 | CHAPTER XLVI.
THE TWO PRIESTS AND A THIRD. The new priest in Conception Bay |  |
46. CHAPTER XLVI.
THE TWO PRIESTS AND A THIRD.
FATHER TERENCE had not recovered from
the disturbance of the night, before Father Debree
entered, hot, and dusty, and agitated, and
occupied all his attention.
The young priest wiped his brow, and walked, once or
twice, across the room; until, at the invitation to sit down,
he turned round, and stood. He spoke hurriedly:—
“You remember what passed between Father Crampton
and myself, the other day, Father Terence?”
“Indeed,” answered the peace-loving old priest, “I
don't bother my mind much with past things.”
—“But those were no trifles to be forgotten in a
moment;—do you remember his accusations and his
worse insinuations against me?”
“I don't remember anny thing against you, brother,”
said Father Terence, kindly.
“Let me remind you, if you please: he spoke of Mrs.
Barrè, and of my `secret intercourse with her;' and
what `the world might say;' and then claimed that
`though he might be accused of over-zeal for the Church,
there was no charge, of any other sort, against his moral
character.' Do you remember, Father Terence?”
“I didn't give much heed to him; but I suppose he
said it.”
“And would you believe that that very man had once
sought—I loathe to speak it!—to drag her from her
strong, sure virtue? and in the Confessional? and that he
has since defamed her, and sought to destroy her character
among men, that never was else than lovely, as he had
sought to blot her name out of the Book of Heaven?—
Would you believe that?”
“Indeed I would be sorry to believe it of him, or of
anny priest; but it doesn't seem the fair thing that ye
shouldn't have told him to his face, if ye'll say it behind
his back;—he's in St. John's, the day,” said the open-hearted
Father Terence.
“Very true, Father Terence, very true; but I didn't
know it until to-day.”
“But d'ye think is it good, brother, to be hunting up
things against him, even if they're true, itself, and even
if he wronged ye, when he's got to answer for them,
surely, soon or late?”
“I haven't searched for them, Father Terence; they
came to me without seeking; without wishing;—and yet,
considering, not his wrong to me, but what she has been
to me, what I still owe to her, and must always owe to
her, what she deserves, for her noble self, and what she
might have expected of the tender sympathy of him as a
minister of God, and, especially, one knowing, as he
knows, her former happy life, and her sad, lonely lot, to-day,—and
considering, that to all her bitter loss and heavy
trial, this had been added, that vile words or innuendoes
against her had been spoken—and by that priest of
God—in the ears of those to whom her voice had sounded
as that of the very Angel of Mercy,—if then, while I
God knows I have done, truly,) while I have never given
way, before her, even to a word, (as God knows is true,
though I confess my heart has broken,—BROKEN, in
secret,) if I had, to do her right, striven to turn the
earth, or drain the sea, would it have been too much?”
During this passionate speech, Father Terence, several
times, caught his breath, and had much to do to control
the quivering muscles of his face. He had recourse to
his pipe, and made no answer.
“Would it have been wrong?” the younger priest
asked again.
“But couldn't ye do her right and let him go? Sure,
I'd stand by ye, too.”
“I know you would, good Father Terence;—but why
`let him go?' If you mean `dimitte illum,—forgive and
suffer him, though he have wronged you, or have meant
you ill,'—by all means! I cannot, as a sinner, look for
mercy or forgiveness, if I show it not;—but `let him go,
if it be to persist in this wrong to her, to do new wrong to
her, or others; `let him go' to make his character and authority
a means of sin and ruin; `let him go' to betray
some thoughtless wife, or simple child, to sin, and death,
and hell; `let him go' to plead, in God's name, for the
Devil, —”
“That's hard speaking,” said his hearer.
“It is hard speaking; how else should I speak?”
“But how will ye stop him?” asked Father O'Toole,
holding his dead pipe in hand, “if it was so.”
“He should be forbidden the exercise of his office, and
if he do not repent, it should be torn from him!”
The old priest asked gently—
“But what are you, to take God's judgments that way?”
“A priest, that feel my own unworthiness, but seek to
feel the awfulness of the priest's office, and the worth and
woe of souls that I am sworn to care for; but is this God's
judgment, except as all things are God's? Have men
no part in it, and no responsibility? Are they not to act
for Him?”
