“‘Justement,’ says the other; ‘vous avez raison: ce sont les deniers de Saint Pierre.’”
With such-like faithful chronicles they beguiled the time, and I listened and laughed. But I had to get back to my hotel, and I craved leave to depart. Dr. Walsh offered to accompany me—“Just to be at hand if any of the St. Michael’s teachers or children happened to throw half a brick at the Inspector”—and we went off together.
There were no half bricks, and the murmured remark of one half-dressed lad to a half-naked comrade, “Thur goes the —— ould mon,” was purely affectionate recognition.
“I didn’t feel sure,” said Walsh in a few moments, “that it would be safe to tell them inside there another Parisian story, but you may like to hear it:
“It was about a certain Père H., who was visiting one of his flock, a lady of the old nobility who had lately lost her husband. She was plunged in grief, and Père H. was suggesting, in the most delicate manner in the world (like Mr. Chucks), that she ought to have masses said for the repose of the Count’s soul; because, between you and me, he hadn’t set the best example to the Republicans. But she cried, and declined; and the more he pressed it the more obstinate she was. At last she recovered herself sufficiently to explain that the money would be thrown away: the late lamented was gone là bas. The priest explained that if her husband was in Purgatory, as might conceivably be the case, masses would be profitable. But she wept more: he had died in mortal sin, and he was not in Purgatory at all, but plus bas. Father H., finding argument and entreaty thrown away upon her, went home. But two days later he returned to the charge: ‘Madame la Comtesse,’ he said, after the usual introductory remarks, ‘I have consulted our Superior, and I have consulted our books, and I find that in such a case une messe ne fait aucun mal: Ça Rafraîchit.’”
I woke up the echoes of the Irish quarter with my laughter, and Walsh’s heart warmed to me, for laughter is meat and drink to a story-teller, and he became confidential: “Good sort, are they not?” he said, referring to our hosts; and he told me of their good works, and their self-denial, as we walked through the dismal streets. Before he had finished his panegyric we came to the cross roads, where I had to turn off. He stopped and sighed: “It’s a queer thing at the same time; there’s no one quite perfect: ye’d think that the Canon went as near being an uncanonized saint as anybody: but he habitually leads from a single card, and I lost two-and-six by him this evening. Good-night: pleased to have met you.”
And we parted, and as I breasted the hill before me, like Christian in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” I sang sadly:
“How many a spot defiles the robe
That wraps an earthly saint.”
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Before the Act of 1891 children paid “school-pence,” from 1d. to 9d. a week. The Act provided for a Treasury grant of 10s. per head for each child, say 3d. a week, on condition that the school fees were reduced by that amount. Thus children paying not more than 3d. a week were relieved of all charge, and the managers were assured of a moderate income.