Alexandra Kuprin - "Yama (The Pit)"

William Shakespeare - "The Tragedie of Coriolanus"

William Shakespeare - "The Tempest"

Horatio Alger - "Walter Sherwood's Probation"

The Untilled Field

G >> George Moore >> The Untilled Field




"I am sure you are wronging Father Tom; he has his faults, but he
would not do such a thing as that."

"Yes," said Rodney, "he would. I know them better than you. I know
the creed. But you did not finish your story. Tell me what
happened when he began to suspect that you sat for the statue."

"He asked me if I had seen the statue of the Virgin in your
studio. I grew red all over. I could not answer him, and mother
said, 'Why don't you answer Father Tom?' I could see from his
manner that he knew that I had sat for the statue. And then he
said he wanted to speak to father and mother. Mother said I had
read enough, that I had better go to bed."

"And you went out of the room knowing what the priest was going to
say?" said Rodney, melting into sympathy for the first time. "And
then?"

"I waited on the stairs for a little while, long enough to make
sure that he was telling them that I had sat for the statue. I
heard the door open, father came out, they talked on the landing.
I fled into my room and locked the door, and just as I locked the
door I heard father say, 'My daughter! you're insulting my
daughter!' You know father is suffering from stone, and mother
said, 'If you don't stop I shall be up with you all night,' and so
she was. All the night I heard father moaning, and to-day he is so
ill the doctor is with him, and he has been taken to the hospital,
and mother says when he leaves the hospital he will turn me out of
the house."

"Well," said Rodney, "great misfortunes have happened us both. It
was a cruel thing of the priest to tell your father that you sat
for me. But to pay someone to wreck my studio!"

Lucy begged of him not to believe too easily that Father McCabe
had done this. He must wait a little while, and he had better
communicate with the police. They would be able to find out who
had done it.

"Now," she said, "I must go."

He glanced at the rags that had once covered his statue, but he
had not the courage to undo them. If his statue had been cast the
ruin would not be so irreparable. It could be put together in some
sort of way.

Who would have done it but the priest? It was difficult to believe
that a priest could do such a thing, that anyone could do such a
thing, it was an inhuman thing to do. He might go to the police as
Lucy had suggested, and the police would inquire the matter out.
But would that be of any satisfaction; a wretched fine, a few
days' imprisonment. Of one thing he was sure, that nowhere except
in Ireland could such a thing happen. Thank God he was going!
There was at least satisfaction in knowing that only twelve hours
of Ireland remained. To-morrow evening he would be in Paris. He
would leave the studio as it was. Maybe he might take a few busts
and sketches, a few books, and a few pictures; he must take some
of them with him, and he tried to formulate some plan. But he
could not collect his thoughts sufficiently to think out the
details. Would there be time to have a case made, or should he
leave them to be sold, or should he give orders that they should
be sent after him?

At that moment his eyes went towards the lump of clay, and he
wished that he had asked the charwoman to take it out of his
studio. He thought of it as one thinks of a corpse, and he took
down a few books and tied them up with a string, and then forgot
what he was doing. He and his country were two thousand years
apart, and would always be two thousand years apart, and then
growing superstitious, he wondered if his country had punished him
for his contempt. There was something extraordinarily fateful in
the accident that had happened to him. Such an accident had never
happened to anyone before. A most singular accident! He stood
looking through the studio unable to go on with his packing,
thinking of what Harding and he had been saying to each other. The
"Celtic renaissance!" Harding believed, or was inclined to
believe, that the Gael was not destined to disappear, that in
making the Cross of Cong he had not got as far as he was intended
to get. But even Harding had admitted that no race had taken to
religion quite so seriously as the Celt. The Druids had put aside
the oak leaves and put on the biretta. There had never been a
religious revolution in Ireland. In the fifth and sixth centuries
all the intelligence of Ireland had gone into religion. "Ireland
is immersed in the religious vocation, and there can be no
renaissance without a religious revolt." The door of the studio
opened. It was Lucy; and he wondered what she had come back for.

"It wasn't Father Tom. I knew it wasn't," she said.

"Do you know who it was then?"

"Yes, my brothers, Pat and Taigdh."

"Pat and Taigdh broke my statue! But what did they do that for?
What did I ever do to them?"