“Ay, but you can't do anny thing to Crampton; you've
no power over him; you can't unpriest him.”
“No: but there are those who can! Let him be
brought to the tribunal, and let the truth be proved there,
and let the bishop deal with him.”
Father Terence shook his head.
“No, no; ye know, yerself, it's never done,—it can't
be done,” said he; “'twould be scandal.”
“It can't be done, Father Terence!—but there's some
way of doing it?”
“No, there's no way; they that's over him must see
to it.”
“I wish them to see to it; but they must know it, first.”
“There's some that know all about him, then; doesn't
the man confess?” asked Father Terence, trying if there
were life in his pipe.
Father Debree gazed before him, as if a door had been
opened; he looked forward, silently, and then spoke,
without moving his eyes:—
—“And he walks free! and exercises his priest's
office freely!”
“But maybe he's been put on one side,” said Father
O'Toole;—“I heard it said, I think, he's been in high
places; but he's put back, a bit, someway.”
“But forbidden to deal with souls?—No! he has a
faculty, to confess priests and every one; and he has the
whole charge of these nuns at the next door.”
The elder priest moved uneasily; perhaps he thought
of his own neglect.
“Indeed, that's true,” he said.
“And can nothing be done?”
“You can't do any thing.”
“But I could try.”
“No; ye'd ruin yerself, and do no good either. No,
no, man; leave it alone.”
“How can I, knowing what I do, if I have any care
for truth, or God, or man?”
“It'll be right, one day—”
“But in the mean time, how many wrongs!—How many
ruins!—How many wrecks!— Is there no help for it?
Let me make complaint, and if nothing comes of it, at
least leave the burden of blame, openly and fairly, where
it belongs.”
“What's it ye mean?”
“Go to the bishop and complain of this man, and undertake
to prove my charges.”
“Now, brother, take my advice,” said the old priest,
“and meddle you not with it; it'll be the ruin of ye,
totally, an' ye'll never do anny good with it. Do you
your duty, an' leave him alone.”
Father Debree turned and paced the room again.
“Nothing can be done!” he exclaimed, coming again,
and standing as before.
“Sit ye down! Sit ye down, man!” said Father
Terence—“Will ye not?”
Father Debree still stood, and said:—
“Nothing can be done!—Then I must only confront
this man, himself, and show him that his guilt is known,
and bring it home to his conscience.”
“An' do ye think will he heed what ye say to him?
what ye say to him. Don't meddle with him, is best.—
I'm sure of it.”
“I've no fear of him. What I knew of Crampton
years ago, in another country, but shut my eyes to,—what
I know of him now,—make him what the world would
call a villain; and shall he, in the Church, find an impunity
that, in the world, would never be allowed him?
Nay, shall new fields be opened to him to ravage, and
new opportunities for mischief given him? If Crampton
—”
The door opened and Father Nicholas entered, with a
flash in his eye and a sneer at his lip.
—“Were now present,” he said, taking up the unfinished
sentence, “would you dare to say to him whatever
you have said of him in his absence, loud enough
for me to hear outside the house?”
“I thought ye were in St. John's,” exclaimed Father
Terence, astonished at the suddenness of the apparition.
“And so thinking me at a safe distance, you could venture
to make me the subject of your censure, and entertain
yourself with this gentleman's practice in invective;”
said Father Nicholas, giving himself for the moment a
license of speech very unusual with him.
During this address, delivered very deliberately and
distinctly, Father Terence held a book open, (it happened
to be upside down,) and his hand trembled. After
the last word he turned full upon the speaker, and
said,—
“I'm not sure that I understood ye altogether; but let
me tell ye that I'm no backbiter, nor I'm no brawler; but
it's not for fear of anny man, nor ever was;” (here the
old gentleman rose gradually from his chair,) “and that
civilly. I think y'are not over me.”
Father Nicholas instantly corrected himself:—
“I humbly ask your pardon, reverend father,” said he,
“I was wrong; but I hope that the hearing of my own
name so freely used, will be an excuse for my intrusion?”
“Y'are quite free to come in, and it maybe as well
y'are come,” said Father Terence, seating himself again.
“Will ye sit down, sir?”
