“I wonder you are not ashamed to ask the question, Finigan. You have been behaving in a shocking, scandalous manner. Do you consider what disgrace you bring, not merely on yourself as a man, but on the Church to which you belong?”
The Irishman turned red.
“Here, Mister, yez lave me Church alone, an’ I’ll lave yours,” he muttered.
The Rev. Aloysius smiled at the success with which he had touched the man’s weak spot.
“I am not blaming your Church,” he said impressively. “The teaching you have received is good enough for you to know when you have done wrong. I am pointing out to you that your neighbours here, who do not know and understand the Church of Rome as I know and understand it, are not likely to have their opinion of it raised by such conduct as yours last night.”
The curate was warming to his work, and would have gone on to inflict further stabs on the sensitive place, when suddenly the Irishman clenched his fists, and stepped towards him.
“Say another word about me Church, good or bad, and, be the Howly Moses, I’ll knock yer teeth down yer Protestant throat!”
The Rev. Aloysius fairly recoiled, stunned, to do him justice, as much by the insult conveyed in the description of himself as a Protestant as by the threat of personal violence. It was too bitter; the serpent of schism had raised its baleful crest, and stung him in the very midst of his flock.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, no one suspected the true cause of his agitation. Before he could frame a suitable retort an unexpected ally came to his rescue.
Hero Vanbrugh had listened impatiently to the curate’s attempted admonition of the hooligan. Her indignation at the brutalities whose effects she had just seen was still hot within her, and the Irishman’s hectoring demeanour made it boil over.