"I saw them whispering together. I could see they had a secret,
something inspired me, and when Taigdh went out I got Pat by
himself and I coaxed him and I frightened him. I told him that
things had been broken in your studio, and that the police were
making inquiries. I saw at once that he knew all about it. He got
frightened and he told me that last night when I went to my room
he and Taigdh came out of their room and had listened on the
stairs. They did not understand everything that was said, they
only understood that I had sat for a statue, and that the priest
did not wish to put it up in his church, and that perhaps he would
have to pay for it, and if he did not the Bishop would suspend
him--you know there has always been talk about Father Tom's debts.
They got talking, and Taigdh said he would like to see the statue,
and he persuaded Pat to follow him, and they climbed along the
wall and dropped into the mews, and got the hasp off the door with
the kitchen poker."

"But why did they break the statue?" said Rodney.

"I don't think they know why themselves. I tried to get Pat to
tell me, but all he could tell me was that he had bumped against a
woman with a cloak on." "My lay figure."

"And in trying to get out of the studio they had knocked down a
bust, and after they had done that Taigdh said: 'We had better
have down this one. The priest does not like it, and if we have it
down he won't have to pay for it.'"

"They must have heard the priest saying that he did not want the
statue."

"Very likely they did, but I am sure the priest never said that he
wanted the statue broken."

"Oh, it is a great muddle," said Rodney. "But there it is. My
statue is broken. Two little boys have broken it. Two little boys
who overheard a priest talking nonsense, and did not quite
understand. I am going away to-night."

"Then I shall not see you again,... and you said I was a good
model."

Her meaning was clear to him. He remembered how he had stood in
the midst of his sculpture asking himself what a man is to do when
a girl, walking with a walk at once idle and rhythmical, stops
suddenly and puts her hand on his shoulder and looks up in his
face. He had sworn he would not kiss her again and he had broken
his oath, but the desire of her as a model had overborne every
other desire. Now he was going away for ever, and his heart told
him that she was as sweet a thing as he would find all the world
over. But if he took her with him he would have to look after her
till the end of his life. This was not his vocation. His
hesitation endured but a moment, if he hesitated at all.

"You'd like to go away with me, but what should I do with you. I'm
thirty-five and you're sixteen." He could see that the difference
of age did not strike her--she was not looking into the remote
future.

"I don't think, Lucy, your destiny is to watch me making statues.
Your destiny is a gayer one than that. You want to play the piano,
don't you?"

"I should have to go to Germany to study, and I have no money.
Well," she said, "I must go back now. I just came to tell you who
had wrecked your studio. Good-bye. It has all been an unlucky
business for both of us."

"A beautiful model," Rodney said to himself, as he watched her
going up the mews. "But there are other girls just as good in
Paris and in Rome." And he remembered one who had sat to him in
Paris, and this gave him courage. "So it was two little boys," he
said, "who wrecked my studio. Two stupid little boys; two little
boys who have been taught their Catechism, and will one day aspire
to the priesthood." And that it should be two stupid little boys
who had broken his statue seemed significant. "Oh, the ignorance,
the crass, the patent ignorance! I am going. This is no place for
a sculptor to live in. It is no country for an educated man. It
won't be fit for a man to live in for another hundred years. It is
an unwashed country, that is what it is!"





CHAPTER II
SOME PARISHIONERS




I


The way before him was plain enough, yet his uncle's apathy and
constitutional infirmity of purpose seemed at times to thwart him.
Some two or three days ago, he had come running down from Kilmore
with the news that a baby had been born out of wedlock, and Father
Stafford had shown no desire that his curate should denounce the
girl from the altar.

"The greatest saints," he said, "have been kind, and have found
excuses for the sins of others."

And a few days later, when Father Maguire told his uncle that the
Salvationists had come to Kilmore, and that he had walked up the
village street and slit their drum with a carving knife, his uncle
had not approved of his conduct, and what had especially annoyed
Father Tom was that his uncle seemed to deplore the slitting of
the drum in the same way as he deplored that the Kavanaghs had a
barrel of porter in every Saturday, namely, as one of those
regrettable excesses to which human nature is liable. On being
pressed he had agreed with his nephew that dancing and drinking
were no preparation for the Sabbath, but he would not agree that
evil could be suppressed by force. He had even hinted that too
strict a rule brought about a revolt against the rule, and when
Father Tom had expressed his disbelief at any revolt against the
authority of the priest, Father Stafford said:--

"They may just leave you, they may just go to America."

