University of Virginia Library

39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
FATHER DEBREE AT BAY-HARBOR AGAIN.

HE must go to other of the characters of our
story.

Some days after having mentioned to the
priests at Bay-Harbor the suspicions entertained among
the people of his neighborhood, Father Debree again
sought the Mission-premises, and Father Terence.

The substantial dignitary, before sitting down, said:—

“Will ye oblige me by giving that door a small swing
into th' other room?” and waited, upon his feet, until the
door had been opened, and the adjoining room shown to
have no person in it.

“What's betwixt you and him, then?” he asked, when
all was quiet again. “It's not good having trouble;—and
with one like him. You're the younger priest, and it's
good to bear the yoke—portare jugum,—(I told ye that
before,) and ye'll, maybe, be high enough, by-and-by.
Take a bit of advice off me, and don't mind um.”

“I shall take it, pleasantly, I hope, and do my duty by
him, too; I've come about important business, Father
Terence, concerning the Church.”

Father Terence's countenance prepared to rise at this
reference to himself (as was proper) of important churchbusiness;
but in the end, it fell.

“And did ye tell him, yet?” said the dignitary, looking
a little annoyed at the prospect of this important
business, or at the idea of its being of such a character as
to have already set his two juniors at variance.

“Oh no!” said Father Debree, “what I have to say
could not be said, properly, to any but yourself.”

Reassured by this information, the worthy old Priest
began gradually to take on his importance, and awaited
the opening of the business complacently.

“It concerns the young girl missing from Peterport.
It is generally believed that she has been carried off,”
said Father Debree, by way of stating the case.

The expression in the senior's face changed, as the hue
in the evening cloud changes; his look of dignity was
passing into one of moderate indignation. The change
seemed to puzzle his companion. “You know about her,
I believe?” he asked.

“Indeed I do, then,” answered Father Terence, with
much dignity and some asperity. The other continued,
with a doubtful look, but with the respectful manner he
had used from the first: “Perhaps you're aware, already,
of what I was going to say?”

“Indeed, and it's likely I may,” said the dignitary, sententiously.

“Then, perhaps, I'd better say nothing.”

“It's little, I think, would be gained by telling all the
stories that foolish people make up.”

Mr. Debree was evidently taken by surprise, in having
his communication so suddenly and summarily cut off.

“Are there no grounds for suspicion, and is nothing to
be done to remove it?” he asked.

“And was it this ye fell out with Father Nicholas for,
that time?”

“Certainly, the fear that there was reason for suspicion
in this case, increased the dislike that former circumstances
had given me.”

The dignitary's good-natured face grew redder than
before. He spoke with feeling, when he said, in answer:—

“Then it's only for being faithful to meself, it was, that
ye thought the worse of um. I'm surprised at ye saying
ye believe there's grounds of suspicion. I'm thankful to
ye for being that honest that ye told me what ye thought;
but isn't it rather forward ye are, suspecting one that's
greatly older than yerself, if nothing else, and a priest
that's risen to be honored and respected, besides?”

Mr. Debree looked still further disconcerted at this
little harangue, and the speaker followed it up.

“I wonder ye could think the like of that story to be
true, yerself. I'm astonished, indeed. I don't know the
meaning of it, at all.”

“I'm very sorry to find the subject so unpleasant to
you; but if you would allow me to state the whole
case—”

“Unpleasant! It is that, then. Do ye think is it
pleasant to have things thrown up in one's face, this way?
Could not yerself leave it, without coming to stand up
against your superiors in the Church? I think something
must have come over ye.” With these words, the
superior drew himself up in his chair.

“But, Father Terence, if there was strong presumptive
evidence, I think you'd be one of the last men to discredit
it, without sifting,” said the other.

“Sure, I don't know who would know better than me-self
that it's all lies.”

“But, surely, in an affair of such consequence, you

wouldn't take it for granted—?” urged Father Debree.

“Would I take it for granted I hadn't swallowed me-self?'
asked the elder, very decidedly.

“But this is scarcely a parallel case,” said the other,
with polite perseverance.

“Isn't it, then? Sure, I think I needn't examine to
show meself that I hadn't stolen a girl in Peterport!”

“Ah! but you couldn't say, confidently, that another
had not.”

“But I don't speak of others; it's meself I speak of.”

“But why shouldn't we speak of others, when others
are concerned?”

“Then ye were not aware,” said Father Terence,—this
turn of the conversation making him throw aside—as he
was always very glad to do—his annoyance and dignified
reserve, and resuming his hearty kindliness, when he
thought he saw through the case, and that the younger
priest was imperfectly informed, “it's meself that they're
after accusing.”

“I never heard that,” answered the younger.

“Indeed, it's easy seeing ye didn't,” said Father Terence
again.

“I think that must be a mistake,” said the younger
priest.

“Indeed, I think so meself; and I'm middling sure of
it,” said the senior, a smile venturing again into his
face.

“I mean, I think it must be a mistake that you were
suspected. Of course, no one who knew you could doubt,
for a moment, whether you were innocent.”

“It was Father Nicholas told me, then; and there's
not manny a one hears more than him. It's only a few

days ago he said, the people—that's the Protestants—were
saying all sorts of things, and suspecting the Catholic
priests, and, as he said, meself 's at the head of them,
“and ye might as well suspect his Holiness himself,” said
he.

“I've come from the midst of it, and I heard nothing
of you; but I know that he is suspected; and there are
strange circumstances, such as, for his own sake, he ought
to explain.”