“Thank you, sir, I see that I'm not very welcome
here, and I shall prefer being upon a little ceremony, if
you'll permit me.”
“May I have leave to answer his question, Father
Terence?” asked the priest from Peterport, with a pale
cheek, and a pale, steady flame in his eye.
“If ye must talk, I'll give my advice, if ye'll take it off
me; just begin at a new place,” said the elder, with an
intuitive wisdom that was quite deep, if it might avail.
The other, turning to Father Nicholas, said,—
“It's best to begin at the very thing I have to say. I
wish to ask you whether you have said or insinuated any
thing against the pure and noble character of that lady,
who was mentioned here by you the other day.”
“Another criminal examination, without the ceremony
and expense of judicial commissions or constables! As
I am little in the habit of speaking of ladies, here or elsewhere,
I suppose I know whom you mean; but at the
same time I will thank you to be explicit, and I propose
going through with you to-day.”
“I mean Mrs. Barrè.”
“Have you any special claims to call me to account,
if I had said any thing against her? I was not aware of
any such relation between you and Mrs. Barrè at this
it.”
“Yes, I have. The peculiar position in which she
stands to me, I have no occasion to speak of. If she be
wronged and cannot right herself, she has a claim on any
Christian man and gentleman of honor, and first of all on
me. That involves a relation between me and any one
who wrongs her, and therefore to you, though you be an
older priest than I.”
“There seems a trifling oversight there; the Church
and her discipline are overlooked apparently,—or blown
away; the existence of a tribunal of penitence seems to
be forgotten; but let it go for the present. Take your
own way, by all means, only come out with all you've
got. What do you mean?”
“I mean precisely what I say, and I may say something
more. That you insulted her, and—if wickedness
could have approached her, as it cannot,—that you would
have sought her ruin, at the very moment when you
were claiming to know her pure, innocent thoughts, to
sit in judgment on them, I am sure beyond any question,
and that you have just tried to stain her reputation,
though I have not the same absolute proof, yet I cannot
doubt.”
A sort of color (as much perhaps as his complexion
was capable of) came into Father Nicholas's face.
“You're getting along rather faster than the slow pace
of common justice too. You're perfectly sure of my guilt
in the one case, and can't have a doubt of it in the other,
and yet I don't remember that you have ever even hinted
the thing to me, who am the only person capable of testifying
to the contrary.”
“I never had the proof or even knew the fact until
to-day.”
Father Nicholas bore his part like one who had a
satisfaction in the practice of fence; but he argued in a
slighting and sneering way.
“For a like reason I have had no chance, you may
remember, to clear or defend myself, and yet you believe
in a moment against me. Has a brother-priest no claims?
A priest's reputation is said to be as tender as a woman's,
and his rights are certainly as good. There are other
places and occasions for considering the propriety and
safety of an intercourse against which Father Terence
cautioned you; but certainly one would think that you
might know the propriety of rejecting or receiving cautiously
the suggestions of a woman's resentment.”
“It was no conviction or suspicion of a moment, Mr.
Crampton! I had some light upon your character years
ago. Do you think I have forgotten Clara Wentley and
the fate of Mr. Wentley of Ross Park?”
It would be hard to describe the change that passed
upon Father Nicholas's face. Whether he became redder
or more pale, or both, whether he quailed for an instant,
or shook with instant indignation, it would have been
hard to say from his looks only.
He answered without violence,—
—“And still another charge! What now?”
“No. That is not the business that I came about. I
mentioned it only casually by way of illustration; but it
was something that wanted the name only of a double
murder: of a poor father by a sudden blow, and of a
daughter by a slow, deadly poison!”
Father Terence looked from one to the other in amazement,
and gave vent to it in words:—
“Is Debree mad? or what sort of man are ye, Crampton?
or what does this mean at all? I never knew the
and this sin and that sin! I think I'll just leave the place
t'ye, an' I'll go an' feed my ducks and chickens, or I'll
look in the chapel a bit.”
“Father Terence I beg you to be here; I'm saying
only what I can prove, I pray you not to go away,” said
the Priest from Peterport.
