigling, more restful.
+He shut his eyes, shapes passed, dreams filled the interspaces. Little
+thoughts began. Why had he never brought her here? A memory of her
+walking under these larches would be delightful. The murmur of the
+boughs dissipated his dreams or changed them, or brought new ones; his
+consciousness grew fainter, and he could not remember what his last
+thoughts were when he opened his eyes.
+
+And then he wandered out of the wood, into the sunlit country, along the
+dusty road, trying to take an interest in everyone whom he met. It was
+fairday. He met drovers and chatted to them about the cattle; he heard a
+wonderful story about a heifer that one of them had sold, and that found
+her way back home again, twenty-five miles, and a little further on a
+man came across the fields towards him with a sheep-dog at his heels, a
+beautiful bitch who showed her teeth prettily when she was spoken to;
+she had long gold hair, and it was easy to see that she liked to be
+admired.
+
+'They're all alike, the feminine sex,' the priest thought. 'She's as
+pretty as Nora, and acts very much the same.'
+
+He walked on again, stopping to speak with everybody, glad to listen to
+every story. One was of a man who lived by poaching. He hadn't slept in
+a bed for years, but lay down in the mountains and the woods. He
+trapped rabbits and beat people; sometimes he enticed boys far away, and
+then turned upon them savagely. Well, the police had caught him again,
+and this time he wouldn't get off with less than five years. Listening
+to Mike Mulroy's talk, Father Oliver forgot his own grief. A little
+further on they came upon a cart filled with pigs. The cart broke down
+suddenly, and the pigs escaped in all directions, and the efforts of a
+great number of country people were directed to collecting them. Father
+Oliver joined in the chase, and it proved a difficult one, owing to the
+density of the wood that the pigs had taken refuge in. At last he saw
+them driven along the road, for it had been found impossible to mend the
+cart, and at this moment Father Oliver began to think that he would like
+to be a pig-driver, or better still, a poacher like Carmody. A wandering
+mood was upon him. Anything were better than to return to his parish,
+and the thought of the confessions he would have to hear on Saturday
+night and of the Mass he would have to say on Sunday was bitter indeed,
+for he had ceased to believe in these things. To say Mass, believing the
+Mass to be but a mummery, was detestable. To remain in his parish meant
+a constant degradation of himself. When a parishioner sent to ask him to
+attend a sick call, he could barely bring himself to anoint the dying
+man. Some way out of the dilemma must be found, and stopping suddenly so
+that he might think more clearly, he asked himself why he did not wander
+out of the parish instead of following the path which led him back to
+the lake? thinking that it was because it is hard to break with habits,
+convictions, prejudices. The beautiful evening did not engage his
+thoughts, and he barely listened to the cuckoo, and altogether forgot to
+notice the bluebells, campions, and cow-parsley; and it was not till he
+stood on the hilltop overlooking the lake that he began to recover his
+self-possession.
+
+'The hills,' he said, 'are turned hither and thither, not all seen in
+profile, and that is why they are so beautiful.'
+
+The sunlit crests and the shadow-filled valleys roused him. In the sky a
+lake was forming, the very image and likeness of the lake under the
+hill. One glittered like silver, the other like gold, and so wonderful
+was this celestial lake that he began to think of immortals, of an
+assembly of goddesses waiting for their gods, or a goddess waiting on an
+island for some mortal, sending bird messengers to him. A sort of pagan
+enchantment was put upon him, and he rose up from the ferns to see an
+evening as fair as Nora and as fragrant. He tried to think of the colour
+of her eyes, which were fervid and oracular, and of her hands, which
+were long and curved, with fragile fingers, of her breath, which was
+sweet, and her white, even teeth. The evening was like her, as subtle
+and as persuasive, and the sensation of her presence became so clear
+that he shut his eyes, feeling her about him--as near to him as if she
+lay in his arms, just as he had felt her that night in the wood, but
+then she was colder and more remote. He walked along the foreshore
+feeling like an instrument that had been tuned. His perception seemed to
+have been indefinitely increased, and it seemed to him as if he were in
+communion with the stones in the earth and the clouds in heaven; it
+seemed to him as if the past and the future had become one.
+
+The moment was one of extraordinary sweetness; never might such a moment
+happen in his life again. And he watched the earth and sky enfolded in
+one tender harmony of rose and blue--blue fading to gray, and the lake
+afloat amid vague shores, receding like a dream through sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_June_ 18, 19--.
+
+'Thoughts are rising up in my mind, and I am eager to write them down
+quickly, and with as little consideration as possible. Perhaps my
+thoughts will seem trivial when I have written them, but the emotion
+that inspired them was very wonderful and overpowering. I am, as it
+were, propelled to my writing-table. I must write: my emotion must find
+expression. Even if I were sure you would not get this letter for
+months, I should write it. I believe if I knew you would never get it, I
+should write. But if I send it to Beechwood Hall it will be forwarded, I
+suppose, for you will not remain whole months without hearing from
+Europe.... In any case, you will get this letter on your return, and it
+will ease my heart to write it. Above all things, I would have you know
+that the report that I was drowned while bathing is not true, for a
+report to this effect will certainly find its way into the local papers,
+and in these days, once a piece of news gets reported, it flies along
+from newspaper to newspaper, and newspapers have a knack of straying
+into our hands when they contain a disagreeable item of news.
+
+'You will remember how the interview with Mr. Poole, published in
+_Illustrated England_, came into my hands. That was the first number of
+_Illustrated England_ I had seen. Father O'Grady brought it here and
+left it upon the table, and only the fate that is over us knows why. In
+the same way, a paper containing a report of my supposed drowning may
+reach you when you return to England, and, as I do not want you to think
+that I have gone out of this life, I am writing to tell you that the
+report of my death is untrue, or, to speak more exactly, it will not be
+true, if my arms and legs can make it a false report. These lines will
+set you wondering if I have taken leave of my senses. Read on, and my
+sanity will become manifest. Some day next month I intend to swim across
+the lake, and you will, I think, appreciate this adventure. You praised
+my decision not to leave my parish because of the pain it would give the
+poor people. You said that you liked me better for it, and it is just
+because my resolve has not wavered that I have decided to swim across
+the lake. Only in this way can I quit my parish without leaving a
+scandalous name behind me. Moreover, the means whereby I was enlightened
+are so strange that I find it difficult to believe that Providence is
+not on my side.
+
+'Have not men always believed in bird augury from the beginning of time?
+and have not prognostications a knack of coming true? I feel sure that
+you would think as I do if what had happened to me happened to you. Yet
+when you read this letter you will say, "No sooner has he disentangled
+himself from one superstition than he drops into another!" However this
+may be, I cannot get it out of my head that the strangely ill-fated bird
+that came out of the wood last February was sent for a purpose. But I
+have not told you about that bird. In my last letter my mind was
+occupied by other things, and there was no reason why I should have
+mentioned it, for it seemed at the time merely a curious accident--no
+more curious than the hundred and one accidents that happen every day. I
+believe these things are called coincidences. But to the story. The day
+I went out skating there was a shooting-party in Derrinrush, and at the
+close of day, in the dusk, a bird got up from the sedge, and one of the
+shooters, mistaking it for a woodcock, fired, wounding the bird.
+
+'We watched it till we saw it fall on the shore of Castle Island, and,
+thinking that it would linger there for days, dying by inches, I started
+off with the intention of saving it from a lingering death, but a shot
+had done that. One pellet would have been enough, for the bird was but a
+heap of skin and feathers, not to be wondered at, its legs being tied
+together with a piece of stout string, twisted and tied so that it would
+last for years. And this strangely ill-fated curlew set me thinking if
+it were a tame bird escaped from captivity, but tame birds lose quickly
+their instinct of finding food. "It must have been freed yesterday or
+the day before," I said to myself, and in pondering how far a bird might
+fly in the night, this curlew came to occupy a sort of symbolic
+relation towards my past and my future life, and it was in thinking of
+it that the idea occurred to me that, if I could cross the lake on the
+ice, I might swim it in the summer-time when the weather was warm,
+having, of course, hidden a bundle of clothes amid the rocks on the
+Joycetown side. My clerical clothes will be found on this side, and the
+assumption will be, of course, that I swam out too far.
+
+'This way of escape seemed at first fantastic and unreal, but it has
+come to seem to me the only practical way out of my difficulty. In no
+other way can I leave the parish without giving pain to the poor people,
+who have been very good to me. And you, who appreciated my scruples on
+this point, will, I am sure, understand the great pain it would give my
+sisters if I were to leave the Church. It would give them so much pain
+that I shrink from trying to imagine it. They would look upon themselves
+as disgraced, and the whole family. My disappearance from the parish
+would ever do them harm--Eliza's school would suffer for sure. This may
+seem an exaggeration, but certainly Eliza would never quite get over it.
