Live to be Useful/Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRIEST MEETS ANNORAH AT HER MOTHER'S COTTAGE.
Biddy Dillon had just finished a large ironing for one of the families in the village, and having placed the clothes-frame where the dust from the open fire-place could not fall on the fine starched linens and muslins, she began to set her table for tea, at the same time counting over the gains of the week. Not a trifle in her calculations were the wages of Annorah, who came regularly every Saturday evening to add her contribution to the family fund.
"It's a good child she is gettin' to be, and a pleasant-tempered one, too," said Mrs. Dillon to herself; "it's made over intirely, she is, our Lady be praised!"
She began to sing the burden of an Irish ditty, but the broken-nosed tea-kettle over the fire beginning to sing too, she commenced talking again.
"Heaven send it mayn't be thrue, but it does look like the heretic's doings. She were like a brimstone match, or like gunpowder itself, at home, and tender-hearted as a young baby besides. Shure, it's a mighty power, any way, that has so changed her. I can't jist feel aisy about it, for it's Father M'Clane will find out the harm of her good spaches and doings."
The words were hardly out of her mouth when the priest entered. The storm on his brow was not unnoted by Biddy, but she respectfully set a chair for him in the cleanest part of the room. She was not quite so easily terrified by priestly wrath and authority as she had been in her own country; for she had the sense to know that the ghostly father's malediction did not, as in Ireland, entail a long course of temporal misfortunes upon the poor victims of his displeasure. But she had not yet acknowledged to herself the doubts that really existed in her mind in regard to the truth of the Romish faith; she still clung to the errors in which she had been brought up, and feared the effect on her eternal happiness of Father M'Clane's displeasure. So it was with a beating heart that she awaited his time to address her.
"Do you know that your daughter is a heretic?" was his first question.
"Indade, no, yer riverence," replied Biddy.
"An' what sort o' a mother are you, Biddy Dillon, to stand still and look on while the wolf stales the best o' yer flock? You might have known that heretic family would lave not a stone unturned to catch her at last. And so she can read--"
"Read!" interrupted the astonished woman.
"Yes, read! And it's the heretics' Bible she has read, too,--and all through your fault. Mighty proud ye have been o' all the fine housekeeping ways she has learned, and very thankful, no doubt, for the bits o' could victuals from the big house; but where's the good now? Ye may thank yourself that she will lose her sowl for ever."
Mrs. Dillon started and turned pale as the door softly opened, and Annorah herself, unobserved by the priest, came in. He went on: "Do you call her better, the pestilent crather, when, from her first going to the grand place on the hill, never a word about them has been got from her at confession? The obstinate crather!"
"I came to your riverence for spiritual good," said Annorah, now coming forward and laying a fat chicken and sundry paper parcels beside her week's wages on the little table by her mother's side. "I came for spiritual good, and ye thried to teach me to tattle. It's a mane trade intirely, lettin' alone the maneness of sich as teach it."
"Annorah!" exclaimed her mother, "do you dare to spake in that way o' the praste himself?"
"I mean no harm, mother."
"No harm!" repeated Father M'Clane, turning fiercely toward her. "You won't cheat me with words like these."
Annorah tossed her head scornfully and sat down opposite the priest, who on his part seemed far less desirous to carry on the war since her arrival. The cottage that he occupied belonged to Mr. Lee, and judging that gentleman by his own heart, he feared that an unfavourable representation of the case to him might either increase his rent or turn him out altogether. Besides, he was not unlike blusterers, and could denounce the erring with greater ease when they stood in awe of him. That Annorah felt neither fear nor reverence for him, it was easy to see. So, smothering his wrath, he began, to the great surprise of Mrs. Dillon, to address the girl in his most coaxing tones.
"Come, come, Annorah," he said, "let us be friends. It's me that's ould enough, and willing too, to be to you in place o' yer own father, Heaven rest his sowl; but he's gone to a better counthree than this sinful world. An' yer own good, child, is what I think on in spaking to you of Miss Annie and the heretics generally. It's not for meself, shure, that me prayers go up at the could midnight hour whin ye're all sleeping in quiet. It's not me own throubles that make me dream o' Heaven's wrath, but it's me care for yer sowl, Annorah, and for the sake o' yer gettin' saved at last."