"Then you think that it is our condemnation of sin that is driving
the people to America."

"My dear Tom, you told me the other day that you met a lad and a
lass walking along the roadside, and that you drove them home. You
told me you were sure they were talking about things they should
not talk about; you have no right to assume these things. You're
asking of the people an abstinence you don't practice yourself.
Sometimes your friends are women."

"Yes. But--"

Father Tom's anger prevented him from finding an adequate
argument. Father Stafford pushed the tobacco bowl towards his
nephew.

"You're not smoking, Tom."

"Your point is that a certain amount of vice is inherent in human
nature, and that if we raise the standard of virtuous living our
people will escape from us to New York or London."

"The sexes mix freely everywhere in western Europe; only in
Ireland and Turkey is there any attempt made to separate them."

Later in the evening Father Tom insisted that the measure of
responsibility was always the same.

"I should be sorry,' said his uncle, "to say that those who
inherit drunkenness bear the same burden of responsibility as
those who come of parents who are quite sane--"

"You cannot deny, uncle John, that free will and predestination--"

"My dear Tom, I really must go to bed. It is after midnight."

As he walked home, Father Maguire thought of the great change he
perceived in his uncle. Father Stafford liked to go to bed at
eleven, the very name of St. Thomas seemed to bore him; fifteen
years ago he would sit up till morning. Father Maguire remembered
the theological debates, sometimes prolonged till after three
o'clock, and the passionate scholiast of Maynooth seemed to him
unrecognisable in the esurient Vicar-General, only occasionally
interested in theology, at certain hours and when he felt
particularly well. He could not reconcile the two ages, his mind
not being sufficiently acute to see that after all no one can
discuss theology for more than five-and-twenty years without
wearying of the subject.

The moon was shining among the hills and the mystery of the
landscape seemed to aggravate his sensibility, and he asked
himself if the guardians of the people should not fling themselves
into the forefront of the battle. Men came to preach heresy in his
parish--was he not justified in slitting their drum?

He had recourse to prayer, and he prayed for strength and for
guidance. He had accepted the Church, and in the Church he saw
only apathy, neglect, and bad administration on the part of his
superiors.... He had read that great virtues are, like large sums
of money, deposited in the bank, whereas humility is like the
pence, always at hand, always current. Obedience to our superiors
is the sure path. He could not persuade himself that it was right
for him to allow the Kavanaghs to continue a dissolute life of
drinking and dancing. They were the talk of the parish; and he
would have spoken against them from the altar, but his uncle had
advised him not to do so. Perhaps his uncle was right; he might be
right regarding the Kavanaghs. In the main he disagreed with his
uncle, but in this particular instance it might be well to wait
and pray that matters might improve.

Father Tom believed Ned Kavanagh to be a good boy. Ned was going
to marry Mary Byrne, and Father Tom had made up this marriage. The
Byrnes did not care for the marriage--they were prejudiced against
Ned on account of his family. But he was not going to allow them
to break off the marriage. He was sure of Ned, but in order to
make quite sure he would get him to take the pledge. Next morning
when the priest had done his breakfast, and was about to unfold
his newspaper, his servant opened the door, and told him that Ned
Kavanagh was outside and wanted to see him.

It was a pleasure to look at this nice, clean boy, with his
winning smile, and the priest thought that Mary could not wish for
a better husband. Ned's smile seemed a little fainter than usual,
and his face was paler; the priest wondered, and presently Ned
told the priest that he had come to confession, and going down on
his knees, he told the priest that he had been drunk last Saturday
night, and that he had come to take the pledge. He would never do
any good while he was at home, and one of the reasons he gave for
wishing to marry Mary Byrne was his desire to leave home. The
priest asked him if matters were mending, and if his sister showed
any signs of wishing to be married.

"Sorra sign," said Ned.

"That's bad news you're bringing me," said the priest, and he
walked up and down the room, and they talked over Kate's wilful
character.

"From the beginning she did not like living at home," said the
priest.

"I don't care about living at home," said Ned.

"But for a different reason," remarked the priest. "You want to
leave home to get married, and have a wife and children, if God is
pleased to give you children."

