Memory sketches

Index

The Old Order Changeth Page 9

He Comes to Us Page 16

The Meechers Page 23

Jim Regan's First Communion Page 32

The Stranger Page 38

Choosing the People Page 47

The Holy Fathers Page 55

Dolores Page 61

A Glimpse of the Sea Page 68

Bogara Feh Page 76

The White Wake Page 84

The Martyrs Page 91

The Going of Tom Connelly Page 98

Knockanare by the Sea Page 105

The League House Page 115

The Brave Deserves the Fair Page 123

The Concert ..Page 132

The Bard of Ardagh Page 139

Miser's Heap Page 152

The Luck of Micky Mack Page 159

The Ghost Page 167

Kate Page 173

The Last Page Page 181

Foreword

THESE bits of life, picked up from the morning, are brief, simple memories. They are recorded now, in the hope that the men and women of the race may catch from them the joy of recognition. For it has come to me they will see in my Father John, a Father John of their own; in the Deel gliding past Athery and Creelabeg, a Deel making music elsewhere; in the hedge, the garden, the bogfield of my small world, a hedge, a garden, a bogfield in the world where their young lives were lived.

I cannot tell you all the quiet comfort that has come to me following the unrecorded paths of our dear priest. That he is worthy a more ambitious chronicle, I well know; and that his unforgettable goodness did not appear to one of more temperament and seeing will always seem to me a loss.

These bits, however, are given out of the unwritten, larger life of the man in the trust that they may edify and please. There is no attempt at analysis, no trying to present spiritual seeing and inwardness. Just what a country lad saw and heard as from afar.

God rest Father John! He had the mind of a poet and the heart of a soggarth.

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH

TWAS a March morning when Father McCarthy said his good-by to Creelabeg. The bare oak hmbs out in the chapel yard wailed dismally when caught by the wind-gusts that blew down from Ballyadan hills. Gray Ballyadan, hiding the vision of the flat farms to the west! The rain came in intermittent showers and beat on the large chapel windows like the crack of musketry. It was cold weather indeed. The cows stood close to the stone ditches, their backs thrust up against the wind; the sheep were huddled together In corners surveying with meek eyes the deserted fields; crows with motionless wings skidded down the wind, and cawed defiantly. It was just the time for a funeral or a leave-taking. A gray day Is for gray thoughts.

Well, Father McCarthy was going at last. He had been in Creelabeg for six years, and we all began to think he would die there. Then, of a sudden, like a summer squall, we heard he was going, as all the others had gone, to a bigger and better parish. We were lonesome to be sure; but there had been so many changes in Creelabeg we were almost sorrow-proof, like professional mourners at a wake.

Father McCarthy was well over fifty when he received his promotion. He was a short, stout man who moved about with leisurely dignity, never mingling much with the people as his neighbor, Father Tracy of Knockfeen, used to do. He came at the Stations, when there was a sick call or a funeral, or of an odd time to bless a house to which misfortunes came thick and fast; or maybe if there were visitations from someone departed. When he walked along the road on week days he never stood by the stone ditch to have a word at the headland with the plowman turning down the stubbles. He saluted you when you lifted your hat; If he knew you well, he might Inquire after the condition of someone sick at home; but beyond that he did not encourage conversation.

Father McCarthy preached on Sundays at the two low Masses; and while not what Jim Donnelly would call a "powerful preacher," yet he said very refreshing and practical things. He seldom scolded; but he could send home an unpleasant truth with art and finality when there was occasion. Once when there was an unpleasantness between a few of the "boys" back at Grageen "cross," he said from the altar the next Sunday, "In praying for the uncivilized pagans of foreign parts let us not forget to recommend the Christians who acted like pagans back at Grageen during the week."