“And I hope you'll stay, reverend father,” said the
other priest; “we shall be able to answer all three of
your questions better by and by, if we give Mr. Debree
time and opportunity.—I beg you'll go on, sir; I'll keep
my answer till I've heard all. Does any other crime,—
misdemeanor, or felony,—occur to you at this moment, to
charge me with? or will you gratify me with the particulars
and the proof of this last little one, `incidentally
mentioned?'”
“Of course. The particulars are the insinuating yourself,
(concealing the fact of your being a Roman Catholic
and a priest,) into the love of an innocent girl, whose
heart dried slowly up when she found you out, and killing
the father by the discovery of your treachery, and his
child's endless, hopeless wretchedness!—then declaring
that you had only sought her for a heavenly bridegroom.
The evidence is in all or any one of a hundred people in
Jamaica, privy to all the circumstances, and myself among
them.”
“Ah! now we're coming to something; the privity of
a hundred persons to a thing of this kind, all absent and
nameless, is an inconvenient generalization; but here is
a witness known and present. Allow me the cross-examination
of him, as my own counsel, borrowing a little
from my last night's experience. You say you knew
this; how long ago was it?”
“A little more than two years, and not likely to be forgotten
in a lifetime.”
“Are you sure of the facts?”
“Yes; you know very well my opportunities of information.”
“And now, my friend, you who charge me with all
this two years ago, have you ever told me what you
thought and believed? or have you told any one else?”
“No. I confess that I have buried it in my breast!”
“You did not, therefore, in all these two years think
of it as you speak of it now?”
“I would not allow myself to judge of it, until a new
light was thrown upon it to-day; everybody else saw it
so before.”
“Let us go along surely, sir, if you please, and keep
different things separate; you can't answer for other
people; but for yourself you say that you did not see
these facts or circumstances two years ago, in the light in
which you see them now. Do you mean to say that if
you had seen me strike a blow, or heard me utter a sentence
of blasphemy or ribaldry two years ago, you would
not have understood and judged it on the spot? I think
you're intelligent enough to understand, and of your
sharpness and severity of judgment, I think we've had
some evidence lately. That you have been two years of
a different opinion, shows that you now judge falsely. If
you had been two years in making up your opinion, it
would show that the case was a pretty difficult one to
determine.”
“I will take the blame of forming my judgment slowly
and reluctantly, or even of being for two years wrong, in
judging favorably. What I know to-day compels me to
understand what I would not or did not two years ago.
“Now, then, for your terrific apocalypse of to-day; for
though the order of time is otherwise, yet here seems to
be the hinge of all your accusation. What's this about,
Mrs. Barrè? That I tempted her in confession? To
what?”
“Not `tempted her;' but, what is a very different
thing as regards her, though the same in you, sought to
tempt her to forsake her virtue. Is that plain enough?”
“I'll be satisfied, for the present. Time, place, and
circumstance are to be fixed with reasonable precision;
how long ago was this? and in what place? and—.”
“Mr. Crampton, I charge you with wicked advances
made to my—to Mrs. Barrè, in confession; and I rest
the charge upon the word of a woman, whom no tongue
but that same one that poisoned holy things, ever moved
against; and I charge you with slandering her in the
community in which she is now living; and I call upon
you to retract any charges or insinuations that you have
made, and to correct them.”
If guilt makes most men cowardly, that evidence of
guilt did not appear in this case. The man to whom
these words had just been spoken, slowly and with a most
determined look and step came forward, and, passing between
the speaker and Father Terence, turned round
and stood near the fire-place, where he could face the
latter as well as the former. Then, pale to his very lips,
he said, in an even voice,—
“Our being priests forbids our fighting;—you seem to
think bandying abusive words the next best thing; but
have a care, sir!—even a priest may brush an insect into
nothingness, or trample with his foot an adder.”
Father Ignatius drew himself up, and, folding his arms,
said:—
“Add to your character of profligate priest and slanderer
that of bully, or bravo, will you? and to the sin of
assailing innocence and honor add that of assaulting one
who speaks in their defence!”
Father Terence had sat uneasily for some time, and
now he rose.
“In the name of God,” said he, “I bid ye stop this.