+If this way of escape had not been revealed to me, I don't think I ever
+should have found courage to leave, and if I didn't leave I should die.
+Life is so ordered that a trace remains of every act, but the trace is
+not always discovered, and I trust you implicitly. You will never show
+this letter to anyone; you will never tell anyone.
+
+'The Church would allow me, no doubt, to pick up a living as best I
+could, and would not interfere with me till I said something or wrote
+something that the Church thought would lessen its power; then the cry
+of unfrocked priest would be raised against me, and calumny, the great
+ecclesiastical weapon, would be used. I do not know what my future life
+will be: my past has been so beset with misfortune that, once I reach
+the other side, I shall never look back. I cannot find words to tell you
+of the impatience with which I wait the summer-time, the fifteenth of
+July, when the moon will be full. I cannot think what would have
+happened to me if I had stayed at home the afternoon that the curlew was
+shot; something would have happened, for we cannot go on always
+sacrificing ourselves. We can sacrifice ourselves for a time, but we
+cannot sacrifice ourselves all our life long, unless we begin to take
+pleasure in the immolation of self, and then it is no longer sacrifice.
+Something must have happened, or I should have gone mad.
+
+'I had suffered so much in the parish. I think the places in which we
+have suffered become distasteful to us, and the instinct to wander takes
+us. A migratory bird goes, or dies of home-sickness; home is not always
+where we are born--it is among ideas that are dear to us: and it is
+exile to live among people who do not share our ideas. Something must
+have happened to me. I can think of nothing except suicide or what did
+happen, for I could never have made up my mind to give pain to the poor
+people and to leave a scandalous name behind; still less could I
+continue to administer Sacraments that I ceased to believe in. I can
+imagine nothing more shameful than the life of a man who continues his
+administrations after he has ceased to believe in them, especially a
+Catholic priest, so precise and explicit are the Roman Sacraments. A
+very abject life it is to murmur _Absolve te_ over the heads of
+parishioners, and to place wafers on their tongues, when we have ceased
+to believe that we have power to forgive sins and to turn biscuits into
+God. A layman may have doubts, and continue to live his life as before,
+without troubling to take the world into his confidence, but a priest
+may not. The priest is a paid agent and the money an unbelieving priest
+receives, if he be not inconceivably hardened in sin, must be hateful to
+him, and his conscience can leave him no rest.
+
+'At first I used to suspect my conversion, and began to think it
+unseemly that a man should cease to believe that we must renounce this
+life in order to gain another, without much preliminary study of the
+Scriptures; I began to look upon myself as a somewhat superficial person
+whose religious beliefs yielded before the charm of a pretty face and
+winsome personality, but this view of the question no longer seems
+superficial. I believe now that the superficial ones are those who think
+that it is only in the Scriptures that we may discover whether we have a
+right to live. Our belief in books rather than in Nature is one of
+humanity's most curious characteristics, and a very irreligious one, it
+seems to me; and I am glad to think that it was your sunny face that
+raised up my crushed instincts, that brought me back to life, and ever
+since you have been associated in my mind with the sun and the
+spring-tide.
+
+'One day in the beginning of March, coming back from a long walk on the
+hills, I heard the bleat of the lamb and the impatient cawing of the
+rook that could not put its nest together in the windy branches, and as
+I stopped to listen it seemed to me that something passed by in the
+dusk: the spring-tide itself seemed to be fleeting across the tillage
+towards the scant fields. As the spring-tide advanced I discovered a new
+likeness to you in the daffodil; it is so shapely a flower. I should be
+puzzled to give a reason, but it reminds me of antiquity, and you were
+always a thing divorced from the Christian ideal. While mourning you, my
+poor instincts discovered you in the wind-shaken trees, and in the
+gaiety of the sun, and the flowers that May gives us. I shall be gone at
+the end of July, when the carnations are in bloom, but were I here I am
+certain many of them would remind me of you. There have been saints who
+have loved Nature, but I always wondered how it was so, for Nature is
+like a woman. I might have read the Scriptures again and again, and all
+the arguments that Mr. Poole can put forward, without my faith being in
+the least shaken. When the brain alone thinks, the thinking is very thin
+and impoverished. It seems to me that the best thinking is done when the
+whole man thinks, the flesh and the brain together, and for the whole
+man to think the whole man must live; and the life I have lived hitherto
+has been a thin life, for my body lived only. And not even all my body.
+My mind and body were separated: neither were of any use to me. I owe
+everything to you. My case cannot be defined merely as that of a priest
+who gave up his religion because a pretty woman came by. He who says
+that does not try to understand; he merely contents himself with
+uttering facile commonplace. What he has to learn is the great oneness
+in Nature. There is but one element, and we but one of its many
+manifestations. If this were not so, why should your whiteness and
+colour and gaiety remind me always of the spring-time?
+
+'My pen is running fast, I hardly know what I am writing, but it seems
+to me that I am beginning to see much clearer. The mists are dissolving,
+and life emerges like the world at daybreak. I am thinking now of an old
+decrepit house with sagging roof and lichen-covered walls, and all the
+doors and windows nailed up. Every generation nailed up a door or a
+window till all were nailed up. In the dusty twilight creatures wilt and
+pray. About the house the sound of shutters creaking on rusty hinges
+never ceases. Your hand touched one, and the shutters fell, and I found
+myself looking upon the splendid sun shining on hills and fields, wooded
+prospects with rivers winding through the great green expanses. At first
+I dared not look, and withdrew into the shadow tremblingly; but the
+light drew me forth again, and now I look upon the world without fear. I
+am going to leave that decrepit dusty house and mix with my fellows, and
+maybe blow a horn on the hillside to call comrades together. My hands
+and eyes are eager to know what I have become possessed of. I owe to
+you my liberation from prejudices and conventions. Ideas are passed on.
+We learn more from each other than from books. I was unconsciously
+affected by your example. You dared to stretch out both hands to life
+and grasp it; you accepted the spontaneous natural living wisdom of your
+instincts when I was rolled up like a dormouse in the dead wisdom of
+codes and formulas, dogmas and opinions. I never told you how I became a
+priest. I did not know until quite lately. I think I began to suspect my
+vocation when you left the parish.
+
+'I remember walking by the lake just this time last year, with the story
+of my life singing in my head, and you in the background beating the
+time. You know, we had a shop in Tinnick, and I had seen my father
+standing before a high desk by a dusty window year after year, selling
+half-pounds of tea, hanks of onions, and farm implements, and felt that
+if I married my cousin, Annie McGrath, our lives would reproduce those
+of my father and mother in every detail. I couldn't undertake the job,
+and for that began to believe I had a vocation for the priesthood; but I
+can see now that it was not piety that sent me to Maynooth, but a
+certain spirit of adventure, a dislike of the commonplace, of the
+prosaic--that is to say, of the repetition of the same things. I was
+interested in myself, in my own soul, and I did not want to accept
+something that was outside of myself, such as the life of a shopman
+behind a counter, or that of a clerk of the petty sessions, or the habit
+of a policeman. These were the careers that were open to me, and when I
+was hesitating, wondering if I should be able to buy up the old mills
+and revive the trade in Tinnick, my sister Eliza reminded me that there
+had always been a priest in the family. The priesthood seemed to offer
+opportunities of realizing myself, of preserving the spirit within me.
+It offered no such opportunities to me. I might as well have become a
+policeman, and all that I have learned since is that everyone must try
+to cling to his own soul; that is the only binding law. If we are here
+for anything, it is surely for that.
+
+'But one does not free one's self from habits and ideas, that have grown
+almost inveterate, without much pain and struggle; one falls back many
+times, and there are always good reasons for following the rut. We
+believe that the rutted way leads us somewhere: it leads us nowhere, the
+rutted way is only a seeming; for each man received his truth in the
+womb. You say in your letter that our destinies got entangled, and that
+the piece that was being woven ran out into thread, and was rewound upon
+another spool. It seemed to you and it seemed to me that there is no
+pattern; we think there is none because Nature's pattern is
+undistinguishable to our eyes, her looms are so vast, but sometimes even
+our little sight can follow a design here and there. And does it not
+seem to you that, after all, there was some design in what has happened?
+You came and released me from conventions, just as the spring releases
+the world from winter rust.