Kate had been in numerous services, and the priest sat thinking of
the stories he had heard. He had heard that Kate had come back
from her last situation in a cab, wrapped up in blankets, saying
she was ill. On inquiry it was found that she had only been three
or four days in her situation; three weeks had to be accounted
for. He had questioned her himself regarding this interval, but
had not been able to get any clear and definite answer from her.

"She and mother never stop quarrelling about Pat Connex."

"It appears," said the priest, "that your mother went out with a
jug of porter under her apron, and offered a sup of it to Pat
Connex, who was talking with Peter M'Shane, and now he is up at
your cabin every Saturday."

"That's it," said Ned.

"Mrs. Connex was here the other day, and I can tell you that if
Pat marries your sister he will find himself cut off with a
shilling."

"She's been agin us all the while," said Ned. "Her money has made
her proud, but I don't blame her. If I had the fine house she has,
maybe I would be as proud as she."

"Maybe you would," said the priest. "But what I am thinking of is
your sister Kate. She will never get Pat Connex. Pat will never go
against his mother."

"Well, you see he comes up and plays the melodion on Saturday
night," said Ned, "and she can't stop him from doing that."

"Then you think," said the priest, "that Pat will marry your
sister?"

"I don't think she wants to marry him."

"If she doesn't want to marry him, what's all this talk about?"

"She likes to meet Pat in the evenings and go for a walk with him,
and she likes him to put his arm round her waist and kiss her,
saving your reverence's pardon."

"It is strange that you should be so unlike. You come here and ask
me to speak to Mary Byrne's parents for you, and that I'll do,
Ned, and it will be all right. You will make a good husband, and
though you were drunk last night, you have taken the pledge to-
day, and I will make a good marriage for Kate, too, if she'll
listen to me."

"And who may your reverence be thinking of?"

"I'm thinking of Peter M'Shane. He gets as much as six shillings a
week and his keep on Murphy's farm, and his mother has got a bit
of money, and they have a nice, clean cabin. Now listen to me.
There is a poultry lecture at the school-house to-night. Do you
think you could bring your sister with you?"

"We used to keep a great many hens at home, and Kate had the
feeding of them, and now she's turned agin them, and she wants to
live in town, and she even tells Pat Connex she would not marry a
farmer, however much he was worth."

"But if you tell her that Pat Connex will be at the lecture will
she come?"

"Yes, your reverence, if she believes me."

"Then do as I bid you," said the priest; "you can tell her that
Pat Connex will be there."


II

After leaving the priest Ned crossed over the road to avoid the
public-house. He went for a walk on the hills, and it was about
five when he turned towards the village. On his way there he met
his father, and Ned told him that he had been to see the priest,
and that he was going to take Mary to the lecture.

Michael Kavanagh wished his son God-speed. He was very tired; and
he thought it was pretty hard to come home after a long day's work
to find his wife and daughter quarrelling.

"I am sorry your dinner is not ready, father, but it won't be long
now. I'll cut the bacon."

"I met Ned on the road," said her father. "He has gone to fetch
Mary. He is going to take her to the lecture on poultry-keeping at
the school-house."

"Ah, he has been to the priest, has he?" said Kate, and her mother
asked her why she said that, and the wrangle began again.

Ned was the peacemaker; there was generally quiet in the cabin
when he was there. He came in with Mary, a small, fair girl, and a
good girl, who would keep his cabin tidy. His mother and sisters
were broad-shouldered women with blue-black hair and red cheeks,
and it was said that he had said he would like to bring a little
fair hair into the family.

"We've just come in for a minute," said Mary. "Ned said that
perhaps you'd be coming with us."

"All the boys in the village will be there to-night, said Ned.
"You had better come with us." And pretending he wanted to get a
coal of fire to light his pipe, Ned whispered to Kate as he passed
her, "Pat Connex will be there."

She looked at the striped sunshade she has brought back from the
dressmaker's--she had once been apprenticed to a dressmaker--but
Ned said that a storm was blowing and she had better leave the
sunshade behind.

The rain beat in their faces and the wind came sweeping down the
mountain and made them stagger. Sometimes the road went straight
on, sometimes it turned suddenly and went up-hill. After walking
for a mile they came to the school-house. A number of men were
waiting outside, and one of the boys told them that the priest had
said they were to keep a look out for the lecturer, and Ned said
that he had better stay with them, that his lantern would be
useful to show her the way. They went into a long, smoky room. The
women had collected into one corner, and the priest was walking up
and down, his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat. Now
he stopped in his walk to scold two children who were trying to
light a peat fire in a tumbled down grate.

