My New Curate | Page 5

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 you both, there will be quite an Academia at Kilronan.
Yours in Christ.
"Clever, my Lord," I soliloquized, "clever!" Then, as the "gold medal in
Greek" caught my eye again, I almost let the letter fall to the ground;
and I thought of his Lordship's words: "I can send him a curate who
will break his heart in six weeks." But as I looked over my cup at
Father Letheby, I couldn't believe that there was any lurking diablerie
there. He looked in the morning a frank, bright, cheery, handsome
fellow. But, will he do?
CHAPTER II
A RETROSPECT
Long ago, when I used to read an occasional novel, if the author dared
to say: "But I am anticipating; we must go back here twenty years to
understand the thread of this history," I invariably flung down the book
in disgust. The idea of taking you back to ancient history when you
were dying to know what was to become of the yellow-haired Blumine,
or the grand chivalrous Roland. Well, I am just going to commit the
very same sin; and, dear reader, be patient just a little while.

It is many years since I was appointed to the parish of Kilronan. It
happened in this wise. The Bishop, the old man, sent for me; and said,
with what I would call a tone of pity or contempt, but he was incapable
of either, for he was the essence of charity and sincerity:--
"Father Dan, you are a bit of a litterateur, I understand. Kilronan is
vacant. You'll have plenty of time for poetizing and dreaming there.
What do you say to it?"
I put on a little dignity, and, though my heart was beating with delight,
I quietly thanked his Lordship. But, when I had passed beyond the
reach of episcopal vision, which is far stretching enough, I spun my hat
in the air, and shouted like a schoolboy: "Hurrah!"
You wonder at my ecstasies! Listen. I was a dreamer, and the dream of
my life, when shut up in musty towns, where the atmosphere was
redolent of drink, and you heard nothing but scandal, and saw nothing
but sin,--the dream of my life was a home by the sea, with its purity
and freedom, and its infinite expanse, telling me of God. For, from the
time when as a child the roar of the surges set my pulse beating, and the
scents of the weed and the brine would make me turn pale with
pleasure, I used to pray that some day, when my life's work would be
nearly done, and I had put in my years of honest labor in the dusty
streets, I might spend my declining years in the peace of a seaside
village, and go down to my grave, washed free from the contaminations
of life in the daily watching and loving of those
"Moving waters at their priestlike task Of cold ablution round earth's
human shores."
My wish was realized, and I was jubilant.
Returning home by train, when my emotion had calmed down, my
mind could not help recurring to the expression used by the Bishop;
and it suggested the following reflections: How has it come to pass in
Ireland that "poet" and "saint" are terms which denote some weakness
or irregularity in their possessors? At one time in our history we know
that the bard was second only to the King in power and influence; and

are we not vaguely proud of that title the world gives us,--Island of
Saints? Yet, nowadays, through some fatal degeneracy, a poet is looked
upon as an idealist, an unpractical builder of airy castles, to whom no
one would go for advice in an important matter, or intrust with the
investment of a five-pound note. And to speak of a man or woman as a
"saint" is to hint at some secret imbecility, which