+
+'A strange idea has come into my mind, and I cannot help smiling at the
+topsyturvydom of Nature, or what seems to be topsyturvydom. You, who
+began by living in your instincts, are now wandering beyond Palestine in
+search of scrolls; and I, who began my life in scrolls, am now going to
+try to pick up the lost thread of my instincts in some great commercial
+town, in London or New York. My life for a long time will be that of
+some poor clerk or some hack journalist, picking up thirty shillings a
+week when he is in luck. I imagine myself in a threadbare suit of
+clothes edging my way along the pavement, nearing a great building, and
+making my way to my desk, and, when the day's work is done, returning
+home along the same pavement to a room high up among the rafters, close
+to the sky, in some cheap quarter.
+
+'I do not doubt my ability to pick up a living--it will be a shameful
+thing indeed if I cannot; for the poor curlew with its legs tied
+together managed to live somehow, and cannot I do as much? And I have
+taken care that no fetters shall be placed upon my legs or chain about
+my neck. Anything may happen--life is full of possibilities--but my
+first concern must be how I may earn my living. To earn one's living is
+an obligation that can only be dispensed with at one's own great risk.
+What may happen afterwards, Heaven knows! I may meet you, or I may meet
+another woman, or I may remain unmarried. I do not intend to allow
+myself to think of these things; my thoughts are set on one thing
+only--how to get to New York, and how I shall pick up a living when I
+get there. Again I thank you for what you have done for me, for the
+liberation you have brought me of body and mind. I need not have added
+the words "body and mind," for these are not two things, but one thing.
+And that is the lesson I have learned. Good-bye.
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+There was little sleep in him that night, and turning on his pillow, he
+sought sleep vainly, getting up at last when the dawn looked through the
+curtains. A wind was shaking the apple-trees, and he went back to bed,
+thinking that if it did not drop suddenly he would not be able to swim
+across the lake that evening. The hours passed between sleeping and
+waking, thinking of the newspaper articles he would write when he got to
+America, and dreaming of a fight between himself and an otter on the
+shore of Castle Island. Awaking with a cry, he sat up, afraid to seek
+sleep again lest he might dream of drowning men. 'A dream robs a man of
+all courage,' and then falling back on his pillow, he said, 'Whatever my
+dreams may be I shall go. Anything were better than to remain taking
+money from the poor people, playing the part of a hypocrite.'
+
+And telling Catherine that he could not look through her accounts that
+morning, he went out of the house to see what the lake was like.
+'Boisterous enough; it would take a good swimmer to get across to-day.
+Maybe the wind will drop in the afternoon.'
+
+The wind continued to rise, and next day he could only see white waves,
+tossing trees, and clouds tumbling over the mountains. He sat alone in
+his study staring at the lamp, the wind often awaking him from his
+reverie; and one night he remembered suddenly that it was no longer
+possible for him to cross the lake that month, even if the wind should
+cease, for he required not only a calm, but a moonlight night. And going
+out of the house, he walked about the hilltop, about the old thorn-bush,
+his hands clasped behind his back. He stood watching the moon setting
+high above the south-western horizon. But the lake--where was it? Had he
+not known that a lake was there, he would hardly have been able to
+discover one. All faint traces of one had disappeared, every shape was
+lost in blue shadow, and he wondered if his desire to go had gone with
+the lake. 'The lake will return,' he said, and next night he was on the
+hillside waiting for the lake to reappear. And every night it emerged
+from the shadow, growing clearer, till he could follow its winding
+shores. 'In a few days, if this weather lasts, I shall be swimming out
+there.' The thought crossed his mind that if the wind should rise again
+about the time of the full moon he would not be able to cross that year,
+for in September the water would be too cold for so long a swim. 'But it
+isn't likely,' he said; 'the weather seems settled.'
+
+And the same close, blue weather that had prevailed before the storm
+returned, the same diffused sunlight.
+
+'There is nothing so depressing,' the priest said, 'as seeing swallows
+flying a few feet from the ground.'
+
+It was about eight o'clock--the day had begun to droop in his
+garden--that he walked up and down the beds admiring his carnations.
+Every now and again the swallows collected into groups of some six or
+seven, and fled round the gables of his house shrieking. 'This is their
+dinner-hour; the moths are about.' He wondered on, thinking Nora
+lacking; for she had never appreciated that beautiful flower Miss
+Shifner. But her ear was finer than his; she found her delight in music.
+
+A thought broke through his memories. He had forgotten to tell her he
+would write if he succeeded in crossing the lake, and if he didn't write
+she would never know whether he was living or dead. Perhaps it would be
+better so. After hesitating a moment, the desire to write to her took
+strong hold upon him, and he sought an excuse for writing. If he didn't
+write, she might think that he remained in Garranard. She knew nothing
+of Moran's visit, nor of the rising of the wind, nor of the waning of
+the moon; and he must write to her about these things, for if he were
+drowned she would think that God had willed it. But if he believed in
+God's intervention, he should stay in his parish and pray that grace
+might be given to him. 'God doesn't bother himself about such trifles as
+my staying or my going,' he muttered as he hastened towards his house,
+overcome by an immense joy. For he was happy only when he was thinking
+of her, or doing something connected with her, and to tell her of the
+fatality that seemed to pursue him would occupy an evening.
+
+
+_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._
+
+'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,
+
+'_July_ 25, 19--.
+
+'You will be surprised to hear from me so soon again, but I forgot to
+say in my last letter that, if I succeeded in crossing the lake, I would
+write to you from New York. And since then many things have happened,
+strange and significant coincidences.'
+
+And when he had related the circumstance of Father Moran's visit and the
+storm, he sought to excuse his half-beliefs that these were part of
+God's providence sent to warn him against leaving his parish.
+
+'Only time can rid us of ideas that have been implanted in us in our
+youth, and that have grown up in our flesh and in our mind. A sudden
+influence may impel us to tear them up and cast them aside, but the seed
+is in us always, and it grows again. "One year's seed, seven years'
+weed." And behind imported Palestinian supernature, if I may be
+permitted to drop into Mr. Poole's style, or what I imagine to be his
+style, there is the home belief in fairies, spirits, and ghosts, and the
+reading of omens. Who amongst us does not remember the old nurse who
+told him stories of magic and witchcraft? Nor can it be denied that
+things happen that seem in contradiction to all we know of Nature's
+laws. Moreover, these unusual occurrences have a knack of happening to
+men at the moment of their setting out on some irrevocable enterprise.
+
+'You who are so sympathetic will understand how my will has been
+affected by Father Moran's visit. Had you heard him tell how he was
+propelled, as it were, out of his house towards me, you, too, would
+believe that he was a messenger. He stopped on his threshold to try to
+find a reason for coming to see me; he couldn't find any, and he walked
+on, feeling that something had happened. He must have thought himself a
+fool when he found me sitting here in the thick flesh. But what he said
+did not seem nonsense to me; it seemed like some immortal wisdom come
+from another world. Remember that I was on the point of going. Nor is
+this all. If nothing else had happened, I might have looked upon Father
+Moran's visit as a coincidence. But why should the wind rise? So far as
+I can make out, it began to rise between eleven and twelve, at the very
+time I should have been swimming between Castle Island and the Joycetown
+shore. I know that belief in signs and omens and prognostics can be
+laughed at; nothing is more ridiculous than the belief that man's fate
+is governed by the flight of birds, yet men have believed in bird augury
+from the beginning of the world.
+
+'I wrote to you about a curlew (I can still see it in the air, its
+beautifully shapen body and wings, its long beak, and its trailing legs;
+it staggered a little in its flight when the shot was fired, but it had
+strength enough to reach Castle Island: it then toppled over, falling
+dead on the shore); and I ask you if it is wonderful that I should have
+been impressed? Such a thing was never heard of before--a wild bird with
+its legs tied together!
+
+'At first I believed that this bird was sent to warn me from going, but
+it was that bird that put the idea into my head how I might escape from
+the parish without giving scandal. Life is so strange that one doesn't
+know what to think. Of what use are signs and omens if the
+interpretation is always obscure? They merely wring the will out of us;
+and well we may ask, Who would care for his life if he knew he was going
+to lose it on the morrow? And what mother would love her children if she
+were certain they would fall into evil ways, or if she believed the
+soothsayers who told her that her children would oppose her ideas? She
+might love them independent of their opposition, but how could she love
+them if she knew they were only born to do wrong? Volumes have been
+written on the subject of predestination and freewill, and the truth is
+that it is as impossible to believe in one as in the other.
+Nevertheless, prognostications have a knack of coming true, and if I am
+drowned crossing the lake you will be convinced of the truth of omens.
