The Lake | Page 8

would have to go on shore every Sunday to hear Mass, unless he
built a chapel. The hermit of Church Island had an oratory in which he
said Mass! But if he left his island every Sunday his hermitage would
be a mockery. For the moment he couldn't see how he was to build a
chapel--a sheiling, perhaps; a chapel was out of the question, he feared.
He would have to have vestments and a chalice, and, immersed in the
difficulty of obtaining these, he walked home, taking the path along the
river from habit, not because he wished to consider afresh the problems
of the ruined mills. The dream of restoring Tinnick to its commerce of
former days was forgotten, and he walked on, thinking of his chalice,
until he heard somebody call him. It was Eliza, and as they leaned over
the parapet of the bridge, he could not keep himself from telling her
that he had rowed out to Castle Island, never thinking that she would
reprove him, and sternly, for taking the fisherman's boat without asking
leave. It was no use to argue with Eliza that the fisherman didn't want
his boat, the day being too rough for fishing. What did she know about
fishing? She had asked very sharply what brought him out to Castle
Island on such a day. There was no use saying he didn't know; he never
was able to keep a secret from Eliza, and feeling that he must confide in
somebody, he told her he was tired of living at home, and was thinking
of building a sheiling on the island.
Eliza didn't understand, and she understood still less when he spoke of
a beehive hut, such as the ancient hermits of Ireland lived in. She was
entirely without imagination; but what surprised him still more than her
lack of sympathy with his dream-project was her inability to understand
an idea so inherent in Christianity as the hermitage, for at that time
Eliza's mind was made up to enter the religious life. He waited a long
time for her answer, but the only answer she made was that in the early
centuries a man was either a bandit or a hermit. This wasn't true: life
was peaceful in Ireland in the sixth and seventh centuries; even if it
weren't, she ought to have understood that change of circumstance
cannot alter an idea so inherent in man as the hermitage, and when he

asked her if she intended to found a new Order, or to go out to
Patagonia to teach the Indians, she laughed, saying she was much more
interested in a laundry than in the Indians. Her plea that the Tinnick
Convent was always in straits for money did not appeal to him then any
more than it did to-day.
'The officers in Tinnick have to send their washing to Dublin. A fine
reason for entering a convent,' he answered.
But quite unmoved by the sarcasm, she replied that a woman can do
nothing unless she be a member of a congregation. He shrank from
Eliza's mind as from the touch of something coarse, and his suggestion
that the object of the religious life is meditation did not embarrass her
in the very least, and he remembered well how she had said:
'Putting aside for the moment the important question whether there may
or may not be hermits in the twentieth century, tell me, Oliver, are you
thinking of marrying Annie McGrath? You know she has rich relations
in America, and you might get them to supply the capital to set the
mills going. The mills would be a great advantage. Annie has a good
headpiece, and would be able to take the shop off your hands, leaving
you free to look after the mills.'
'The mills, Eliza! there are other things in the world beside those mills!'
'A hermitage on Castle Island?'
Eliza could be very impertinent when she liked. If she had no concern
in what was being said, she looked round, displaying an irritating
curiosity in every passer-by, and true to herself she had drawn his
attention to the ducks on the river while he was telling her of the great
change that had come over him. He had felt like boxing her ears. But
the moment he began to speak of taking Orders she forgot all about the
ducks; her eyes were fixed upon him, she listened to his every word,
and when he finished speaking, she reminded him there had always
been a priest in the family. All her wits were awake. He was the one of
the family who had shown most aptitude for learning, and their cousin
the Bishop would be able to help him. What she would like would be to

see him