Well, and so he was to say his farewell that March morning of wind and cold and pelting wet. How quiet the chapel was In the pauses of the wind ! The low tones of the priest himself as he pronounced the prayers of the Mass, and the occasional cough of the kneeling worshipers only emphasized the stillness between the wind-gusts and the rapping of the rain. Then, after the Gospel, he turned to his people to say his good-by. Such sweet, mellow words he said, the memory of them still keeps at Creelabeg! The men fingered their hats; the women wept softly as they always do in Ireland when the priest is going away.

"Faith," observed Mrs. Noonan, as she walked home after the last Mass, "Father McCarthy had a great heart

The Old Order Changeth 11

an' a feelln' for the poor, for all that he was distant in his way."

"Ay so; 'deed he had, 'deed he had. An' whin you would be sick he was kind and considerate."

Mrs. Buckley — Jammle's wife at the east side of Danahar road — made herself more snug under her gray shawl after this brief eulogy.

''He's goin' to a big place anyway," called Johnny Mangan, as he passed by the women, his head bent low against the gale.

''So they say, Johnny; so they say," observed Mrs. Noonan from behind her umbrella which she held direct toward the rain. "An' will he have a curate?"

"Yerra, will he? An' will he have two — why don't you ask?"

"But how could I ask, when I didn't think?" retorted Mrs. Noonan.

"Of course you didn't think! Sure that's the trouble with everybody from Ballydehob to Drumagoo — they don't think. An' why don't they think? Because they don't, that's why."

"Faith, Johnny," said Mrs. Buckley, "you walk like a counsellor or a mimber."

"Ay," agreed Johnny, his heart lifted.

"But you talk like a gommel," resumed Mrs. Buckley, completing her thought.

Back at the chapel the people have all gone. The "clerk" has put away the vestments, covered the altar and locked the chapel door. In a little he leaves for his house and haggard at the back of Logan's bog a short distance to the north.

Father McCarthy has finished his thanksgiving, has put away his soutane and stands at the sacristy door.

He hears the melancholy music of the leafless oaks swinging back and forth in the gale. He looks across the level country, where a few months before contented herds grazed leisurely, following each vein of sweet grass. Every field is now as barren of life and vegetation as a desert. The onward sweep of the army of clouds, the swinging trees, the rain, lashing roof and windows— -all serve to quicken the pensive mood.

*'The weather,'' he mused, ''Is gray and fitful, with the sun never far In hiding. 'Tis the race— sombre, not sullen, tried by afflictions yet always watching for the sun In the heavens. The divine melancholy, the poet's heart-longing — they have it, if any people have it."

Then he went back into the sacristy, surveyed the moist walls, the old vestment case, the fireplace with its empty grate and the lately painted wardrobe in which two albs and two surplices were hung from wire hooks.

"Not a great church, not a great parish — as we measure by time," he continued to reflect as he passed out from the sacristy to the tiled sanctuary. "But measured by eternity these quiet people Tm leaving, whose days pass in the calm of the valley or on the hill where the sun and wind come — measured by eternity they are as rich as the gold chests of Solomon."

On his way home he stopped in to see Alice Magee who had the "decline" for now two years and would never walk on her feet again.

"Poor Alice," they all said, "and she with voice in her as sweet as a thrush! And she with features that lovely she might be a daughter o' the princess o' the North."

"And how are you today, Alice?" asked the priest seeing the white face through the gloom of the day.

The Old Order Changeth 13

"rm not suffering at all, Father, thank you," looking up wistfully at the priest. "But when the day does be dark and the wind wailing at the window I get lonesome for the sun and for a sight of the river Deel."

"The sigh of the race, the sigh of the race!" mused the priest. Then to the girl:

"Have no fear, child, have no fear. God is in the dark and in the light, in the storm and in the calm."

"Ay, so you often tell me, Father. But sometimes I do be afraid. Especially today, and you going out of Creelabeg for always."

"I'll not forget you, child, when Fm gone," answered the priest strangely touched.

"And when Fm gone, I won't forget you, Father," she answered gently. She waited for a little and continued. "Back at Laharona there's a place for me. Narrow it is and very small, but 'tis all FU want. Jackey Drew, who was back at Mary Hogan's funeral a week ago ere yesterday, says the ground is soft and the ivy ditch keeps the wind away."