+Perhaps I should not write you these things, but the truth is, I cannot
+help myself; there is no power of resistance in me. I do not know if I
+am well or ill; my brain is on fire, and I go on thinking and thinking,
+trying to arrive at some rational belief, but never succeeding.
+Sometimes I think of myself as a fly on a window-pane, crawling and
+buzzing, and crawling and buzzing again, and so on and so on....
+
+'You are one of those who seem to have been born without much interest
+in religion or fear of the here-after, and in a way I am like you, but
+with a difference: I acquiesced in early childhood, and accepted
+traditional beliefs, and tried to find happiness in the familiar rather
+than in the unknown. Whether I should have found the familiar enough if
+I hadn't met you, I shall never know. I've thought a good deal on this
+subject, and it has come to seem to me that we are too much in the habit
+of thinking of the intellect and the flesh as separate things, whereas
+they are but one thing. I could write a great deal on this subject, but
+I stop, as it were, on the threshold of my thought, for this is no time
+for philosophical writing. I am all a-tremble, and though my brain is
+working quickly, my thoughts are not mature and deliberate. My brain
+reminds me at times of the skies that followed Father Moran's
+visit--skies restlessly flowing, always different and always the same.
+These last days are merciless days, and I have to write to you in order
+to get some respite from purposeless thinking. Sometimes I stop in my
+walk to ask myself who I am and what I am, and where I am going. Will
+you be shocked to hear that, when I awoke and heard the wind howling, I
+nearly got out of bed to pray to God, to thank him for having sent Moran
+to warn me from crossing the lake? I think I did say a prayer, thanking
+him for his mercy. Then I felt that I should pray to him for grace that
+I might remain at home and be a good priest always, but that prayer I
+couldn't formulate, and I suffered a great deal. I know that such
+vacillations between belief and unbelief are neither profitable nor
+admirable; I know that to pray to God to thank him for having saved me
+from death while in mortal sin, and yet to find myself unable to pray to
+him to do his will, is illogical, and I confess that my fear is now lest
+old beliefs will claim me before the time comes. A poor, weak, tried
+mortal man am I, but being what I am, I cannot be different. I am calm
+enough now, and it seems as if my sufferings were at an end; but
+to-morrow some new fear will rise up like mist, and I shall be
+enveloped. What an awful thing it would be if I should find myself
+without will on the fifteenth, or the sixteenth, or the seventeenth of
+August! If the wind should rise again, and the lake be windy while the
+moon is full, my chance for leaving here this summer will be at an end.
+The water will be too cold in September.
+
+'And now you know all, and if you don't get a letter from New York,
+understand that what appears in the newspapers is true--that I was
+drowned whilst bathing. I needn't apologize for this long letter; you
+will understand that the writing of it has taken me out of myself, and
+that is a great gain. There is no one else to whom I can write, and it
+pleases me to know this. I am sorry for my sisters in the convent; they
+will believe me dead. I have a brother in America, the one who sent the
+harmonium that you used to play on so beautifully. He will believe in my
+death, unless we meet in America, and that is not likely. I look forward
+to writing to you from New York.
+
+'OLIVER GOGARTY.'
+
+
+Two evenings were passed pleasantly on the composition and the copying
+of this letter, and, not daring to entrust it to the postboy, he took it
+himself to Bohola; and he measured the time carefully, so as to get
+there a few minutes before the postmistress sealed up the bag. He
+delayed in the office till she sealed it, and returned home, following
+the letter in imagination to Dublin, across the Channel to Beechwood
+Hall. The servant in charge would redirect it. His thoughts were at
+ramble, and they followed the steamer down the Mediterranean. It would
+lie in the post-office at Jerusalem or some frontier town, or maybe a
+dragoman attached to some Turkish caravansary would take charge of it,
+and it might reach Nora by caravan. She might read it in the waste. Or
+maybe it would have been better if he had written 'Not to be forwarded'
+on the envelope. But the servant at Beechwood Hall would know what to
+do, and he returned home smiling, unable to believe in himself or in
+anything else, so extraordinary did it seem to him that he should be
+writing to Nora Glynn, who was going in search of the Christian river,
+while he was planning a journey westward.
+
+A few days more, and the day of departure was almost at hand; but it
+seemed a very long time coming. What he needed was a material
+occupation, and he spent hours in his garden watering and weeding, and
+at gaze in front of a bed of fiery-cross. Was its scarlet not finer than
+Lady Hindlip? Lady Hindlip, like fiery-cross, is scentless, and not so
+hardy. No white carnation compares with Shiela; but her calyx often
+bursts, and he considered the claims of an old pink-flaked clove
+carnation, striped like a French brocade. But it straggled a little in
+growth, and he decided that for hardiness he must give the verdict to
+Raby Castle. True that everyone grows Raby Castle, but no carnation is
+so hardy or flowers so freely. As he stood admiring her great trusses of
+bloom among the tea-roses, he remembered suddenly that it was his love
+of flowers that had brought him to Garranard, and if he hadn't come to
+this parish, he wouldn't have known her. And if he hadn't known her, he
+wouldn't have been himself. And which self did he think the worthier,
+his present or his dead self?
+
+His brain would not cease thinking; his bodily life seemed to have
+dissipated, and he seemed to himself to be no more than a mind, and,
+glad to interest himself in the business of the parish, he listened with
+greater attention than he had ever listened before to the complaints
+that were brought to him--to the man who had failed to give up a piece
+of land that he had promised to include in his daughter's fortune, and
+to Patsy Murphy, who had come to tell him that his house had been broken
+into while he was away in Tinnick. The old man had spent the winter in
+Tinnick with some relations, for the house that the Colonel had given
+him permission to build at the edge of the lake proved too cold for a
+winter residence.
+
+Patsy seemed to have grown older since the autumn; he seemed like a doll
+out of which the sawdust was running, a poor shaking thing--a large head
+afloat on a weak neck. Tresses of white hair hung on his shoulders, and
+his watery eyes were red and restless like a ferret's. He opened his
+mouth, and there were two teeth on either side like tusks. Gray stubble
+covered his face, and he wore a brown suit, the trousers retained about
+his pot-belly--all that remained of his body--by a scarf. There was some
+limp linen and a red muffler about his throat. He spoke of his age--he
+was ninety-five--and the priest said he was a fine-looking, hearty man
+for his years. There wasn't a doubt but he'd pass the hundred. Patsy was
+inclined to believe he would go to one hundred and one; for he had been
+told in a vision he would go as far as that.
+
+'You see, living in the house alone, the brain empties and the vision
+comes.'
+
+That was how he explained his belief as he flopped along by the priest's
+side, his head shaking and his tongue going, telling tales of all kinds,
+half-remembered things: how the Gormleys and the Actons had driven the
+Colonel out of the country, and dispersed all his family with their
+goings-on. That was why they didn't want him--he knew too much about
+them. One of his tales was how they had frightened the Colonel's mother
+by tying a lame hare by a horsehair to the knocker of the hall door.
+Whenever the hare moved a rapping was heard at the front-door. But
+nobody could discover the horsehair, and the rapping was attributed to a
+family ghost.
+
+He seemed to have forgotten his sword, and was now inclined to talk of
+his fists, and he stopped the priest in the middle of the road to tell
+a long tale how once, in Liverpool, someone had spoken against the
+Colonel, and, holding up his clenched fist, he said that no one ever
+escaped alive from the fist of Patsy Murphy.
+
+It was a trial to Father Oliver to hear him, for he could not help
+thinking that to become like him it was only necessary to live as long
+as he. But it was difficult to get rid of the old fellow, who followed
+the priest as far as the village, and would have followed him further if
+Mrs. Egan were not standing there waiting for Father Oliver--a
+delicate-featured woman with a thin aquiline nose, who was still
+good-looking, though her age was apparent. She was forty-five, or
+perhaps fifty, and she held her daughter's baby in her coarse peasant
+hands. Since the birth of the child a dispute had been raging between
+the two mothers-in-law: the whole village was talking, and wondering
+what was going to happen next.
+
+Mrs. Egan's daughter had married a soldier, a Protestant, some two years
+ago, a man called Rean. Father Oliver always found him a straightforward
+fellow, who, although he would not give up his own religion, never tried
+to interfere with his wife's; he always said that if Mary liked she
+could bring up her children Catholics. But hitherto they were not
+blessed with children, and Mary was jeered at more than once, the people
+saying that her barrenness was a punishment sent by God. At last a child
+was given them, and all would have gone well if Rean's mother had not
+come to Garranard for her daughter-in-law's confinement. Being a black
+Protestant, she wouldn't hear of the child being brought up a Catholic
+or even baptized in a Catholic Church. The child was now a week old and
+Rean was fairly distracted, for neither his own mother nor his
+mother-in-law would give way; each was trying to outdo the other. Mrs.
