"I wouldn't mind," he cried, standing up and striding along the little room, his hands tightly clasped behind his back, "but the poor little altar boys—the poor little beggars—they looked so nice yesterday, and oh to think of it! Good God!"
"Very dramatic, very dramatic," I said, "but not the quiet narrative and consecutive style that I affect. Now, supposing you told me the story. There's balm in Gilead yet."
And this was the story, told with much impressiveness, a fair amount of gesticulation, and one or two little profane expressions, which made the Recording Angel cough and look away to see how was the weather.
It appears that about seven o'clock Father Letheby had a sick-call outside the village. There are generally a fair share of sick-calls on the day succeeding the great festivity, for obvious reasons. He was returning home through the village, when the sound of singing arrested his steps just outside Mrs. Haley's public house. His heart gave a bound of delight as he heard the familiar lines and notes of the Adeste. "Thank God!" he said, "at last, the people are beginning to bring our Catholic hymns into their own homes." As he listened intently there was a slight reaction as he recognized the sweet liquid notes, with all the curls and quavers that are the copyright and strictly legal and exclusive possession of Jem Deady.
"Good heavens!" said the young priest, in a frenzy of indignation, "has that ruffian dared to introduce into the taproom our Christmas melodies, and to degrade them into a public-house chorus?"
He stepped into the shop. There was no one there. He turned softly the handle of the door, and was in the taproom for several minutes before he was recognized. What he witnessed was this. Leaning in a tipsy, maudlin way against the wall were the holly bushes, which, decorated with pink ribbons, and supposed to conceal in their dim recesses the "wren, the wren, the king of all birds," had been the great attraction of the morning. Leaning on the deal table, with glasses and pints of porter before them, as they sat and lounged or fell in various stages of intoxication, were the wren-boys; and near the fire, with his back turned to the door, and his fingers beating time to the music in pools of dirty porter, was Jem Deady. As Father Letheby entered he was singing:—
"Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine,
Gestant puellæ viscera—"
the most awful and tender lines of the glorious hymn.
He was unconscious of the priest's presence, and quite unconscious of his horrible sacrilege. Father Letheby continued gazing on the sad scene for a few minutes, with mingled feelings of anger, horror, and disgust. Then, closing the door softly after him, he strode through the street, and knocking peremptorily at all the doors, he soon had a procession of the fathers and mothers of the children following him to the public house. What occurred then has passed into the historical annals of Kilronan. It is enough to say here that its good people heard that night certain things which made their ears tingle for many a day. Mrs. Haley came up to my house the following morning to give up her license; and there was a general feeling abroad that every man, woman, and child in Kilronan should become total abstainers for life.
"But that's all," said Father Letheby; "and now I am really sick of the entire business; and to-morrow I shall write to the Bishop for my exeat, and return to England or go to Australia, where I have been promised a mission."