Collected Stories (55 page)

The committee were all religious men who up to this had never as much as dared to question the judgments of a man of God: yes, faith, and if the priest had been a bully, which to give him his due he wasn't, he might have danced a jig on their backs and they wouldn't have complained. But a man has principles, and the like of this had never been heard of in the parish before. What? Put the police on a boy and he in trouble?

One by one the committee spoke up and said so. “But he did wrong,” said Father Crowley, thumping the table. “He did wrong and he should be punished.”

“Maybe so, father,” said Con Norton, the vice-chairman, who acted as spokesman. “Maybe you're right, but you wouldn't say his poor mother should be punished too and she a widow-woman?”

“True for you!” chorused the others.

“Serves his mother right!” said the priest shortly. “There's none of you but knows better than I do the way that young man was brought up. He's a rogue and his mother is a fool. Why didn't she beat Christian principles into him when she had him on her knee?”

“That might be, too,” Norton agreed mildly. “I wouldn't say but you're right, but is that any reason his Uncle Peter should be punished?”

“Or his Uncle Dan?” asked another.

“Or his Uncle James?” asked a third.

“Or his cousins, the Dwyers, that keep the little shop in Lissnacarriga, as decent a living family as there is in County Cork?” asked a fourth.

“No, father,” said Norton, “the argument is against you.”

“Is it indeed?” exclaimed the priest, growing cross. “Is it so? What the devil has it to do with his Uncle Dan or his Uncle James? What are ye talking about? What punishment is it to them, will ye tell me that? Ye'll be telling me next 'tis a punishment to me and I a child of Adam like himself.”

“Wisha now, father,” asked Norton incredulously, “do you mean 'tis no punishment to them having one of their own blood made a public show? Is it mad you think we are? Maybe 'tis a thing you'd like done to yourself?”

“There was none of my family ever a thief,” replied Father Crowley shortly.

“Begor, we don't know whether there was or not,” snapped a little man called Daly, a hot-tempered character from the hills.

“Easy, now! Easy, Phil!” said Norton warningly.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Father Crowley, rising and grabbing his hat and stick.

“What I mean,” said Daly, blazing up, “is that I won't sit here and listen to insinuations about my native place from any foreigner. There are as many rogues and thieves and vagabonds and liars in Cullough as ever there were in Carricknabreena—ay, begod, and more, and bigger! That's what I mean.”

“No, no, no, no,” Norton said soothingly. “That's not what he means at all, father. We don't want any bad blood between Cullough and Carricknabreena. What he means is that the Crowleys may be a fine substantial family in their own country, but that's fifteen long miles away, and this isn't their country, and the Cronins are neighbors of ours since the dawn of history and time, and 'twould be a very queer thing if at this hour we handed one of them over to the police.… And now, listen to me, father,” he went on, forgetting his role of pacificator and hitting the table as hard as the rest, “if a cow of mine got sick in the morning, 'tisn't a Cremin or a Crowley I'd be asking for help, and damn the bit of use 'twould be to me if I did. And everyone knows I'm no enemy of the Church but a respectable farmer that pays his dues and goes to his duties regularly.”

“True for you! True for you!” agreed the committee.

“I don't give a snap of my finger what you are,” retorted the priest. “And now listen to me, Con Norton. I bear young Cronin no grudge, which is more than some of you can say, but I know my duty and I'll do it in spite of the lot of you.”

He stood at the door and looked back. They were gazing blankly at one another, not knowing what to say to such an impossible man. He shook his fist at them.

“Ye all know me,” he said. “Ye know that all my life I'm fighting the long-tailed families. Now, with the help of God, I'll shorten the tail of one of them.”

Father Crowley's threat frightened them. They knew he was an obstinate man and had spent his time attacking what he called the “corruption” of councils and committees, which was all very well as long as it happened outside your own parish. They dared not oppose him openly because he knew too much about all of them and, in public at least, had a lacerating tongue. The solution they favored was a tactful one. They formed themselves into a Michael John Cronin Fund Committee and canvassed the parishioners for subscriptions to pay off what Michael John had stolen. Regretfully they decided that Father Crowley would hardly countenance a football match for the purpose.