+Rean watched Mrs. Egan, and Mrs. Egan watched Mrs. Rean, and the poor
+mother lay all day with the baby at her breast, listening to the two of
+them quarrelling.
+
+'She's gone behind the hedge for a minute, your reverence, so I whipped
+the child out of me daughter's bed; and if your reverence would only
+hurry up we could have the poor cratur baptized in the Holy Faith. Only
+there's no time to be lost; she do be watchin' every stir, your
+reverence.'
+
+'Very well, Mrs. Egan: I'll be waiting for you up at the chapel.'
+
+'A strange rusticity of mind,' he said to himself as he wended his way
+along the village street, and at the chapel gate a smile gathered about
+his lips, for he couldn't help thinking how Mrs. Rean the elder would
+rage when the child was brought back to her a Catholic. So this was
+going to be his last priestly act, the baptism of the child, the saving
+of the child to the Holy Faith. He told Mike to get the things ready,
+and turned into the sacristy to put on his surplice.
+
+The familiar presses gave out a pleasant odour, and the vestments which
+he might never wear again interested him, and he stood seemingly lost in
+thought. 'But I mustn't keep the child waiting,' he said, waking up
+suddenly; and coming out of the sacristy, he found twenty villagers
+collected round the font, come up from the cottages to see the child
+baptized in the holy religion.
+
+'Where's the child, Mrs. Egan?'
+
+The group began talking suddenly, trying to make plain to him what had
+happened.
+
+'Now, if you all talk together, I shall never understand.'
+
+'Will you leave off pushing me?' said one.
+
+'Wasn't it I that saw Patsy? Will your reverence listen to me?' said
+Mrs. Egan. 'It was just as I was telling your reverence, if they'd be
+letting me alone. Your reverence had only just turned in the chapel gate
+when Mrs. Rean ran from behind the hedge, and, getting in front of me
+who was going to the chapel with the baby in me arms, she said: "Now
+I'll be damned if I'll have that child christened a Catholic!" and
+didn't she snatch the child and run away, taking a short-cut across the
+fields to the minister's.'
+
+'Patsy Kivel has gone after her, and he'll catch up on her, surely, and
+she with six ditches forninst her.'
+
+'If he doesn't itself, maybe the minister isn't there, and then she'll
+be bet.'
+
+'All I'm hopin' is that the poor child won't come to any harm between
+them; but isn't she a fearful terrible woman, and may the curse of the
+Son of God be on her for stealin' away a poor child the like of that!'
+
+'I'd cut the livers out of the likes of them.'
+
+'Now will you mind what you're sayin', and the priest listenin' to you?'
+
+'Your reverence, will the child be always a Protestant? Hasn't the holy
+water of the Church more power in it than the water they have? Don't
+they only throw it at the child?'
+
+'Now, Mrs. Egan--'
+
+'Ah, your reverence, you're going to say that I shouldn't have given the
+child to her, and I wouldn't if I hadn't trod on a stone and fallen
+against the wall, and got afeard the child might be hurt.'
+
+'Well, well,' said Father Oliver, 'you see there's no child--'
+
+'But you'll be waitin' a minute for the sake of the poor child, your
+reverence? Patsy will be comin' back in a minute.'
+
+On that Mrs. Egan went to the chapel door and stood there, so that she
+might catch the first glimpse of him as he came across the fields. And
+it was about ten minutes after, when the priest and his parishioners
+were talking of other things, that Mrs. Egan began to wave her arm,
+crying out that somebody should hurry.
+
+'Will you make haste, and his reverence waitin' here this half-hour to
+baptize the innocent child! He'll be here in less than a minute now,
+your reverence. Will you have patience, and the poor child will be
+safe?'
+
+The child was snatched from Patsy, and so violently that the infant
+began to cry, and Mrs. Egan didn't know if it was a hurt it had
+received, for the panting Patsy was unable to answer her.
+
+'The child's all right,' he blurted out at last. 'She said I might take
+it and welcome, now it was a Protestant.'
+
+'Ah, sure, you great thickhead of a boy! weren't you quick enough for
+her?'
+
+'Now, what are you talkin' about? Hadn't she half a mile start of me,
+and the minister at the door just as I was gettin' over the last bit of
+a wall!'
+
+'And didn't you go in after them?'
+
+'What would I be doin', going into a Protestant church?'
+
+Patsy's sense of his responsibility was discussed violently until Father
+Oliver said:
+
+'Now, I can't be waiting any longer. Do you want me to baptize the child
+or not?'
+
+'It would be safer, wouldn't it?' said Mrs. Egan.
+
+'It would,' said Father Oliver; 'the parson mightn't have said the words
+while he was pouring the water.'
+
+And, going towards the font with the child, Father Oliver took a cup of
+water, but, having regard for the child's cries, he was a little sparing
+with it.
+
+'Now don't be sparin' with the water, your reverence, and don't be a
+mindin' its noise; it's twicest the quantity of holy water it'll be
+wanting, and it half an hour a Protestant.'
+
+It was at that moment Mrs. Rean appeared in the doorway, and Patsy
+Kivel, who didn't care to enter the Protestant church, rushed to put her
+out of his.
+
+'You can do what you like now with the child; it's a Protestant, for all
+your tricks.'
+
+'Go along, you old heretic bitch!'
+
+'Now, Patsy, will you behave yourself when you're standing in the
+Church of God! Be leaving the woman alone,' said Father Oliver; but
+before he got to the door to separate the two, Mrs. Rean was running
+down the chapel yard followed by the crowd of disputants, and he heard
+the quarrel growing fainter in the village street.
+
+Rose-coloured clouds had just begun to appear midway in the pale
+sky--a beautiful sky, all gray and rose--and all this babble about
+baptism seemed strangely out of his mind. 'And to think that men are
+still seeking scrolls in Turkestan to prove--' The sentence did not
+finish itself in his mind; a ray of western light falling across the
+altar steps in the stillness of the church awakened a remembrance in him
+of the music that Nora's hands drew from the harmonium, and, leaning
+against the Communion-rails, he allowed the music to absorb him. He
+could hear it so distinctly in his mind that he refrained from going up
+into the gallery and playing it, for in his playing he would perceive
+how much he had forgotten, how imperfect was his memory. It were better
+to lose himself in the emotion of the memory of the music; it was in his
+blood, and he could see her hands playing it, and the music was coloured
+with the memory of her hair and her eyes. His teeth clenched a little as
+if in pain, and then he feared the enchantment would soon pass away; but
+the music preserved it longer than he had expected, and it might have
+lasted still longer if he had not become aware that someone was standing
+in the doorway.
+
+The feeling suddenly came over him that he was not alone; it was borne
+in upon him--he knew not how, neither by sight nor sound--through some
+exceptional sense. And turning towards the sunlit doorway, he saw a poor
+man standing there, not daring to disturb the priest, thinking, no
+doubt, that he was engaged in prayer. The poor man was Pat Kearney. So
+the priest was a little overcome, for that Pat Kearney should come to
+him at such a time was portentous. 'It is strange, certainly,
+coincidence after coincidence,' he said; and he stood looking at Pat as
+if he didn't know him, till the poor man was frightened and began to
+wonder, for no one had ever looked at him with such interest, not even
+the neighbour whom he had asked to marry him three weeks ago. And this
+Pat Kearney, who was a short, thick-set man, sinking into years, began
+to wonder what new misfortune had tracked him down. His teeth were worn
+and yellow as Indian meal, and his rough, ill-shaven cheeks and pale
+eyes reminded the priest of the country in which Pat lived, and of the
+four acres of land at the end of the boreen that Pat was digging these
+many years.
+
+He had come to ask Father Oliver if he would marry him for a pound, but,
+as Father Oliver didn't answer him, he fell to thinking that it was his
+clothes that the priest was admiring, 'for hadn't his reverence given
+him the clothes himself? And if it weren't for the self-same clothes, he
+wouldn't have the pound in his pocket to give the priest to marry him,'
+
+'It was yourself, your reverence--'
+
+'Yes, I remember very well.'
+
+Pat had come to tell him that there was work to be had in Tinnick, but
+that he didn't dare to show himself in Tinnick for lack of clothes, and
+he stood humbly before the priest in a pair of corduroy trousers that
+hardly covered his nakedness.
