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Read Ebook: The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry The Works of William Carleton Volume Three by Carleton William Flanery M L Illustrator
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Ebook has 739 lines and 73154 words, and 15 pages
: The Station.
The Party Fight And Funeral.
The Lough Derg Pilgrim.
THE STATION.
Our readers are to suppose the Reverend Philemy M'Guirk, parish priest of Tir-neer, to be standing upon the altar of the chapel, facing the congregation, after having gone through the canon of the Mass; and having nothing more of the service to perform, than the usual prayers with which he closes the ceremony.
"Take notice, that the Stations for the following week will be held as follows:--
"To the fore, yer Reverence."
"Never fear, yer Reverence, never fear; I think you ought to know that the grazin' at Corraghnamoddagh's not bad."
"To do you justice, Jack, the mutton was always good with you, only if you would get it better killed it would be an improvement. Get Tom McCusker to kill it, and then it'll have the right smack."
"Very well, yer Rev'rence, I'll do it."
"Here, yer Reverence."
"So fat, yer Reverence, that they're not able to wag; but, any way, Katty has them marked for you--two fine young crathurs, only this year's fowl, and the ducks isn't a taste behind them--she crammin' them this month past."
"I believe you, Peter, and I would take your word for more than the condition of the geese. Remember me to Katty, Peter."
"Present, sir."
"Do you know what keeps that reprobate from mass?"
"I bleeve he's takin' advantage, sir, of the frost, to get in his praties to-day, in respect of the bad footin', sir, for the horses in the bog when there's not a frost. Any how, betune that and a bit of a sore head that he got, yer Reverence, on Thursday last in takin' part wid the O'Scallaghans agin the Bradys, I bleeve he had to stay away to-day."
"On the Sabbath day, too, without my leave! Well, tell him from me, that I'll make an example of him to the whole parish, if he doesn't attend mass better. Will the Bradys and the O'Scallaghans never be done with their quarrelling? I protest, if they don't live like Christians, I'll read them out from the altar. Will you tell Parrah More that I'll hold a station in his house on next Wednesday?"
"I will, sir; I will, yer Reverence."
"Wid the help of God, I'm here, sir."
"Well, Phaddhy, how is yer son Briney, that's at the Latin? I hope he's coming on well at it."
"Why, sir, he's not more nor a year and a half at it yet, and he's got more books amost nor he can carry; he'll break me buying books for him."
"Well, that's a good sign, Phaddhy; but why don't you bring him to me till I examine him?"
"Why, never a one of me can get him to come, sir, he's so much afeard of yer Reverence."
"Well, Phaddhy, we were once modest and bashful ourselves, and I'm glad to hear that he's afraid of his clargy; but let him be prepared for me on Thursday, and maybe I'll let him know something he never heard before; I'll open his eyes for him."
"Do you hear that, Briney?" said the father, aside to the son, who knelt at his knee; "you must give up yer hurling and idling now, you see. Thank yer Reverence; thank you, docthor."
"All that's left of me is here, sir."
"Well, Barny, how is the butter trade this season?"
"It's a little on the rise, now, sir: in a, month or so I'm expecting it will be brisk enough. Boney, sir, is doing that much for us anyway."
"Ay, and, Barny, he'll do more than that for us: God prosper him at all events; I only hope the time's coming, Barny, when every one will be able to eat his own butter, and his own beef, too."
"God send it, sir."
"Well, Barny, I didn't hear from your brother Ned these two or three months; what has become of him?"
"Ah, yer Reverence, Pentland done him up."
"What! the gauger?"
"He did, the thief; but maybe he'll sup sorrow for it, afore he's much oulder."
"And who do you think informed, Barny?"
"Oh, I only wish we knew that, sir."
"I wish I knew it, and if I thought any miscreant here would become an informer, I'd make an example of him. Well, Barny, on Friday next: but I suppose Ned has a drop still--eh, Barny?"
"Why, sir, we'll be apt to have something stronger nor wather, anyhow."
"The creels are made, yer Reverence, though we did not set them yet; but on Tuesday night, sir, wid the help o' God, we'll be ready."
"You can corn the trouts, Barny, and the eels too; but should you catch nothing, go to Pat Hartigan, Captain Sloethorn's gamekeeper, and, if you tell him it's for me, he'll drag you a batch out of the fish-pond."
"Ah! then, you're Reverence, it's himself that'll do that wid a heart an' a half."
Such was the conversation which took place between the Reverend Philemy M'Guirk, and those of his parishioners in whose houses he had appointed to hold a series of Stations, for the week ensuing the Sunday laid in this our account of that hitherto undescribed portion of the Romish discipline.
Now, the reader is to understand, that a station in this sense differs from a station made to any peculiar spot remarkable for local sanctity. There, a station means the performance of a pilgrimage to a certain place, under peculiar circumstances, and the going through a stated number of prayers and other penitential ceremonies, for the purpose of wiping out sin in this life, or of relieving the soul of some relation from the pains of purgatory in the other; here, it simply means the coming of the parish priest and his curate to some house in the town-land, on a day publicly announced from the altar for that purpose, on the preceding Sabbath.
When the "giving out" of the stations was over, and a few more jests were broken by his Reverence, to which the congregation paid the tribute of a general and uproarious laugh, he turned round, and resumed the performance of the mass, whilst his "flock" began to finger their beads with faces as grave as if nothing of the kind had occurred. When mass was finished, and the holy water sprinkled upon the people, out of a tub carried by the mass-server through the chapel for that purpose, the priest gave them a Latin benediction, and they dispersed.
"It was an unlucky day to him," says Phaddy, "that he went to challenge me, at all at all; for I was the only man that ever bate him, and he wasn't able to hould up his head in the parish for many a day afther."
"And so, Phaddy," said the priest, "how are all your family?--six you have, I think?"
"Four, your Rev'rence, only four," said Phaddy, winking at Tim Dillon, his neighbor, who happened to be present--"three boys an' one girl."
"Bless my soul, and so it is indeed, Phaddy, and I ought to know it; an how is your wife Sarah?--I mean, I hope Mrs. Sheemus Phaddhy is well: by the by, is that old complaint of hers gone yet?--a pain in the stomach, I think it was, that used to trouble her; I hope in God, Phaddhy, she's getting over it, poor thing. Indeed, I remember telling her, last Easter, when she came to her duty, to eat oaten bread and butter with water-grass every morning fasting, it cured myself of the same complaint."
"Why, thin, I'm very much obliged to your Rev'rence for purscribin' for her," replied Phaddhy; "for, sure enough, she has neither pain nor ache, at the present time, for the best rason in the world, docthor, that she'll be dead jist seven years, if God spares your Rev'rence an' myself till to-morrow fortnight, about five o'clock in the mornin'."
This was more than Father Philemy could stand with a good conscience, so after getting himself out of the dilemma as well as he could, he shook Phaddhy again very cordially by the hand, saying, "Well, good-bye, Phaddliy, and God be good to poor Sarah's soul--I now remember her funeral, sure enough, and a dacent one it was, for indeed she was a woman that had everybody's good word--and, between you and me, she made a happy death, that's as far as we can judge here; for, after all, there may be danger, Phaddy, there may be danger, you understand--however, it's your own business, and your duty, too, to think of that; but I believe you're not the man that would be apt to forget her."
"Phaddhy, ye thief o' the world," said Jim Dillon, when Father Philemy was gone, there's no comin' up to ye; how could you make sich a fool of his Rev'rence, as to tell im that Katty was dead, and that you had only four childher, an' you has eleven o' them, an' the wife in good health?"
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