Then with the defaulting treasurer, who wore a suitably contrite air, they marched up to the presbytery. Father Crowley was at his dinner but he told the houskeeper to show them in. He looked up in astonishment as his dining room filled with the seven committeemen, pushing before them the cowed Michael John.

“Who the blazes are ye?” he asked, glaring at them over the lamp.

“We're the Club Committee, father,” replied Norton.

“Oh, are ye?”

“And this is the treasurer—the ex-treasurer, I should say.”

“I won't pretend I'm glad to see him,” said Father Crowley grimly.

“He came to say he's sorry, father,” went on Norton. “He is sorry, and that's as true as God, and I'll tell you no lie.…” Norton made two steps forward and in a dramatic silence laid a heap of notes and silver on the table.

“What's that?” asked Father Crowley.

“The money, father. 'Tis all paid back now and there's nothing more between us. Any little crossness there was, we'll say no more about it, in the name of God.”

The priest looked at the money and then at Norton.

“Con,” he said, “you'd better keep the soft word for the judge. Maybe he'll think more of it than I do.”

“The judge, father?”

“Ay, Con, the judge.”

There was a long silence. The committee stood with open mouths, unable to believe it.

“And is that what you're doing to us, father?” asked Norton in a trembling voice. “After all the years, and all we done for you, is it you're going to show us up before the whole country as a lot of robbers?”

“Ay, ye idiots, I'm not showing ye up.”

“You are then, father, and you're showing up every man, woman, and child in the parish,” said Norton. “And mark my words, 'twon't be forgotten for you.”

The following Sunday Father Crowley spoke of the matter from the altar. He spoke for a full half-hour without a trace of emotion on his grim old face, but his sermon was one long, venomous denunciation of the “long-tailed families” who, according to him, were the ruination of the country and made a mockery of truth, justice, and charity. He was, as his congregation agreed, a shockingly obstinate old man who never knew when he was in the wrong.

After Mass he was visited in his sacristy by the committee. He gave Norton a terrible look from under his shaggy eyebrows, which made that respectable farmer flinch.

“Father,” Norton said appealingly, “we only want one word with you. One word and then we'll go. You're a hard character, and you said some bitter things to us this morning; things we never deserved from you. But we're quiet, peaceable poor men and we don't want to cross you.”

Father Crowley made a sound like a snort.

“We came to make a bargain with you, father,” said Norton, beginning to smile.

“A bargain?”

“We'll say no more about the whole business if you'll do one little thing—just one little thing—to oblige us.”

“The bargain!” the priest said impatiently. “What's the bargain?”

“We'll leave the matter drop for good and all if you'll give the boy a character.”

“Yes, father,” cried the committee in chorus. “Give him a character! Give him a character!”

“Give him a what?” cried the priest.

“Give him a character, father, for the love of God,” said Norton emotionally. “If you speak up for him, the judge will leave him off and there'll be no stain on the parish.”

“Is it out of your minds you are, you half-witted angashores?” asked Father Crowley, his face suffused with blood, his head trembling. “Here am I all these years preaching to ye about decency and justice and truth and ye no more understand me than that wall there. Is it the way ye want me to perjure myself? Is it the way ye want me to tell a damned lie with the name of Almighty God on my lips? Answer me, is it?”

“Ah, what perjure!” Norton replied wearily. “Sure, can't you say a few words for the boy? No one is asking you to say much. What harm will it do you to tell the judge he's an honest, good-living, upright lad, and that he took the money without meaning any harm?”

“My God!” muttered the priest, running his hands distractedly through his gray hair. “There's no talking to ye, no talking to ye, ye lot of sheep.”

When he was gone the committeemen turned and looked at one another in bewilderment.