+
+And it was as Father Oliver stood examining and pitying his
+parishioner's poverty it had occurred to him that, if he were to buy two
+suits of clothes in Tinnick and give one to Pat Kearney, he might wrap
+the other one in a bundle, and place it on the rocks on the Joycetown
+side. It was not likely that the shopman in Tinnick would remember,
+after three months, that he had sold two suits to the priest; but should
+he remember this, the explanation would be that he had bought them for
+Pat Kearney. Now, looking at this poor man who had come to ask him if he
+would marry him for a pound, the priest was lost in wonder.
+
+'So you're going to be married, Pat?'
+
+And Pat, who hadn't spoken to anyone since the woman whose potatoes he
+was digging said she'd as soon marry him as another, began to chatter,
+and to ramble in his chatter. There was so much to tell that he did not
+know how to tell it. There was his rent and the woman's holding, for now
+they would have nine acres of land, money would be required to stock it,
+and he didn't know if the bank would lend him the money. Perhaps the
+priest would help him to get it.
+
+'But why did you come to me to marry you? Aren't you two miles nearer
+to Father Moran than you are to me?'
+
+Pat hesitated, not liking to say that he would be hard set to get round
+Father Moran. So he began to talk of the Egans and the Reans. For hadn't
+he heard, as he came up the street, that Mrs. Rean had stolen the child
+from Mrs. Egan, and had had it baptized by the minister? And he hoped to
+obtain the priest's sympathy by saying:
+
+'What a terrible thing it was that the police should allow a black
+Protestant to steal a Catholic child, and its mother a Catholic and all
+her people before her!'
+
+'When Mrs. Rean snatched the child, it hadn't been baptized, and was
+neither a Catholic nor a Protestant,' the priest said maliciously.
+
+Pat Kearney, whose theological knowledge did not extend very far,
+remained silent, and the priest was glad of his silence, for he was
+thinking that in a few minutes he would catch sight of the square
+whitewashed school-house on the hillside by the pine-wood, and the
+thought came into his mind that he would like to see again the place
+where he and Nora once stood talking together. But a long field lay
+between his house and the school-house, and what would it avail him to
+see the empty room? He looked, instead, for the hawthorn-bush by which
+he and Nora had lingered, and it was a sad pleasure to think how she had
+gone up the road after bidding him good-bye.
+
+But Pat Kearney began to talk again of how he could get an advance from
+the bank.
+
+'I can back no bill for you, Pat, but I'll give you a letter to Father
+Moran telling him that you can't afford to pay more than a pound.'
+
+Nora's letters were in the drawer of his writing-table; he unlocked it,
+and put the packet into his pocket, and when he had scribbled a little
+note to Father Moran, he said:
+
+'Now take this and be off with you; I've other business to attend to
+besides you;' and he called to Catherine for his towels.
+
+'Now, is it out bathing you're going, your reverence? You won't be
+swimming out to Castle Island, and forgetting that you have confessions
+at seven?'
+
+'I shall be back in time,' he answered testily, and soon after he began
+to regret his irritation; for he would never see Catherine again, saying
+to himself that it was a pity he had answered her testily. But he
+couldn't go back. Moran might call. Catherine might send Moran after
+him, saying his reverence had gone down to bathe, or any parishioner,
+however unwarranted his errand, might try to see him out. 'And all
+errands will be unwarranted to-day,' he said as he hurried along the
+shore, thinking of the different paths round the rocks and through the
+blackthorn-bushes.
+
+His mind was on the big wood; there he could baffle anybody following
+him, for while his pursuer would be going round one way he would be
+coming back the other. But it would be lonely in the big wood; and as he
+hurried down the old cart-track he thought how he might while away an
+hour among the ferns in the little spare fields at the end of the
+plantation, watching the sunset, for hours would have to pass before the
+moon rose, and the time would pass slowly under the melancholy
+hazel-thickets into which the sun had not looked for thousands of years.
+A wood had always been there. The Welshmen had felled trees in it to
+build rafts and boats to reach their island castles. Bears and wolves
+had been slain in it; and thinking how it was still a refuge for foxes,
+martens and badgers and hawks, he made his way along the shore through
+the rough fields. He ran a little, and after waiting a while ran on
+again. On reaching the edge of the wood, he hid himself behind a bush,
+and did not dare to move, lest there might be somebody about. It was not
+till he made sure there was no one that he stooped under the
+blackthorns, and followed a trail, thinking the animal, probably a
+badger, had its den under the old stones; and to pass the time he sought
+for a den, but could find none.
+
+A small bird, a wren, was picking among the moss; every now and then it
+fluttered a little way, stopped, and picked again. 'Now what instinct
+guided its search for worms?' he asked, and getting up, he followed the
+bird, but it escaped into a thicket. There were only hazel-stems in the
+interspace he had chosen to hide himself in, but there were thickets
+nearly all about it, and it took some time to find a path through these.
+After a time one was found, and by noticing everything he tried to pass
+the time away and make himself secure against being surprised.
+
+The path soon came to an end, and he walked round to the other side of
+the wood, to see if the bushes were thick enough to prevent anyone from
+coming upon him suddenly from that side; and when all searches were
+finished he came back, thinking of what his future life would be without
+Nora. But he must not think of her, he must learn to forget her; for the
+time being at least, his consideration must be of himself in his present
+circumstances, and he felt that if he did not fix his thoughts on
+external things, his courage--or should he say his will?--would desert
+him. It did not need much courage to swim across the lake, much more to
+leave the parish, and once on the other side he must go any whither, no
+whither, for he couldn't return to Catherine in a frieze coat and a pair
+of corduroy trousers. Her face when she saw him! But of what use
+thinking of these things? He was going; everything was settled. If he
+could only restrain his thoughts--they were as wild as bees.
+
+Standing by a hazel-stem, his hand upon a bough, he fell to thinking
+what his life would be, and very soon becoming implicated in a dream, he
+lost consciousness of time and place, and was borne away as by a
+current; he floated down his future life, seeing his garret room more
+clearly than he had ever seen it--his bed, his washhand-stand, and the
+little table on which he did his writing. No doubt most of it would be
+done in the office, but some of it would be done at home; and at
+nightfall he would descend from his garret like a bat from the eaves.
+
+Journalists flutter like bats about newspaper offices. The bats haunt
+the same eaves, but the journalist drifts from city to city, from county
+to county, busying himself with ideas that were not his yesterday, and
+will not be his to-morrow. An interview with a statesman is followed by
+a review of a book, and the day after he may be thousands of miles away,
+describing a great flood or a railway accident. The journalist has no
+time to make friends, and he lives in no place long enough to know it
+intimately; passing acquaintance and exterior aspects of things are his
+share of the world. And it was in quest of such vagrancy of ideas and
+affections that he was going.
+
+At that moment a sudden sound in the wood startled him from his reverie,
+and he peered, a scared expression on his face, certain that the noise
+he had heard was Father Moran's footstep. It was but a hare lolloping
+through the underwood, and wondering at the disappointment he felt, he
+asked if he were disappointed that Moran had not come again to stop him.
+He didn't think he was, only the course of his life had been so long
+dependent on a single act of will that a hope had begun in his mind that
+some outward event might decide his fate for him. Last month he was full
+of courage, his nerves were like iron; to-day he was a poor vacillating
+creature, walking in a hazel-wood, uncertain lest delay had taken the
+savour out of his adventure, his attention distracted by the sounds of
+the wood, by the snapping of a dry twig, by a leaf falling through the
+branches.
+
+'Time is passing,' he said, 'and I must decide whether I go to America
+to write newspaper articles, or stay at home to say Mass--a simple
+matter, surely.'
+
+The ordinary newspaper article he thought he could do as well as
+another--in fact, he knew he could. But could he hope that in time his
+mind would widen and deepen sufficiently to enable him to write
+something worth writing, something that might win her admiration?
+Perhaps, when he had shed all his opinions. Many had gone already, more
+would follow, and one day he would be as free as she was. She had been a
+great intellectual stimulus, and soon he began to wonder how it was that
+all the paraphernalia of religion interested him no longer, how he
+seemed to have suddenly outgrown the things belonging to the ages of
+faith, and the subtle question, if passion were essential to the growth
+of the mind, arose. For it seemed to him that his mind had grown, though
+he had not read the Scriptures, and he doubted if the reading of the
+Scriptures would have taught him as much as Nora's beauty. 'After all,'
+he said, 'woman's beauty is more important to the world than a scroll.'
