"And you have succeeded," I said admiringly. "You know them better than I, who have spent thirty years amongst them. But"—I could not resist the temptation of a little lecture—"if you are asked, accept no responsibility in money matters; and if two cocks are fighting down the street, and consequently diplomatic courtesies are suspended between the neighbors, I would not, if I were you, trouble much to ascertain which of the belligerents had ethical and moral right on his side; and if Mrs. Gallagher, by pure accident, should happen to be throwing out a pail of particularly dirty water just at the psychological moment when Mrs. Casey is passing her door; and if the tailor-made gown of the latter is thereby desecrated, and you see a sudden eclipse of the sun, and hear the rumble of distant thunder, don't throw aside your Æschylus to see the 'Furies'; and if Mrs. Deady—"
"Thank you! thank you, Father," he said, abruptly, "never fear. 'T will be all right!"
I closed the door on his fine, manly figure, and went back to my arm-chair, murmuring:—
"Παθηματα—μαθηματα. So shall it be to the end, O Father of history!"
CHAPTER XI
BESIDE THE SINGING RIVER
Father Letheby was coming home a few nights ago, a little after twelve o'clock, from a hurried sick-call, and he came down by the cliffs; for, as he said, he likes to see the waters when the Almighty flings his net over their depths, and then every sea-hillock is a star, and there is a moon in every hollow of the waves. As he skirted along the cliff that frowns down into the valleys of the sea on the one hand, and the valleys of the firs and poplars on the other, he thought he heard some voices deep down in the shadows, and he listened. Very soon the harsh rasp of a command came to his ears, and he heard: "'Shun! 'verse arms," etc. He listened very attentively, and the tramp of armed men echoed down the darkness; and he thought he saw the glint of steel here and there where the moonbeams struck the trees.
"It was a horrible revelation," he said, "that here in this quiet place we were nursing revolution, and had some secret society in full swing amongst us. But then, as the little bit of history brought up the past, I felt the tide of feeling sweeping through me, and all the dread enthusiasm of the race woke within me:—
'There beside the singing river
That dark mass of men are seen,
Far above their shining weapons
Hung their own immortal green!'