Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope (good story books to read .txt) 📖

very moment he ought to labour specially for the bodies of these poor people, as at other times he would labour specially for their souls; and so he yielded.

"Well," said his wife to him as he got off his car at his own door after the meeting, "what have you done?" One might have imagined from her tone of voice and her manner that she expected, or at least hoped to hear that the priest had been absolutely exterminated and made away with in the good fight.

Mr. Townsend made no immediate answer, but proceeded to divest himself of his rusty outside coat, and to rub up his stiff, grizzled, bristly, uncombed hair with both his hands, as was his wont when he was not quite satisfied with the state of things.

"I suppose he was there?" said Mrs. Townsend.

"Oh, yes, he was there. He is never away, I take it, when there is any talking to be done." Now Mr. Townsend dearly loved to hear himself talk, but no man was louder against the sins of other orators. And then he began to ask how many minutes it wanted to dinner-time.

Mrs. Townsend knew his ways. She would not have a ghost of a chance of getting from him a true and substantial account of what had really passed if she persevered in direct questions to the effect. So she pretended to drop the matter, and went and fetched her lord's slippers, the putting on of which constituted his evening toilet; and then, after some little hurrying inquiry in the kitchen, promised him his dinner in fifteen minutes.

"Was Herbert Fitzgerald there?"

"Oh yes; he is always there. He's a nice young fellow; a very fine young fellow; but—"

"But what?"

"He thinks he understands the Irish Roman Catholics, but he understands them no more than—than—than this slipper," he said, having in vain cudgelled his brain for a better comparison.

"You know what Aunt Letty says about him. She doubts he isn't quite right, you know."

Mrs. Townsend by this did not mean to insinuate that Herbert was at all afflicted in that way which we attempt to designate, when we say that one of our friends is not all right, and at the same time touch our heads with our forefinger. She had intended to convey an impression that the young man's religious ideas were not exactly of that stanch, true-blue description which she admired.

"Well, he has just come from Oxford, you know," said Mr. Townsend: "and at the present moment Oxford is the most dangerous place to which a young man can be sent."

"And Sir Thomas would send him there, though I remember telling his aunt over and over again how it would be." And Mrs. Townsend as she spoke, shook her head sorrowfully.

"I don't mean to say, you know, that he's absolutely bitten."

"Oh, I know—I understand. When they come to crosses and candlesticks, the next step to the glory of Mary is a very easy one. I would sooner send a young man to Rome than to Oxford. At the one he might be shocked and disgusted; but at the other he is cajoled, and cheated, and ruined." And then Mrs. Townsend threw herself back in her chair, and threw her eyes up towards the ceiling.

But there was no hypocrisy or pretence in this expression of her feelings. She did in her heart of hearts believe that there was some college or club of papists at Oxford, emissaries of the Pope or of the Jesuits. In her moments of sterner thought the latter were the enemies she most feared; whereas, when she was simply pervaded by her usual chronic hatred of the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy, she was wont to inveigh most against the Pope. And this college, she maintained, was fearfully successful in drawing away the souls of young English students. Indeed, at Oxford a man had no chance against the devil. Things were better at Cambridge; though even there there was great danger. Look at A—— and Z——; and she would name two perverts to the Church of Rome, of whom she had learned that they were Cambridge men. But, thank God, Trinity College still stood firm. Her idea was, that if there were left any real Protestant truth in the Church of England, that Church should look to feed her lambs by the hands of shepherds chosen from that seminary, and from that seminary only.

"But isn't dinner nearly ready?" said Mr. Townsend, whose ideas were not so exclusively Protestant as were those of his wife. "I haven't had a morsel since breakfast." And then his wife, who was peculiarly anxious to keep him in a good humour that all might come out about Father Barney, made another little visit to the kitchen.

At last the dinner was served. The weather was very cold, and the rector and his wife considered it more cosy to use only the parlour, and not to migrate into the cold air of a second room. Indeed, during the winter months the drawing-room of Drumbarrow Glebe was only used for visitors, and for visitors who were not intimate enough in the house to be placed upon the worn chairs and threadbare carpet of the dining-parlour. And very cold was that drawing-room found to be by each visitor.

But the parlour was warm enough; warm and cosy, though perhaps at times a little close; and of evenings there would pervade it a smell of whisky punch, not altogether acceptable to unaccustomed nostrils. Not that the rector of Drumbarrow was by any means an intemperate man. His single tumbler of whisky toddy, repeated only on Sundays and some other rare occasions, would by no means equal, in point of drinking, the ordinary port of an ordinary English clergyman. But whisky punch does leave behind a savour of its intrinsic virtues, delightful no doubt to those who have imbibed its grosser elements, but not equally acceptable to others who may have been less fortunate.

During dinner there was no conversation about Herbert Fitzgerald, or the committee, or Father Barney. The old gardener, who waited at table with all his garden clothes on him, and whom the neighbours, with respectful deference, called Mr. Townsend's butler, was a Roman Catholic; as, indeed, were all the servants at the glebe, and as are, necessarily, all the native servants in that part of the country. And though Mr. and Mrs. Townsend put great trust in their servant Jerry as to the ordinary duties of gardening, driving, and butlering, they would not knowingly trust him with a word of their habitual conversation about the things around them. Their idea was, that every word so heard was carried to the priest, and that the priest kept a book in which every word so uttered was written down. If this were so through the parish, the priest must in truth have had something to do, both for himself and his private secretary; for, in spite of all precautions that were taken, Jerry and Jerry's brethren no doubt did hear much of what was said. The repetitions to the priest, however, I must take leave to doubt.