+He had begun to love and to put his trust in what was natural,
+spontaneous, instinctive, and might succeed in New York better than he
+expected. But he would not like to think that it was hope of literary
+success that tempted him from Garranard. He would like to think that in
+leaving his poor people he was serving their best interests, and this
+was surely the case. For hadn't he begun to feel that what they needed
+was a really efficient priest, one who would look after their temporal
+interests? In Ireland the priest is a temporal as well as a spiritual
+need. Who else would take an interest in this forlorn Garranard and its
+people, the reeds and rushes of existence?
+
+He had striven to get the Government to build a bridge, but had lost
+patience; he had wearied of the task. Certain priests he knew would not
+have wearied of it; they would have gone on heckling the Government and
+the different Boards until the building of the bridge could no longer be
+resisted. His failure to get this bridge was typical, and it proved
+beyond doubt that he was right in thinking he had no aptitude for the
+temporal direction of his parish.
+
+But a curate had once lived in Bridget Clery's cottage who had served
+his people excellently well, had intrigued successfully, and forced the
+Government to build houses and advance money for drainage and other
+useful works. And this curate had served his people in many
+capacities--as scrivener, land-valuer, surveyor, and engineer. It was
+not till he came to Garranard that he seemed to get out of touch with
+practical affairs, and he began to wonder if it was the comfortable
+house he lived in, if it were the wine he drank, the cigars he smoked,
+that had produced this degeneracy, if it were degeneracy. Or was it that
+he had worn out a certain side of his nature in Bridget Clery's cottage?
+It might well be that. Many a man has mistaken a passing tendency for a
+vocation. We all write poetry in the beginning of our lives; but most of
+us leave off writing poetry after some years, unless the instinct is
+very deep or one is a fool. It might well be that his philanthropic
+instincts were exhausted; and it might well be that this was not the
+case, for one never gets at the root of one's nature.
+
+The only thing he was sure of was that he had changed a great deal, and,
+he thought, for the better. He seemed to himself a much more real person
+than he was a year ago, being now in full possession of his soul, and
+surely the possession of one's soul is a great reality. By the soul he
+meant a special way of feeling and seeing. But the soul is more than
+that--it is a light; and this inner light, faint at first, had not been
+blown out. If he had blown it out, as many priests had done, he would
+not have experienced any qualms of conscience. The other priests in the
+diocese experienced none when they drove erring women out of their
+parishes, and the reason of this was that they followed a light from
+without, deliberately shutting out the light of the soul.
+
+The question interested him, and he pondered it a long while, finding
+himself at last forced to conclude that there is no moral law except
+one's own conscience, and that the moral obligation of every man is to
+separate the personal conscience from the impersonal conscience. By the
+impersonal conscience he meant the opinions of others, traditional
+beliefs, and the rest; and thinking of these things he wandered round
+the Druid stones, and when his thoughts returned to Nora's special case
+he seemed to understand that if any other priest had acted as he had
+acted he would have acted rightly, for in driving a sinful woman out of
+the parish he would be giving expression to the moral law as he
+understood it and as Garranard understood it. This primitive code of
+morals was all Garranard could understand in its present civilization,
+and any code is better than no code. Of course, if the priest were a
+transgressor himself he could not administer the law. Happily, that was
+a circumstance that did not arise often. So it was said; but what did he
+know of the souls of the priests with whom he dined, smoked pipes, and
+played cards? And he stopped, surprised, for it had never occurred to
+him that all a man knows of his fellow is whether he be clean or dirty,
+short or tall, thin or stout. 'Even the soul of Moran is obscure to me,'
+he said--'obscure as this wood;' and at that moment the mystery of the
+wood seemed to deepen, and he stood for a long while looking through the
+twilight of the hazels.
+
+Very likely many of the priests he knew had been tempted by women: some
+had resisted temptation, and some had sinned and repented. There might
+be a priest who had sinned and lived for years in sin; even so if he
+didn't leave his parish, if he didn't become an apostate priest, faith
+would return to him in the end. But the apostate priest is anathema in
+the eyes of the Church; the doctrine always has been that a sin matters
+little if the sinner repent. Father Oliver suddenly saw himself years
+hence, still in Garranard, administering the Sacraments, and faith
+returning like an incoming tide, covering the weedy shore, lapping round
+the high rock of doubt. If he desired faith, all he had to do was to go
+on saying Mass, hearing confessions, baptizing the young, burying the
+old, and in twenty years--maybe it would take thirty--when his hair was
+white and his skin shrivelled, he would be again a good priest, beloved
+by his parishioners, and carried in the fulness of time by them to the
+green churchyard where Father Peter lay near the green pines.
+
+Only the other day, coming home from his after-noon's walk, he stopped
+to admire his house. The long shadow of its familiar trees awakened an
+extraordinary love in him, and when he crossed the threshold and sat
+down in his armchair, his love for his house had surprised him, and he
+sat like one enchanted by his own fireside, lost in admiration of the
+old mahogany bookcase with the inlaid panels, that he had bought at an
+auction. How sombre and quaint it looked, furnished with his books that
+he had had bound in Dublin, and what pleasure it always was to him to
+see a ray lighting up the parchment bindings! He had hung some
+engravings on his walls, and these had become very dear to him; and
+there were some spoons, bought at an auction some time ago--old, worn
+Georgian spoons--that his hands were accustomed to the use of; there was
+an old tea-service, with flowers painted inside the cups, and he was
+leaving these things; why? He sought for a reason for his leaving them.
+If he were going away to join Nora in America he could understand his
+going. But he would never see her again--at least, it was not probable
+that he would. He was not following her, but an idea, an abstraction, an
+opinion; he was separating himself, and for ever, from his native land
+and his past life, and his quest was, alas! not her, but--He was
+following what? Life? Yes; but what is life? Do we find life in
+adventure or by our own fireside? For all he knew he might be flying
+from the very thing he thought he was following. His thoughts zigzagged,
+and, almost unaware of his thoughts, he compared life to a flower--to a
+flower that yields up its perfume only after long cultivation--and then
+to a wine that gains its fragrance only after it has been lying in the
+same cellar for many years, and he started up convinced that he must
+return home at once. But he had not taken many steps before he stopped:
+
+'No, no, I cannot stay here year after year! I cannot stay here till I
+die, seeing that lake always. I couldn't bear it. I am going. It matters
+little to me whether life is to be found at home or abroad, in adventure
+or in habits and customs. One thing matters--do I stay or go?'
+
+He turned into the woods and walked aimlessly, trying to escape from his
+thoughts, and to do so he admired the pattern of the leaves, the flight
+of the birds, and he stopped by the old stones that may have been Druid
+altars; and he came back an hour after, walking slowly through the
+hazel-stems, thinking that the law of change is the law of life. At that
+moment the cormorants were coming down the glittering lake to their
+roost. With a flutter of wings they perched on the old castle, and his
+mind continued to formulate arguments, and the last always seemed the
+best.
+
+At half-past seven he was thinking that life is gained by escaping from
+the past rather than by trying to retain it; he had begun to feel more
+and more sure that tradition is but dead flesh which we must cut off if
+we would live.... But just at this spot, an hour ago, he had acquiesced
+in the belief that if a priest continued to administer the Sacraments
+faith would return to him; and no doubt the Sacraments would bring about
+some sort of religious stupor, but not that sensible, passionate faith
+which he had once possessed, and which did not meet with the approval of
+his superiors at Maynooth. He had said that in flying from the monotony
+of tradition he would find only another monotony, and a worse one--that
+of adventure; and no doubt the journalist's life is made up of fugitive
+interests. But every man has, or should have, an intimate life as well
+as an external life; and in losing interest in religion he had lost the
+intimate life which the priesthood had once given him. The Mass was a
+mere Latin formula, and the vestments and the chalice, the Host itself,
+a sort of fetishism--that is to say, a symbolism from which life had
+departed, shells retaining hardly a murmur of the ancient ecstasy. It
+was therefore his fate to go in quest of--what? Not of adventure. He
+liked better to think that his quest was the personal life--that
+intimate exaltation that comes to him who has striven to be himself, and
+nothing but himself. The life he was going to might lead him even to a
+new faith. Religious forms arise and die. The Catholic Church had come
+to the end of its thread; the spool seemed pretty well empty, and he sat
+down so that he might think better what the new faith might be. What
+would be its first principle? he asked himself, and not finding any
+answer to this question, he began to think of his life in America. He
+would begin as a mere recorder of passing events. But why should he
+assume that he would not rise higher? And if he remained to the end of
+his day a humble reporter, he would still have the supreme satisfaction
+of knowing that he had not resigned himself body and soul to the life of
+the pool, to a frog-like acquiescence in the stagnant pool.