The dignitary's countenance lighted up, decidedly, as
he answered:—

“Indeed, that's another horse of the one color, as they
say. So they've left meself off, and taken on suspecting
him! But, then,” he continued, “I'm fearful it's just his
being my own coadjutor that's made them do it;” and a
generous feeling of not allowing another to suffer for him,
exhibited itself in his face. “They think he's younger,
and not so conspikyis, and easier handled.”

“No,” answered the other; “I think you were always
above suspicion; but they have always, I'm told, suspected
him, and the impression, that he is involved in it
as principal, has been growing from the first.”

“And how would he tell meself, then, it was me they
were at?” asked the elder, not quite seeing his way out
of the enigma. Leaving the answer to this question to
turn up by-and-by, he hurried on upon the new path that
presented itself to him. “What's this they say about um,
then? Do they say he's stolen her? And how would he
get her?”

To this crowd of questions, Mr. Debree answered collectively.

“She disappeared in the night or morning, and is
known to have been at or near the house that he visited

that night with two nuns; and one more female came
back in his punt, from that house, than went to it.”

“But,—don't ye see?—he wouldn't be carrying females
about at night in a punt.”

“He took two Sisters up with him, you know, Father
Terence.”

A recollection of the proposed plan of Father Nicholas's
charitable excursion of that night, probably came up
to the elder priest at this suggestion.

“But he would never have carried off a Protestant
girl. What would he do the like of that for? Sure a
man can't carry off all that's Protestants.”

Mr. Debree repeated the tenor of the conversation between
himself and Father Nicholas.

“But he wouldn't be doing the like without asking me-self
for leave or license. And where do they think has
he sent her, when he got her?”

“They say, I'm told, that she's with the Sisters, here,
in the Mission premises; but what authority they have
for saying so, I don't know.”

“Ah! thin, it's little I've troubled that place since they
were in it. Only once I was in it, at his asking. But,
sure, would he bring her here without ever so much as
saying `with yer leave,' or `by yer leave!' It's not
likely he would, and me at the head o' the District.”

The venerable head of the dignitary swung silently
and solemnly, twice, from side to side, as he resolved this
question in the negative.

“I don't know what they go upon for that; but I think
the other circumstances deserve to be examined.”

The senior looked perplexed again, and, reverting to
his own experience of his “coadjutor,” said,—

“But how 'll we find out, if he won't tell us?”

“The law won't wait for him to tell.”

“But, sure, ye're not for taking the law of a priest!
and him yer superior, too?”

“Of course, not I; but suppose the friends bring the
law down here! Wouldn't it be well, by a timely attention,
to remove the occasion of suspicion?”

“But I'm satisfied we'll never get it out of him, at all.”

“Can't you do this, Father Terence; can't you find out
whether she is here, or has been here?”

Father Terence looked very reluctant to enter upon
any such work as was proposed.

“It's not that easy done,” he said. “I have no knowledge
of the place, at all, more than Solomon's temple.”

“It isn't for me to suggest, Father Terence; but it's
not a very large place, and if the Sisters were examined—”

“It's easy just stepping over yerself, then, and we'll
know in a jiffy. I'll give ye a bit of note to introduce
ye,” said Father Terence, having devised a simple and
ready way of satisfying Mr. Debree, and, very likely,
everybody else.

“But, Father Terence, though I feel sincerely for the
father, and though it's natural, from the position I hold at
Peterport, for me to wish the thing cleared up, and proper
for me to mention it to you, it would not be my part, in
any way, to set myself about investigating in your premises.
It seems to me that you are the proper person.”

Father Terence was no coward, but he seemed very
loth to undertake this business. Lighting his pipe, which
he had not yet lighted, and suffering the smoke to float
about his head, like clouds about the mountain's crest, he
summoned a council in the midst of it, as Pope makes
Homer say, that—

From this deliberation, after a time, he proclaimed—

“I've found, mostly, it's best not inquiring into things.”

“But when things will be inquired into by the law, if
we do nothing about them; and the consequences, to ourselves
and the Church, may be very serious; is it not
worth our while to anticipate that investigation and its
consequences?”

“What would hinder yourself speaking to him?”
asked Father Terence, personifying, in the masculine
gender, the object of the inquiry. The other priest took
it simply, as it was said, and answered:—

“I cannot as properly do it, being, as I am, his junior;
but I'm not at all afraid to have him know what I have
said, if you should think fit to enter upon the subject, and
will say it all in his presence, if called upon to do it.”

“Ay, then, we'll see about it,” concluded the dignitary,
and finishing his pipe, shook from it the white ashes, refilled
it, but then, instead of rekindling it, laid it aside,
and asking—

“Did ye hear the pig out, beyond in the garden?”
started forth as if upon some errand about the live-stock
of the Mission, requesting Father Debree to amuse himself
for a while alone.

The door had scarcely closed upon him, than it opened
again to let him in.

“I beg pardon,” said he, heartily, “I'm forgetting to
offer ye any thing;” and taking a black quart bottle from
under a table near the wall, and finding, somewhere, a
tumbler that had lost a piece of itself, he proposed to
exercise the hospitality of the time and country, in his
own kindly way.

“Here's some sugar that I keep convenient,” said he,
drawing forward, with his stout hand, a paper with yielding
contents. “Ah! no, then, it's this must be it,” he
continued, substituting one of the same blue color, but
not, like the first, redolent of tobacco.

He had just produced a teacup without handle, which
he called the mate of the tumbler.

“Our furniture 's not quite equal to the King's or the
Pope's,” he said, by way of apology, “but I've store of
glasses in the house.”

Father Debree declined, with many thanks, the hearty
hospitality offered, and was, at length, again left alone,
with an apology.