The girl had a spell of coughing, and her mother, a little woman with a patient face, moistened the lips of the sufferer.

"Ay," answered the priest, "and up in Heaven your limbs will grow strong, and your breath will come easy and your heart will beat as angel harps. So don't trouble at all about the going, child — mine or yours. You're going a long way to be sure, but 'tis safe home at the end of the journey."

**And, Father, 'tis very still at Laharona, for the ivy ditch keeps the wind away."

"Ay so," answered the priest, "but Laharona is only the stopping place on the way to Heaven. 'Tis dark outside today, and there's blue mist blowing In from the sea, and the wind runs down the hollow places. But don't mind, child. In Heaven there's light always shining from His face and calm over all His eternity."

From its place on the wall above the mantleplece, the circular clock called off the hour of two, while a sudden wind gust made the close-fitting windows vibrate.

"Good-by, Alice, child," said Father McCarthy as he prepared to go. ''Think of me up beyond when you're near Him."

''Indeed I will. Father; but I'm thinking I'll have to wait for a bit in Purgatory, for I've a way of being cross at times."

"Pray to her, child."

"Our Lady?"

"Ay. She'll put the blue mantle about you and take you home out of the dark. God bless you!"

Once on the street. Father McCarthy was the same solemn, unbending man. He nodded to Tomeen Mad- Igan hurrying down the side-path to his home at the opposite side of the river Deel.

"Father McCarthy is like the sky," commented the same Tomeen to Mick Dannahar, the mill-man, when they met on the bridge.

"An' why?" asked Mick.

"An' why! Because why, he's cloudy — only the blue is behind the clouds."

"I suppose It do be, Tomeen, but It don't often show," commented Mick with reflection.

"No it don't, but 'tis there anyhow, so 'tis aequal."

Well, Father McCarthy left us next day for the other side of the diocese. 'Twasn't a hundred miles off, to be sure, but 'twas out of the lives of the people of Creela-

The Old Order Chang eth 15

beg. He went to the little station In the black side-car we all knew so well. There was a goodly number of well-wishers down there to bid him a respectful good-by.

To the north some miles out from Foynes we hear the screech of the engine as It comes. There Is commotion, and loud conversation between the station-master and the porter. The little train pulls In and stops while the engine pants like a living thing. Just at the carriage door, the priest turns around, lifts his tall hat and so bids good-by to those who have come to see him away. The men lift their hats, and the boys their caps; the women wave handkerchiefs and weep softly. The priest enters the carriage; the porter closes the door. The usual whistle of the guard to the engine-driver follows, and the train moves away.

"WIsha God speed him where he's going!" ejaculates Mary Hogan.

"He's a good man," modestly observes Jammie Lacey.

''He Is; by gor he Is," agrees Tomeen Madlgan. ''He is a cloudy man, as we say, but the blue is always behind the clouds."

II He Comes To Us

WELL, of all the days In the year, 'twas St. Patrick's day that Father Condon first said Mass In our chapel after Father McCarthy went away. And what a St. Patrick's morning It was too ! A calm, frosty air so that the breath of a man would be gray In front of him, the sun over everything, the Deel booming back at the dam, and the chapel bell ringing over all the parish. Now, Father Condon, who was always called "Father John" to distinguish him from his brother, "Father James," was a curate In the city before he came to us, and was known all over the county as a Land Leaguer. And what a man he was I Tall and eager with great eyes that looked at you as If with a light.

He preached a sermon that first St. Patrick's day some lines of which still live over the years. "My dear brethren," he said, "this Ireland of St. Patrick Is not only a certain number of square miles of earth surrounded by the sea. It Is a love, a hope, a memory. Today, those beyond us In other continents, who have never seen this land of ours, but have heard of it from their fathers, are quickened with an affection as great as our own. Every hill white with the sun-blaze at noontime, every flat field where the herds wander In search of sweet grass, every lake reflecting sun and cloud, every river restless for the ocean is dear to the sons and daughters of our exiled brothers and sisters.