+
+His hand held back a hazel-branch, and he stood staring at the lake. The
+wild ducks rose in great flocks out of the reeds and went away to feed
+in the fields, and their departure was followed by a long interval,
+during which no single thought crossed his mind--at least, none that he
+could remember. No doubt his tired mind had fallen into lethargy, from
+which a sudden fear had roughly awakened him. What if some countryman,
+seeking his goats among the rocks, had come upon the bundle and taken it
+home! And at once he imagined himself climbing up the rocks naked. Pat
+Kearney's cabin was close by, but Pat had no clothes except those on his
+back, and would have to go round the lake to Garranard; and the priest
+thought how he would sit naked in Kearney's cottage hour after hour.
+
+'If anyone comes to the cabin I shall have to hold the door to. There is
+a comic side to every adventure,' he said, 'and a more absurd one it
+would be difficult to imagine.'
+
+The day had begun in a ridiculous adventure--the baptism of the poor
+child, baptized first a Protestant, then a Catholic. And he laughed a
+little, and then he sighed.
+
+'Is the whole thing a fairy-tale, a piece of midsummer madness, I
+wonder? No matter, I can't stay here, so why should I trouble to
+discover a reason for my going? In America I shall be living a life in
+agreement with God's instincts. My quest is life.'
+
+And, remembering some words in her last letter, his heart cried out that
+his love must bring her back to him eventually, though Poole were to
+take her to the end of the earth, and at once he was carried quickly
+beyond the light of common sense into a dim happy world where all things
+came and went or were transformed in obedience to his unexpressed will.
+Whether the sun were curtained by leafage or by silken folds he did not
+know--only this: that she was coming towards him, borne lightly as a
+ball of thistle-down. He perceived the colour of her hair, and eyes, and
+hands, and of the pale dress she wore; but her presence seemed revealed
+to him through the exaltation of some sense latent or non-existent in
+him in his waking moods. His delight was of the understanding, for they
+neither touched hands nor spoke. A little surprise rose to the surface
+of his rapture--surprise at the fact that he experienced no pang of
+jealousy. She had said that true love could not exist without jealousy!
+But was she right in this? It seemed to him that we begin to love when
+we cease to judge. If she were different she wouldn't be herself, and it
+was herself he loved--the mystery of her sunny, singing nature. There
+is no judgment where there is perfect sympathy, and he understood that
+it would be as vain for him to lament that her eyebrows were fair as to
+lament or reprove her conduct.
+
+Continuing the same train of thought, he remembered that, though she was
+young to-day, she would pass into middle, maybe old age; that the day
+would come when her hair would be less bright, her figure would lose its
+willowness; but these changes would not lessen his love for her. Should
+he not welcome change? Thinking that perhaps fruit-time is better than
+blossom-time, he foresaw a deeper love awaiting him, and a tenderness
+that he could not feel to-day might be his in years to come. Nor could
+habit blunt his perceptions or intimacy unravel the mystery of her sunny
+nature. So the bourne could never be reached; for when everything had
+been said, something would remain unspoken. The two rhythms out of which
+the music of life is made, intimacy and adventure, would meet, would
+merge, and become one; and she, who was to-day an adventure, would
+become in the end the home of his affections.
+
+A great bird swooped out of the branches above him, startling him, and
+he cried out: 'An owl--only an owl!' The wood was quiet and dark, and in
+fear he groped his way to the old stones; for one thing still remained
+to be done before he left--he must burn her letters.
+
+He burnt them one by one, shielding the flame with his hand lest it
+should attract some passer-by, and when the last was burnt he feared no
+longer anything. His wonder was why he had hesitated, why his mind had
+been torn by doubt. At the back of his mind he had always known he was
+going. Had he not written saying he was going, and wasn't that enough?
+And he thought for a moment of what her opinion of him would be if he
+stayed in Garranard. In a cowardly moment he hoped that something would
+happen to save him from the ultimate decision, and now doubt was
+overcome.
+
+A yellow disc appeared, cutting the flat sky sharply, and he laid his
+priest's clothes in the middle of a patch of white sand where they could
+be easily seen. Placing the Roman collar upon the top, and, stepping
+from stone to stone, he stood on the last one as on a pedestal, tall and
+gray in the moonlight--buttocks hard as a faun's, and dimpled like a
+faun's when he draws himself up before plunging after a nymph.
+
+When he emerged he was among the reeds, shaking the water from his face
+and hair. The night was so warm that it was like swimming in a bath, and
+when he had swum a quarter of a mile he turned over on his back to see
+the moon shining. Then he turned over to see how near he was to the
+island. 'Too near,' he thought, for he had started before his time. But
+he might delay a little on the island, and he walked up the shore, his
+blood in happy circulation, his flesh and brain a-tingle, a little
+captivated by the vigour of his muscles, and ready and anxious to plunge
+into the water on the other side, to tire himself if he could, in the
+mile and a half of gray lake that lay between him and shore.
+
+There were lights in every cottage window; the villagers would be about
+the roads for an hour or more, and it would be well to delay on the
+island, and he chose a high rock to sit upon. His hand ran the water off
+his hard thighs, and then off his long, thin arms, and he watched the
+laggard moon rising slowly in the dusky night, like a duck from the
+marshes. Supporting himself with one arm, he let himself down the rock
+and dabbled his foot in the water, and the splashing of the water
+reminded him of little Philip Rean, who had been baptized twice that
+morning notwithstanding his loud protest. And now one of his baptizers
+was baptized, and in a few minutes would plunge again into the
+beneficent flood.
+
+The night was so still and warm that it was happiness to be naked, and
+he thought he could sit for hours on that rock without feeling cold,
+watching the red moon rolling up through the trees round Tinnick; and
+when the moon turned from red to gold he wondered how it was that the
+mere brightening of the moon could put such joy into a man's heart.
+
+Derrinrush was the nearest shore, and far away in the wood he heard a
+fox bark. 'On the trail of some rabbit,' he thought, and again he
+admired the great gold moon rising heavily through the dusky sky, and
+the lake formless and spectral beneath it.
+
+Catherine no doubt had begun to feel agitated; she would be walking
+about at midnight, too scared to go to sleep. He was sorry for her;
+perhaps she would be the only one who would prefer to hear he was in
+America and doing well than at the bottom of the lake. Eliza would
+regret in a way, as much as her administration of the convent would
+allow her; Mary would pray for him--so would Eliza, for the matter of
+that; and their prayers would come easily, thinking him dead. Poor
+women! if only for their peace of mind he would undertake the second
+half of the crossing.
+
+A long mile of water lay between him and Joycetown, but there was a
+courage he had never felt before in his heart, and a strength he had
+never felt before in his limbs. Once he stood up in the water, sorry
+that the crossing was not longer. 'Perhaps I shall have had enough of it
+before I get there;' and he turned on his side and swam half a mile
+before changing his stroke. He changed it and got on his back because he
+was beginning to feel cold and tired, and soon after he began to think
+that it would be about as much as he could do to reach the shore. A
+little later he was swimming frog-fashion, but the change did not seem
+to rest him, and seeing the shore still a long way off he began to think
+that perhaps after all he would find his end in the lake. His mind set
+on it, however, that the lake should be foiled, he struggled on, and
+when the water shallowed he felt he had come to the end of his strength.
+'Another hundred yards would have done for me,' he said, and he was so
+cold that he could not think, and sought his clothes vaguely, sitting
+down to rest from time to time among the rocks. He didn't know for
+certain if he would find them, and if he didn't he must die of cold. So
+the rough shirt was very welcome when he discovered it, and so were the
+woollen socks. As soon as he was dressed he thought that he felt nearly
+strong enough to climb up the rocks, but he was not as strong as he
+thought, and it took him a long time to get to the top. But at the top
+the sward was pleasant--it was the sward of the terrace of the old
+house; and lying at length, fearful lest sleep might overtake him, he
+looked across the lake. 'A queer dusky night,' he said, 'with hardly a
+star, and that great moon pouring silver down the lake.'
+
+'I shall never see that lake again, but I shall never forget it,' and as
+he dozed in the train, in a corner of an empty carriage, the spectral
+light of the lake awoke him, and when he arrived at Cork it seemed to
+him that he was being engulfed in the deep pool by the Joycetown shore.
+On the deck of the steamer he heard the lake's warble above the violence
+of the waves. 'There is a lake in every man's heart,' he said, 'and he
+listens to its monotonous whisper year by year, more and more attentive
+till at last he ungirds.'
+
+
+THE END
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11304 ***