"Hear that, Norah, child," said her mother. "Who else ever fretted themselves for yer good? What would become o' ye, an' Father M'Clane gave ye up entirely?
"Your riverence must stay till I draw the tae and fry a bit o' the chicken," added Biddy, as the priest rose to take his leave.
"No, thank you," he replied; "I must not sit down at ease. Small rest is there for me when the wolf is in the fold, and the flock is in danger."
He took leave quite cordially, but when he was gone, Biddy turned, with a shadow on her round face, to speak to her daughter.
"An' what's this ye've been doing, child? Is it me own ears that have heard o' yer Bible-reading and railing at the praste? What's coom to ye now? Didn't I warn ye against their heretic ways? An' ye've been and fallen into the dape pit as aisy as a blind sheep. Och! for shame, Annorah Dillon! Why do ye not spake? What can ye say for yourself?"
"Mother," said Annorah, "how often you've said, when Larry O'Neale's good luck has been tould of, that it was the larnin', shure, that did it all! An' when we were over the great water, you said, 'How nice and comfortable would it be an' we had one in the family like Larry himself, to send back the news to ould friends, when we got safe here.' Do ye not mind, mother dear, how often you've said that same since? Well, now, I've been and learned what ye wanted so much; and first cooms the praste and makes a big fuss, and then you, mother, spake as if I had thried to anger in the room o' plasing ye. I'm sure I've thried to plase you all I could."
"So ye have, mavourneen; so ye have," said Biddy, her voice softening as she turned to look at the chicken and other things that Annorah had brought. "It's not yer mother, honey, that has a word to say against you; but when Father M'Clane talks o' yer being a heretic, it angers me. This Bible that he frets about, what is it, Norah?"
"It's God's truth, mother, that he has given to teach us all; and a brave book it is. Father M'Clane has one himself; and what frets him is, that the heretics, as he calls them, can read it for themselves and find out God's will; for only the praste has it with us."
"Well, then, an' the praste tells us the same, it saves us a world o' bother, shure."
"But if the praste is not a good man, he can tell us whatever he likes; and how do we know what is God's Word? Now, mother, in all God's Word there is never a bit about confessing to a praste, but a great deal about praying and confessing to God himself. But, you see, if all our people knew that same, sorra a bit o' money would go to the praste's pocket in comparison to what he gets now. It's that, mother dear, that makes him so afraid we shall learn. He can't get the money from those who can read God's Word for themselves."
"Are you sure it's all thrue?" asked Biddy, her eyes wide open with astonishment.
"It is the truth of God. An' it's this same learning that's got out of the holy Book that makes the difference between Protestants and Catholics. They go to the Word itself, an' we take on hearsay whatever the praste tells us. An' there is no word in all the Book, mother, about praying to Mary the mother of Jesus, or to any of the saints. Everybody is invited to pray straight up to God himself."
The girl's downright heresy, and her contempt for the mummeries of the Romish communion, troubled her mother. But what could she do? The change for the better in the child's temper had prepared her to look favourably upon the change in her religion. She listened to Annorah's continued account of what she had learned from the Bible with the greatest interest, feeling every moment more and more disposed to accept its teaching, and less and less disposed to blindly submit to the priest. Annorah stayed till a late hour with her mother, repeating over and over again the truths so interesting to herself, and obtaining permission at last to bring the Bible itself on her next visit. She was strictly cautioned, however, to bring it privately, lest Father M'Clane should hear of it, and, in Biddy's language, "kick up a scrimmage."
There were more ideas in the old woman's head than had ever found room there before, when, after Annorah had gone, she sat down by herself before the fire. She was both ambitious and imaginative, and long vistas of future greatness opened before her, all commencing with the wonderful fact that her child could read and write.
"An' it's not all a queer drame," she said; "I'll hear her for meself coom next Saturday Och! what a row it will make an' Father M'Clane, and Teddy Muggins, and Mike Murphy get wind o' a heretic Bible being brought to the place! But I'll hear and judge for meself, that I will; an' if the praste be right, small harm is there to be shure; and if he be wrong, the better for me poor sowl, and a saving o' money."