"It is for us, my brethren, to keep alive through every change the love of country founded on Faith. With us 16

He Comes to Us 17

religion and country have been held together by suffering. When our country was torn and bleeding, our Faith gave us comfort. Then let us, when our country is out of her bondage and can walk in clear places where there is light, not forget our Faith that sustained us in hours of distress."

On the way home from Mass there was great talk about the sermon. Jammie Hoban observed:

"By gor, the new priest spakes well at any rate."

**Yeh, does he? You may say he doesl" exclaimed Mike Ahern with some feeling.

"He's a tall man, isn't he? An' hasn't he a voice as clear as the chapel bell of a frosty mornin'?" Jammie added.

Well, the days came and went and every hour made a new friend for the priest. 'Twas "Father John" here and "Father John" there from one end of the parish to the other. He was a member of the hurling team In Blackrock in his day and gave the boys some hints about the game the Sunday before they played Killmedy for the West county championship ; he wrote short plays for the school-children which the nuns trained them to reproduce; he had a dancing-master from Ardee to teach Irish dancing, and trained a chorus of boys and girls in the first and second stages of "sixth"; he was honorary president of the Land League and often had to make speeches at meetings. If a tenant couldn't settle for the rent, 'twas Father John who went to the landlord to secure a few months of grace; if there was a disagreement between a couple of neighbors about the boundary line between two pieces of land, 'twas the priest who came and argued them into settlement out of court. He was a born leader, and always led along the ways of peace.

"I'm a physical force man, Father John," protested a Limerick attorney while out from the city visiting the priest one afternoon.

"And I'm anything — anything right — that will give Ireland her own."

"Then why not arms? Why not an uprising? You priests are the leaders of the people. Why don't you use that power you have over them — us, I should say — swing us into line, start a rebellion and get Ireland what alone will satisfy her — absolute emancipation from England?"

"It has been tried — that has been tried," mused the priest.

"I tell you. Father John," persisted the attorney, "there never was a cause worth winning that hasn't been lost a hundred times before it was won at last. Dogged insistence, the insistence of the half-fanatic will win every time. What was '79? What was Emmet's attempt? What was '98? Not uprisings; — half-formed, ill-timed beginnings; expressions of the race's aspirations that wanted men of method and calm judgment to realize them. Father John, we're the greatest people that ever fought, and we'd have had Ireland for our own long ago if we had a calculating, painstaking, systematizing Yankee to lead us."

"And yet which has secured us the most, the war of arms or the war of minds? Emmet or O'Connell? Grattan or Wolfe Tone? You speak of 'dogged insistence.' Precisely. It is because of 'dogged insistence,' the securing this concession today and that other tomorrow, that we have received a measure of self-government now. Our fights with arms have been failures, because, somehow, as you say, we've always lacked system and generalship. In the battle of minds we have had O'Connell

He Comes to Us 19

— resourceful, towering, Insistent. He had a million men at Tara. What a revolution he might have quickened Into blaze with the spark of his spoken word! But he knew himself, and better, he knew Ireland. He was no soldier, and Ireland was prostrate. So he did what he was best fitted to do, and for what we must ever hold his memory In large honor — he secured what he could from a parliament that gave grudgingly. When he did not receive all he asked for, he took what was given. His successes are not so spectacular as they are permanent. Yes, all said, O'Connell did more for Ireland than did any one man since St. Patrick. He Is the man who began the policy of self-government by Instalment. He loved Ireland, not as an Idealist, but as a practical politician."

"However, what we want, Father John, Is an Ireland of Idealists, not an Ireland of politicians. When Ireland becomes a nest of office-seekers fighting for the coziest place, then the Ireland of poets and mystics will pass away."

" 'In my Father's house there are many mansions,' " quoted the priest. ''Ireland today needs the man of vision and wise administering, just as well as the saint and the maker of songs."