I'm older than ye both, and I say it's sin for anny one to
go on this way, let alone consecrated priests.” (The
homely old gentleman looked noble as he stood to keep
God's peace.) “And man,” he continued, turning to Father
Nicholas, “what y'ave done before, I don't know;
but if ye have spoken against this lady, why d'ye not go
an' make it right? 'Sure, if she was your enemy itself,
it's not your place to do it.”
“She never did him any worse wrong than shaming
or rebuking him to himself, Father Terence; she did
not even complain of him for his abuse of his sacred
office.”
“It would have been rather late to complain of injured
or insulted virtue some years afterward, as it must have
been; except that the moral sense of the family seems to
be deliberate in its motions. She was wiser than her champion,
too, who does not know that my character of priest
will stand me in some stead with others; and that in a
case where, of necessity, there can be but two parties, it
would be generally taken for granted that the representations
of one of them may be very mistaken or very false,
to say nothing farther; and who forgets that the world
has eyes in its head, and a tongue in its mouth, and can
form its own judgment of his moral pretensions, with this
turning up as soon as he gets to his post.”
“I shall not enter into any conversation upon that
point,” said Father Debree. “I ask whether you will
try to do the little and tardy justice in your power to this
lady, who has enough to bear of sorrow, without the addition
of undeserved shame?”
“Giving certificates of character and testimonials to
respectable heretics is not quite in my way; and to recall
and retract, or to contradict, according to your fancy,
what I may or may not have said about this or that person,
is something too much to ask of me. That a person,
situated as the one you mention is, should suffer for her
unhappy apostasy, is to be expected,—it is a part of her
lot, and is a fulfilment of the prophecy—`Super quem
ceciderit, conteret eum.' She will be ground under that
stone—it will crush her into the earth.”
“You will not do any thing? You will not do simple
justice to her, and speak simple truth of her? And do
you dare to talk of the fulfilment of prophecy, when you
are putting out your hand to topple this stone over, as
Judas might have spoken, or as the High Priest of the
Jews might have spoken, of what they did to the Redeemer,
because He innocently suffered at their hands,
according to the Father's will? Then you must bear
your burden; at any risk of censure or suspicion, I will
openly contradict you in the world, and denounce you in
the Church!”
“Now, then, the war is absolutely declared,” said Father
Nicholas, smiling again; “and who do you think
will be the gainer in it? We have no place in the world,
except as belonging to the Socie—the Church; and how
much, think you, you would weigh against me in the
think I may say, without immoderate vanity, that I am
worth something more to it than you, and that the rulers
of the Church would so determine.”
“Indeed, then, I don't know what way y'are so much
better than him. I know that, after a bit, he's like to
be higher in the church than either you or me; the
Bishop told meself that he'd great parts; and I think
he's one thing yerself hasn't; and that's just the plain
love for what's true and right,” said Father Terence.
“He fears a stain like a wound.”
The other priest answered:—
“I say nothing of his parts; but it's that very sentimentality
of his that makes him unserviceable; for the
man of account is the one who takes circumstances as he
finds them, and uses them as they are, and goes on, without
sitting down to put his finger in his eye, for something
he thinks is wrong.—I think you had better not
meddle with me, perhaps,” he added, turning to Father
Debree, with a smile.
“It's easy seen, the day, that y'are a hard man, Father
Crampton,” said Father Terence; “an' I don't say
for worse: but if ye mean anny mischief to him, ye
must mind that I'm with him; and, if I'm not nimble
and quick, ye'll find me that heavy that I'll not be easily
lifted out of yer way.”
The strong life and excitement of the scene had not
left the old Priest untouched. Father Debree said:—
“For myself, let him do what he will; and in the
cause of the widow, God is a party.”
“Scarcely a widow, I should think,” said Father Nicholas,
moving to go.
“Come, man,” said the old Priest to Father Debree,
through the grounds a bit.”
As they walked silently, the younger priest abruptly
turned to his kindly companion and said:—
“I must be your deacon to-morrow, Father Terence; I
can't say mass, up there.”
“D'ye feel that bad? Ye mustn't take on that way,
man,” answered the old Priest.
“I really can't do it; there are more things than one
upon my mind,” answered Father Debree.
“Ye shall just stay and help me, then,” said the elder;
“and let Crampton go, if he likes.”
| CHAPTER XLVI.
THE TWO PRIESTS AND A THIRD. The new priest in Conception Bay | |