My New Curate | Page 4

she said, "but whin I came out and saw his portmanty all brass knobs, and took up his rug, whew! it was that soft and fine it would do to wrap up the Queen, I said to myself, 'this is a gintleman, Hannah; who knows but he's the Bishop on his tower.'"
"I hope you like your tea?" I said.
"It's simply delicious," he answered.
He ate heartily. Poor fellow, he was hungry after a long drive; but he chewed every morsel as a cow would chew the cud on a lazy summer afternoon, without noise or haste, and he lifted my poor old china cup as daintily as if it were Sèvres. Then we fell to talking.
"I am afraid," I said tentatively, "that you'll find this place dull after your last mission. But have you been on the mission before?"
"Oh yes, Father," he said, "I thought the Bishop might have written to you."
"Well," I said, "I had reason to know you were coming; but the Bishop is rather laconic in his epistles. He prides himself on his virtue of reticence."
I said this, because it would never do to let him suppose that the Bishop would send me a curate without letting me know of it. And I thought I was using select language, an opinion which, after the nine years and more of Horace, I have no reason to alter.
[Illustration: "You will take something?" I said. "You have had a long drive."]
"My only mission hitherto," he said, "has been in Manchester, at St. Chad's. It was a populous mission, and quite full of those daily trials and contingencies that make life wearisome to a priest. I confess I was not sorry to have been called home."
"But you had society," I interjected, "and unless you wish to spend an hour at the constabulary barracks, you must seek your society here in an occasional conversazione with some old woman over her cross-door, or a chat with the boys at the forge--"
"But I have got my books, Father," he said, "and I assure you I want some time to brush up the little I have ever read. I haven't opened a serious book for seven years."
This was candid; and it made me warm towards him.
"Then," I said, "there's no use in preaching fine English sermons, they won't be understood. And you must be prepared for many a night call to mountain cabins, the only access to which is through a bog or the bed of a mountain stream; and your income will reach the princely sum of sixty pounds per annum. But," I added hastily, "you'll have plenty of turf, and oats and hay for your horse, an occasional pound of butter, and you'll have to export all the turkeys you'll get at Christmas."
"You have painted the lights and shadows, Father," he said cheerily, "and I am prepared to take them together. I am sure I'll like the poor people. It won't be my fault."
Then my heart rose up to this bright, cheery, handsome fellow, who had no more pride in him than a barelegged gossoon; and who was prepared to find his pleasure amongst such untoward surroundings. But I didn't like to let myself out as yet. I had to keep up some show of dignity.
My education commenced next morning. He had served my mass, and said his own in my little oratory; and he came down to breakfast, clean, alert, happy. I asked him how he had slept.
"Right well," he said, "I never woke till I heard some far off bell in the morning."
"The six o'clock bell at the great house," I replied. "But where are you going?"
"Nowhere, Sir," said he, "I understood I was to remain over Sunday."
"But you're shaved?" said I.
"Oh yes," he said, with the faintest ripple of a smile. "I couldn't think of sitting down to breakfast, much less of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice, without shaving."
"And you have a clean collar. Do you mean to say you change your collar every morning?"
"Certainly, Sir," he said.
"Poor Father Tom!" I exclaimed mentally, "this is a change." But I said nothing; but sent out my razors in the afternoon to be set.
There was a letter from the Bishop. It ran thus:--
My dear Father Dan:--I have thought it necessary to make a change of curates in your parish. I have removed Father Laverty on promotion; and I am sending you one of the most promising young priests in my diocese. He has just returned from England, where he won golden opinions from the people and the priests. I may mention that he was an exhibitioner under the Intermediate System; and took a gold medal for Greek. Perhaps you will stimulate him to renew his studies in that department, as he says he has got quite rusty from want of time to study. Between