When the sun was midway to the west, the priest accompanied the young attorney to the train. On his return he met Kate Purcell, the apple-woman, driving her mousecolored donkey from the market of Ardee.

''How are the apples going, Kate?" he asked.

"O faith, they'ren't goln' at all, your Reverence. 'TIs growing they are now, though very slow, for the spring is early yet."

"Quite so. But I was thinking of the market."

"Oh, the market. Well, there isn't much market to speak of. You see, your Reverence, the old apples are nearly all gone and the new ones that do be comin* won't be come till the autumn."

"And you like to sell apples?" asked the priest as he walked beside the slow-moving donkey.

''I do, and I don't, your Reverence, dependin' on which way you take it. I like the apples, an' it sours the heart in me to sell thim. Whin I pick thim of a mornin*, they're wet with the dew an' rosy with young life, an* the smell o' thim is very sweet. An' whin I put thim away in the sacks each one seems to say to me, 'Good-by, Kate ; you'll take me with you to Ardee whin you're goin', but you'll come back without me.' An' all along the road the smell o' thim is about me an' I can't put the thought o' thim away. Thin whin a man comes into the market an' takes up my rosy apples an' feels the weight an' the softness, an' says to me, 'How much?' my heart quickens an' the blood runs up to my face. An' so I say to him, maybe:

" 'Is it to buy thim you want?'

" 'Ay so ; an' I get thim chape.'

" "Tis chape you want thim, is it? Faith I thought so the minit I saw you comin'.'

" 'Well, I'm in a hurry. How much?'

" 'They're a good apple,' I says to him seein' the way he handles a rosy one and bares the skin with his thumbnail.

" 'They're not any too good,' he tells me maybe, takin' up another fine fellow and holdin' him close to his nostrils.

" 'Wisha,' I say to him, 'the divil mind you' — God and your Reverence pardon me ! — 'an' 'tis a long time before you an' the likes o' you will be half as good.'

He Comes to Us 21

" 'Stop your prate,' he says, 'an' give me a price on your apples.'

" 'I won't give you a price, nor half a price, nor quarter a price.'

" *An' why won't you ?' he says.

"'An' why won't I? Haven't you just spoken bad about my apples an' do you suppose 'tis to the likes o' you I'd sell thim after that?'

" 'You're a strange woman,' says he, lookin' at me out o* his wonderin' eyes."

"But Kate," observed the priest with some curiosity, "I don't see how you sell your apples if you treat all your customers that way."

"But I don't, your Reverence. 'Tis only with thim as have no consideration for my dear apples that I refuse to have dalin's. When one comes an' handles thim tenderly an' looks on thim with a kind eye, I part with thim willingly, keepin' a glad heart; for I say to myself they are goin' to a friend. But whin one comes as has no feelln' excep' at the inds o' his fingers, it runs agin my grain like I was sellin' a church to a Protestant, or as if a child o' mine was settin' sail for Australia."

"Kate," half mused the priest, "you have the sentiment of the race for the land and what the land gives."

"I don't know at all about that. Father; but I like my apples that are as rosy as the sun when 'tis back near Boganora hills of an evenin'."

At the crossing of the roads the ways of the priest and the apple-woman divided.

"Well, Kate," quoted Father John, " 'I tak' the high road and you tak' the low.' "

"Wisha God speed and keep your Reverence whatever road you go, though I hope it will always be up high where the sun an' the light is I"

''And you too !" wished the priest.

''O sure 'tis aqual about me. I'm a cratur as hasn't a soul dependin' on me. But sure we're all dependin' on you. So keep your health, an' don't expose yourself. For it takes only a draf to get a cowld upon a person, but it takes half the medicine o' Moylans' apothecary to get it off again."

Father John walked the rest of the way to his home alone. 'We talk about a new dawn and a new day," he mused; "but in the light of that new day shall we have the sweetness and the patience and the cheerfulness and the dear faith that has set our race apart along the trying years? How will the new wine set m the old casks?"