“That man is a terrible trial,” said one.

“He's a tyrant,” said Daly vindictively.

“He is, indeed,” sighed Norton, scratching his head. “But in God's holy name, boys, before we do anything, we'll give him one more chance.”

That evening when he was at his tea the committeemen called again. This time they looked very spruce, businesslike, and independent. Father Crowley glared at them.

“Are ye back?” he asked bitterly. “I was thinking ye would be. I declare to my goodness, I'm sick of ye and yeer old committee.”

“Oh, we're not the committee, father,” said Norton stiffly.

“Ye're not?”

“We're not.”

“All I can say is, ye look mighty like it. And, if I'm not being impertinent, who the deuce are ye?”

“We're a deputation, father.”

“Oh, a deputation! Fancy that, now. And a deputation from what?”

“A deputation from the parish, father. Now, maybe you'll listen to us.”

“Oh, go on! I'm listening, I'm listening.”

“Well, now, 'tis like this, father,” said Norton, dropping his airs and graces and leaning against the table. “'Tis about that little business this morning. Now, father, maybe you don't understand us and we don't understand you. There's a lot of misunderstanding in the world today, father. But we're quiet simple poor men that want to do the best we can for everybody, and a few words or a few pounds wouldn't stand in our way. Now, do you follow me?”

“I declare,” said Father Crowley, resting his elbows on the table, “I don't know whether I do or not.”

“Well, 'tis like this, father. We don't want any blame on the parish or on the Cronins, and you're the one man that can save us. Now all we ask of you is to give the boy a character—”

“Yes, father,” interrupted the chorus, “give him a character! Give him a character!”

“Give him a character, father, and you won't be troubled by him again. Don't say no to me now till you hear what I have to say. We won't ask you to go next, nigh or near the court. You have pen and ink beside you and one couple of lines is all you need write. When 'tis over you can hand Michael John his ticket to America and tell him not to show his face in Carricknabreena again. There's the price of his ticket, father,” he added, clapping a bundle of notes on the table. “The Cronins themselves made it up, and we have his mother's word and his own word that he'll clear out the minute 'tis all over.”

“He can go to pot!” retorted the priest. “What is it to me where he goes?”

“Now, father, can't you be patient?” Norton asked reproachfully. “Can't you let me finish what I'm saying? We know 'tis no advantage to you, and that's the very thing we came to talk about. Now, supposing—just supposing for the sake of argument—that you do what we say, there's a few of us here, and between us, we'd raise whatever little contribution to the parish fund you'd think would be reasonable to cover the expense and trouble to yourself. Now do you follow me?”

“Con Norton,” said Father Crowley, rising and holding the edge of the table, “I follow you. This morning it was perjury, and now 'tis bribery, and the Lord knows what 'twill be next. I see I've been wasting my breath.… And I see too,” he added savagely, leaning across the table towards them, “a pedigree bull would be more use to ye than a priest.”

“What do you mean by that, father?” asked Norton in a low voice.

“What I say.”

“And that's a saying that will be remembered for you the longest day you live,” hissed Norton, leaning towards him till they were glaring at one another over the table.

“A bull,” gasped Father Crowley. “Not a priest.”

“'Twill be remembered.”

“Will it? Then remember this too. I'm an old man now. I'm forty years a priest, and I'm not a priest for the money or power or glory of it, like others I know. I gave the best that was in me—maybe 'twasn't much but 'twas more than many a better man would give, and at the end of my days …” lowering his voice to a whisper he searched them with his terrible eyes, “… at the end of my days, if I did a wrong thing, or a bad thing, or an unjust thing, there isn't man or woman in this parish that would brave me to my face and call me a villain. And isn't that a poor story for an old man that tried to be a good priest?” His voice changed again and he raised his head defiantly. “Now get out before I kick you out!”

And true to his word and character not one word did he say in Michael John's favor the day of the trial, no more than if he was black. Three months Michael John got and by all accounts he got off light.