The House by the Church-Yard

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

'Well, Sir, I do confide it altogether to you. I know I might, through ignorance, do a mischief.'

And so they bid a mutual good-night, and Loftus scaled his garret stair and snuffed his candle, and plunged again into the business of two thousand years ago.

'Here's a purty business,' says the priest, extending both his palms, with a face of warlike importance, and shutting the door behind him with what he called 'a cow's kick;' 'a jewel, my dear Pat, no less; bloody work I'm afeared.'

Mr. Mahony, who had lighted a pipe during his entertainer's absence, withdrew the fragrant tube from his lips, and opened his capacious mouth with a look of pleasant expectation, for he, like other gentlemen of his day—and, must we confess, not a few jolly clerics of my creed, as well as of honest Father Roach's—regarded the ordeal of battle, and all its belongings, simply as the highest branch of sporting. Not that the worthy father avowed any such sentiment; on the contrary, his voice and his eyes, if not his hands, were always raised against the sanguinary practice; and scarce a duel occurred within a reasonable distance unattended by his reverence, in the capacity, as he said, of 'an unauthorised, but airnest, though, he feared, unavailing peacemaker.' There he used to spout little maxims of reconciliation, and Christian brotherhood and forbearance; exhorting to forget and forgive; wringing his hands at each successive discharge; and it must be said, too, in fairness, playing the part of a good Samaritan towards the wounded, to whom his green hall-door was ever open, and for whom the oil of his consolation and the wine of his best bin never refused to flow.

'Pat, my child,' said his reverence, 'that Nutter's a divil of a fellow—at least he was, by all accounts; he'll be bad enough, I'm afeared, and hard enough to manage, if everything goes smooth; but if he's kept waiting there, fuming and boiling over, do ye mind, without a natural vent for his feelings, or a friend, do ye see, at his side to—to resthrain him, and bring about, if possible, a friendly mutual understanding—why, my dear child, he'll get into that state of exasperation an' violence, he'll have half a dozen jewels on his hands before morning.'

'Augh! 'tid be a murther to baulk them for want of a friend,' answered Mr. Mahony, standing up like a warrior, and laying the pipe of peace upon the chimney. 'Will I go down, Father Denis, and offer my sarvices?'

'With a view to a reconciliation, mind,' said his reverence, raising his finger, closing his eyes, and shaking his florid face impressively.

'Och, bother! don't I know—of coorse, reconciliation;' and he was buttoning his garments where, being a little 'in flesh,' as well as tall, he had loosed them. 'Where are the gentlemen now, and who will I ask for?'

'I'll show you the light from the steps. Ask for Dr. Toole; and he's certainly there; and if he's not, for Mr. Nutter; and just say you came from my house, where you—a—pooh! accidentally heard, through Mr. Loftus, do ye mind, there was a difficulty in finding a friend to—a—strive to make up matters between thim.'

By this time they stood upon the door-steps; and Mr. Mahony had clapt on his hat with a pugnacious cock o' one side; and following, with a sporting and mischievous leer, the direction of the priest's hand, that indicated the open door of the Phœnix, through which a hospitable light was issuing.