DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO OLD WOMEN
PREFACE.
This story of the two women I got from Francis O'Connor. He said he heard it from one Mary Casey, a Co. Galway woman, but I don't know from what part of Galway. It is I who am responsible for the dialogue form of it, which I have used instead of putting in an occasional bald "said Mary," "said Sheela"; but it really was told more in a dramatic then a narrative form, the reciter's voice showing who was speaking. The words I have not interfered with.
I once heard a dialogue not unlike this between two Melicete Indians in Canada who fell to discussing Theology over the camp-fire at night after hunting. One was a Catholic and the other a close replica of Maurya in our dialogue.
The story of Páidin Críona seems familiar to me, but I cannot think where or in what literature I have met it before.
THE STORY.
Maurya.
A hundred welcomes Sheela, it's a cure for sore eyes to see you; sit down and rest and tell us your news.
Sheela.
Musha! I have no news. It is not news that's troubling me.
Maurya.
Arrah! and what's troubling you? sure you're not ill!
Sheela.
I'm not ill, thanks be to God and to His blessed mother, but I do be thinking of the four last ends—the Death and the Judgment, and Hell and Heaven, for I know I shan't be much longer in this sorrowful world, and I wouldn't mind if I were leaving it to-morrow.
Maurya.
No nonsense at all of that sort ever comes into my head, and I'm older than you. I'm not tired of this world yet. I have knowledge of this world, and I have no knowledge at all of the other world. Nobody ever came back to tell me about it. I'll be time enough thinking of Death when he comes. And, another thing,—I don't believe that God created anyone to burn him in hell eternally.
Sheela.
You're going astray Maurya; were you at mass last Sunday?
Maurya.
Indeed and I was not! I was doing a thing more profitable. It was taking care of my hens I was, to keep them from laying abroad, or I wouldn't have the price of a grain of tea or sneesheen throughout the week. That bolgán-béiceach Father Brian wouldn't give me a penny if it was to keep me from being hanged. He's only a miserable greedy sanntachán. I had a little sturk of a pig last Christmas and he asked me to sell it to give him a shilling on Christmas Day, and as I didn't do that, he called out my name the Sunday after, in the chapel. He's not satisfied with good food, and oats for his horse, and gold and silver in his pocket. As I said often, I don't see any trade as good as a priest's trade; see the fine working clothes they wear, and poor people earning it hard for them.
Sheela.
I wonder greatly at your talk. Your unbelief is great. I wonder that you speak so unmannerly about Father Brian, when if you were dying to-morrow, who would give you absolution but the same father?
Maurya.
Arrah! Sheela, hold your tongue. Father Brian wouldn't turn on his heel, either for you or for me, without pay, even if he knew that it would keep us out of hell.
Sheela.
The cross of Christ on us! I never thought that it was that sort of a woman you were. Did you ever go to confession?
Maurya.
I went the day I was married, but I never bowed my knee under him before or since.
Sheela.
You have not much to do now, and you ought to think about your poor soul.
Maurya.
That wouldn't keep the hens from laying abroad on me, and if I were to go to confess to Father Brian, instead of absolution it's a barging I'd get from him, unless I had a half-crown on the top of my fingers to give him.
Sheela.
Father Brian isn't half as bad as you say; I'm to go to his house this evening with fresh eggs and a pint of butter. I'll speak to him about you if you give me leave.
Maurya.
Don't trouble yourself about me, for I'm not going near Father Brian: when I'll be on my death-bed he'll come to me.
Sheela.
And how do you know that it's not a sudden death you'd get, and what would happen to you if you were to get a "death without priest?"
Maurya.
And wouldn't I be as well off as the thousands who got death without e'er a priest. I haven't much trust in the priests. It's sinners that's in them all; they're like ourselves, exactly. My own notion is that there's nothing in religion but talk. Did you ever hear mention of Páidín Críona[56] [wise Patsy].
Sheela.
I did, often.
Maurya.
Very well; did you ever hear his opinion about religion?
Sheela.
Indeed, I never did, but tell it to me if you please.
Maurya.
Musha, then, I will. There were three officers living in one house and Paudyeen Críona [Cree-on-a] was servant to them. There were no two of them of the same religion, and there used often to be a dispute amongst them—and every man of them saying that it was his own religion was the best religion. One day a man of them said, "We'll leave it to Wise Paudyeen as to which of us has the best religion." "We're satisfied," said the other two. They called in Paudyeen and a man of them said to him, "Paudyeen, I'm a Catholic, and what will happen to me after my death?"
"I'll tell you that," says Paudyeen. "You'll be put down into the grave, and you'll rise again and go up to the gate of heaven. Peter will come out and will ask you, 'what religion are you of.' You'll tell him, and he'll say, 'Go and sit in that corner amongst the Catholics.'"
"I'm a Protestant," said the second man, "and what'll happen to me after my death?"
"Exactly as the other man. You will be put sitting in the corner of the Protestants!"
"I'm a Hebrew," says the third man, "and what will happen to me after my death?"
"Exactly as the other two; you will be put sitting amongst the Hebrews."
Now there was no one of them better off than the other, as Paudyeen left them, and so the Catholic asked Paudyeen, "Paudyeen, what's your own religion?"
"I have no religion at all," says he.
"And what'll happen to you after your death?"
"I'll tell you that. I shall be put down into the hole, I shall rise again and go up to the gate of heaven. Peter will come and ask me, 'of what religion are you?' I will say that I have no religion at all, and Peter will say then, 'come in, and sit down, or walk about in any place that you have a wish for.'"
Now, Sheela, don't you see that he who had no religion at all was better off than the people who had a religion! Every one of them was bound to the corner of his own creed, but Paudyeen was able to go in his choice place, and I'll be so too.
Sheela.
God help you Maurya; I'm afraid there's a long time before your poor soul in Purgatory.
Maurya.
Have sense Sheela; I'll go through Purgatory as quickly as lightning through a gooseberry bush.
Sheela.
There's no use talking to you or giving you advice. I'll leave you.
When Sheela was going out, Maurya let a screech out of her which was heard for a mile on every side of her. Sheela turned round and she saw Maurya in the midst of a flame of fire. Sheela ran as fast as was in her to Father Brian's house, and returned with him running to Maurya's house. But, my grief! the house was burned to the ground, and Maurya was burnt with it; and I am afraid that the [her] poor soul was lost.