"Don't be tired, go on blowing," he said. "You are the laziest
child I have seen this long while."

Ned came in and blew out his lantern, but the lady he had mistaken
for the lecturer was a lady who had come to live in the
neighbourhood lately, and the priest said:--

"You must be very much interested in poultry, ma'am, to come out
on such a night as this."

The lady stood shaking her waterproof.

"Now, then, Lizzie, run to your mother and get the lady a chair."

And when the child came back with the chair, and the lady was
seated by the fire, he said:--

"I'm thinking there will be no lecturer here to-night, and that it
would be kind of you if you were to give the lecture yourself. You
have read some books about poultry, I am sure?"

"Well, a little--but--"

"Oh, that doesn't matter," said the priest. "I'm sure the book you
have read is full of instruction."

He walked up the room towards a group of men and told them they
must cease talking, and coming back to the young woman, he said:--

"We shall be much obliged if you will say a few words about
poultry. Just say what you have in your mind about the different
breeds."

The young woman again protested, but the priest said:--

"You will do it very nicely." And he spoke like one who is not
accustomed to being disobeyed. "We will give the lecturer five
minutes more."

"Is there no farmer's wife who could speak," the young lady said
in a fluttering voice. "She would know much more than I. I see
Biddy M'Hale there. She has done very well with her poultry."

"I daresay she has," said the priest, "but the people would pay no
attention to her. She is one of themselves. It would be no
amusement to them to hear her."

The young lady asked if she might have five minutes to scribble a
few notes. The priest said he would wait a few minutes, but it did
not matter much what she said.

"But couldn't some one dance or sing," said the young lady.

"Dancing and singing!" said the priest. "No!"

And the young lady hurriedly scribbled a few notes about fowls for
laying, fowls for fattening, regular feeding, warm houses, and
something about a percentage of mineral matter. She had not half
finished when the priest said:--

"Now will you stand over there near the harmonium. Whom shall I
announce?"

The young woman told him her name, and he led her to the harmonium
and left her talking, addressing most of her instruction to Biddy
M'Hale, a long, thin, pale-faced woman, with wistful eyes.

"This won't do," said the priest, interrupting the lecturer,--"I'm
not speaking to you, miss, but to my people. I don't see one of
you taking notes, not even you, Biddy M'Hale, though you have made
a fortune out of your hins. Didn't I tell you from the pulpit that
you were to bring pencil and paper and write down all you heard.
If you had known years ago all this young lady is going to tell
you you would be rolling in your carriages to-day."

Then the priest asked the lecturer to go on, and the lady
explained that to get hens to lay about Christmas time, when eggs
fetched the best price, you must bring on your pullets early.

"You must," she said, "set your eggs in January."

"You hear that," said the priest. "Is there anyone who has got
anything to say about that? Why is it that you don't set your eggs
in January?"

No one answered, and the lecturer went on to tell of the
advantages that would come to the poultry-keeper whose eggs were
hatched in December.

As she said this, the priest's eyes fell upon Biddy M'Hale, and,
seeing that she was smiling, he asked her if there was any reason
why eggs could not be hatched in the beginning of January.

"Now, Biddy, you must know all about this, and I insist on your
telling us. We are here to learn."

Biddy did not answer.

"Then what were you smiling at?"

"I wasn't smiling, your reverence."

"Yes; I saw you smiling. Is it because you think there isn't a
brooding hin in January?"

It had not occurred to the lecturer that hens might not be
brooding so early in the year, and she waited anxiously. At last
Biddy said:--

"Well, your reverence, it isn't because there are no hins
brooding. You'll get brooding hins at every time in the year; but,
you see, you can't rear chickens earlier than March. The end of
February is the earliest I have ever seen. But, of course, if you
could rear them in January, all that the young lady said would be
quite right. I have nothing to say agin it. I have no fault to
find with anything she says, your reverence."

"Only that it can't be done." said the priest. "Well, you ought to
know, Biddy."

The villagers were laughing.

"That will do," said the priest. "I don't mind your having a bit
of amusement, but you're here to learn."

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