When he entered the house, the housekeeper announced :

"The man was here from Dublin about the altar wine."

"Ay," he answered still musing, "but it may not set well in the old casks."

Ill

MIKE'S MIKEEN took care of Father John's garden and did odd jobs about the place. He was not the parish clerk, you understand, who rang the chapel bell and answered Mass of week days. Mike's Mikeen was different. One might call him a personal attendant, an attache, a persona privata, or the like.

You see, Father John had a garden back of his house, where he grew vegetables, fruits and flowers. Little walks of slate stone made graceful curves around the flowerbeds and fruit trees. It was a place to dream of a summer morning, when the sun shone warm on the nodding roses, and the subtle scents of flower and fruit came to your nostrils pleasantly. There was the priest himself down at the end of the garden wearing his soutanne which the nuns at Ardee made for him. A short distance behind him stood the whitethorn hedge, and beyond the hedge the fields ran level till they reached the base of the Ballyadan hills.

Mike's Mikeen was ''earthing" the potato drills with the spade, and Father John stood watching him. What a glorious man he was — so tall, so erect, so strong! When he spoke, how mellow and measured his words; and when he looked how truth shone out of his eyes ! Yet he was not a man who read your soul, as it wefe; not a man who took a certain delight in being able to penetrate beyond the seeming His gaze was frank, not shrewd; his manner quiet, not lordly or pompous as if he were a general reviewing a regiment of troops.

"Mikeen," he was saying as he watched the workman, "how long did you go to school?"

" 'Bout, — 'bout, I should say," Mikeen answered, straightening himself and closing one eye while he looked at the sun, ''five year; or just whin I was ready to pass into first stage of fifth."

''That's only four years, allowing a year to each class."

''Ah no. Father; you see there's 'Red,' an' 'Green,' an' 'Second,' an' 'Third,' an' 'Fourth.' "

"Red and Green?" asked the priest in perplexity.

"Ay. 'Red,' that's infant class and 'Green,' that's the first class."

"Quite so, I remember."

His National School days came back to the man of Maynooth training and temperament.

"And if you had more schooling what would you be doing today?"

"What would I be doln'?"

"I'd be earthin' drills with the spade."

"Mightn't you be riding a black horse like Dr. Moylen, or mightn't you be a clever attorney at Limerick, like Myles Hartlgan?" suggested. the priest.

Mikeen changed the spade and leaned on the handle with his left shoulder, while the steel blade sank into the soft earth. He shook his head slowly.

"No, Father John. My brain was always powerful slow. I never could do six figures o' sums without making seven mistakes, an' I couldn't read a page o' readin' without havin' to stop to spell 'bout half the words."

"True for you, Father," observed Mikeen.

The priest laughed low and with unction as he turned and walked toward the whitethorn hedge at the end of the garden, and Mikeen resumed his toil. The blossoms sweetened the air of the morning and lifted the heart of the priest like the odor of incense.

''The day is young," he said to himself; ''the flat fields are green and the sky is the painter's sky when he would have us dream of summer. I'll climb the hills this day and see visions."

He went back through the garden to the house, changed his soutanne for his clerical coat and soon was journeying across the fields to the Ballyadan hills. The short grass was springy below his feet, and the yellow-hearted daisies shone starlike everywhere. Hiding meadow-larks rose with a start at his coming, and brown insects buzzed about the long spears of grass making the day drowsy. The fragrant air was sweet to the sense, and the vigorous walking quickened the blood down along his veins. Midway in his journey over the flat fields, a stream hurried, bearing its tribute to the river Deel.

Jim Madigan's two boys, Martin and Jack, sat on the bank of the stream fishing for minnows, using pins for hooks. When they saw the priest coming, they stood up, took off their caps, sticking the ends of the improvised fishing rods into the soft earth of the bank. Martin was red-headed and freckled. Jack was dark-haired and white-faced. The boots of both boys were as brown as the clay on the top of Paddy Donahue's sand-pit; their hands were rough, their clothes loose and unkept.