But after dinner, when the hot water and whisky were on the table, when the two old arm-chairs were drawn cozily up on the rug, each with an old footstool before it; when the faithful wife had mixed that glass of punch—or jug rather, for, after the old fashion, it was brewed in such a receptacle; and when, to inspire increased confidence, she had put into it a small extra modicum of the eloquent spirit, then the mouth of the rector was opened, and Mrs. Townsend was made happy.

"And so Father Barney and I have met at last," said he, rather cheerily, as the hot fumes of the toddy regaled his nostrils.

"And how did he behave now?"

"Well, he was decent enough—that is, as far as absolute behaviour went. You can't have a silk purse from off a sow's ear, you know."

"No, indeed; and goodness knows there's plenty of the sow's ear about him. But now, Æneas, dear, do tell me how it all was, just from the beginning."

"He was there before me," said the husband.

"Catch a weasel asleep!" said the wife.

"I didn't catch him asleep at any rate," continued he. "He was there before me; but when I went into the little room where they hold the meeting—"

"It's at Berryhill, isn't it?"

"Yes, at the Widow Casey's. To see that woman bowing and scraping and curtsying to Father Barney, and she his own mother's brother's daughter, was the best thing in the world."

"That was just to do him honour before the quality, you know."

"Exactly. When I went in, there was nobody there but his reverence and Master Herbert."

"As thick as possible, I suppose. Dear, dear; isn't it dreadful!—Did I put sugar enough in it, Æneas?"

"Well, I don't know; perhaps you may give me another small lump. At any rate, you didn't forget the whisky."

"I'm sure it isn't a taste too strong—and after such work as you've had to-day.—And so young Fitzgerald and Father Barney—"

"Yes, there they were with their heads together. It was something about a mill they were saying."

"Oh, it's perfectly dreadful!"

"But Herbert stopped, and introduced me at once to Father Barney."

"What! a regular introduction? I like that, indeed."

"He didn't do it altogether badly. He said something about being glad to see two gentlemen together—"

"A gentleman, indeed!"

"—who were both so anxious to do the best they could in the parish, and whose influence was so great—or something to that effect. And then we shook hands."

"You did shake hands?"

"Oh, yes; if I went there at all, it was necessary that I should do that."

"I am very glad it was not me, that's all. I don't think I could shake hands with Father Barney."

"There's no knowing what you can do, my dear, till you try."

"H—m," said Mrs. Townsend, meaning to signify thereby that she was still strong in the strength of her own impossibilities.

"And then there was a little general conversation about the potato, for no one came in for a quarter of an hour or so. The priest said that they were as badly off in Limerick and Clare as we are here. Now, I don't believe that; and when I asked him how he knew, he quoted the 'Freeman.'"

"The 'Freeman,' indeed! Just like him. I wonder it wasn't the 'Nation.'" In Mrs. Townsend's estimation, the parish priest was much to blame because he did not draw his public information from some newspaper specially addicted to the support of the Protestant cause.

"And then Somers came in, and he took the chair. I was very much afraid at one time that Father Barney was going to seat himself there."

"You couldn't possibly have stood that?"

"I had made up my mind what to do. I should have walked about the room, and looked on the whole affair as altogether irregular,—as though there was no chairman. But Somers was of course the proper man."

"And who else came?"

"There was O'Leary, from Boherbue."

"He was another Papist?"

"Oh, yes; there was a majority of them. There was Greilly, the man who has got that large take of land over beyond Banteer; and then Father Barney's coadjutor came in."

"What! that wretched-looking man from Gortnaclough?"

"Yes; he's the curate of the parish, you know."

"And did you shake hands with him too?"

"Indeed I did; and you never saw a fellow look so ashamed of himself in your life."

"Well, there isn't much shame about them generally."

"And there wasn't much about him by-and-by. You never heard a man talk such trash in your life, till Somers put him down."

"Oh, he was put down? I'm glad of that."

"And to do Father Barney justice, he did tell him to hold his tongue. The fool began to make a regular set speech."

"Father Barney, I suppose, didn't choose that anybody should do that but himself."

"He did enough for the two, certainly. I never heard a man so fond of his own voice. What he wants is to rule it all just his own way."

"Of course he does; and that's just what you won't let him do. What other reason can there be for your going there?"

And so the matter was discussed. What absolute steps were taken by the committee; how they agreed to buy so much meal of such a merchant, at such a price, and with such funds; how it was to be resold, and never given away on any pretext; how Mr. Somers had explained that giving away their means was killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, when the young priest, in an attitude for oratory, declared that the poor had no money with which to make the purchase; and how in a few weeks' time they would be able to grind their own flour at Herbert Fitzgerald's mill;—all this was also told. But the telling did not give so much gratification