“There, now,” said Corny, when the doctor was gone, “there, now, is a sincere minister of the Gospel for you, and a polite gentleman into the bargain. Now that’s politeness that does not trouble me—that’s not for show—that’s for us, not himself, mark!—and conversation! Why that man has conversation for the prince and the peasant—the courtier and the anchorite. Did not he find plenty for me, and got more out of me than I thought was in me—and the same if I’d been a monk of La Trappe, he would have made me talk like a pie. Now there’s a man of the high world that the low world can like, very different from—”
Poor Corny paused, checked himself, and then resumed—“Principles, religion, and all no hinderance!—liberal and sincere too! Well, I only wish—Father Jos, no offence—I only wish, for Dr. Cambray’s sake, and the Catholic church’s sake, I was, for one day, Archbishop of Canterbury, or Primate of all Ireland, or whatever else makes the bishops in your church, and I’d skip over dean and archdeacon, and all, and make that man—clean a bishop before night.”
Harry smiled, and wished he had the power as well as the good-will.
Father Jos said, “A man ought to be ashamed not to think of his own first.”
“Now, Harry, don’t think I’d make a bishop lightly,” continued King Corny; “I would not—I’ve been a king too long for that; and though only a king of my own fashion, I know what’s fit for governing a country, observe me!—Cousin Ulick would make a job of a bishop, but I would not—nor I wouldn’t to please my fancy. Now don’t think I’d make that man a bishop just because he noticed and praised my gimcracks and inventions, and substitutes.”
Father Jos smiled, and demurely abased his eye.
“Oh! then you don’t know me as well as you think you do, father,” said O’Shane. “Nor what’s more, Harry, not his noting down the two regiments to make inquiry for friends for you, Harry, shouldn’t have bribed me to partiality—though I could have kissed his shoe-ties for it.”
“Mercy on you!” said Father Jos: “this doctor has bewitched you.”
“But did you mind, then,” persisted Corny, “the way he spoke of that cousin of mine, Sir Ulick, who he saw I did not like, and who has been, as you tell us, bitter against him, and even against his getting the living. Well, the way this Doctor Cambray spoke then pleased me—good morals without preaching—there’s do good to your enemies—the true Christian doctrine—and the hardest point. Oh! let Father Jos say what he will, there’s the man will be in heaven before many—heretic or no heretic, Harry!”
Father Jos shrugged up his shoulders, and then fixing the glass in his spectacles, replied, “We shall see better when we come to the tithes.”