Now I saw how Livy came to write his history. He was “nursed upon the selfsame” seven hills, and he would have liked that legend. Insensibly, in the comfort of the arm-chair and the fire, I began to translate the story into “Latin in the style of Livy,” that would have gladdened the heart of the Rev. E. C. W., sometime Fellow and Tutor of Balliol: “Eodem anno jam autumnale equinoctium instabat et complura prodigia referebantur ta ... ta ...” when O’Flynn woke me up with a start:
“They were telling me in the boat,” he said, “about Father Hennessy and the Orangeman: have ye heard it? Hennessy was travelling to Dublin, and was saying his Office as he was in the carriage; and opposite him was a man from County Down. Soon after they left the station, the Orangeman leant across to Father Hennessy, in the middle of his Office, ye understand, and says, ‘I wouldn’t go to Purgatory,’ says he.
“‘Beatum Michaelem Archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos,’ mutters Hennessy, looking over the other’s head, as if he didn’t exist anny way.
“This took the Orangeman back a bit, but soon he perks up and slides a bit nearer: ‘I wouldn’t go to Purgatory,’ he says again, and Hennessy goes on: ‘Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper,’ he says, and never heeds him.
“After a while the Down man gets quite mad, and he moves forward close up to the priest, and looks him straight in the face, and says very loud and distinct:
“‘I wouldn’t go to Pur—ga—to—ry!’ he shouts.
“‘Well, go to Hell, then, ne nos ’nducas in t’ntationem, sed lib’ra nos s’malo,’ said the old man, all in a breath, and the Prodesan closed up.”
I wish I could get O’Flynn to tell the story to a phonograph: but even then you would miss the gratia vivax of the narrator.
Dr. Walsh had finished his rubber, and had cut out. He joined the fireside group in time to hear the end of the last story; now he was stirred to emulation. “I heard you while I was at the whist table, Father O’Flynn, talking of the old French nobility; some of them are good friends of the Church, but they get taken in at times. When I was a student in Paris, I was told of one, who had married the Marquis de la Chose, a worthless fellow of as good blood as herself; but she was rich, and he hadn’t a sou. He wanted money after a bit for one thing and another, but she was very anxious to reform him, and she dealt it out with more care than he quite liked. So at last he comes to her with a great story of the fund they were raising for the Holy Father. ‘Peter’s Pence’ was the cry, and she ought to subscribe. She was as pleased as Punch to find him set on good works, and she forks out the money freely, and he brings her receipts, and all sorts of stories about the growth of the fund—les deniers de Saint Pierre—and she gives more and more. But one day two of his old friends saw him driving in the Bois with a lady with golden hair, and she was not the Marquise.
“‘Tiens,’ says one, ‘but regard the locks of gold.’