“Ough!” said Captain Murphy, “your reverence happens to be all in the wrong.”
The archdeacon of course fell into his nervous fit again, and stood quaking as if both Saint Vitus’ dance and the tic douloureux had assailed him at once with their utmost rancour.
“I am only come,” resumed Murphy, “just to give your reverence two little choices.”
“Oh, Lord! Captain Murphy, what are they?” cried the clerical gentleman.
“Either to take your turn to-morrow in the big chapel, with our clergy, and be one of them yourself, or to receive two-and-twenty pikes straight through your reverence’s carcase, as you will otherwise do, before the sun sets this blessed day—and by my sowl it’s not far from that time now! (Here the doctor groaned most heavily.) One of the things,” pursued the rebel, “is quite easy for your reverence to do, and the other is quite easy for us to do; and so there will be no great trouble in it either way. Come on, lads, and just show your switches to his reverence.”
Above twenty long pikes were instantly flourished in the air with an hurra that nearly shook every nerve of the archdeacon out of its natural situation.
“Ah, gentlemen!” said he, “spare a poor old man, who never harmed any of you. For the love of God, spare me!”
“Arrah! be easy, parson,” said Captain Murphy: “sure there’s but one God between us all, and that’s plenty, if there were as many more of us. So what are we differing and bothering about? whether you say your prayers in the church or in the chapel, in Latin or in English; whether you reckon them on your beads, or read them on your book,—sure it’s all one to Him, and no great differ, I should think, to any sensible gentleman,—especially when he cannot help himself! Boys, handle your switches; though, by my sowl, I’d be sorry to skiver your reverence.”
The archdeacon, though an excellent orthodox parson, now began to see his way, and was too wise to have any thing to do with Captain Murphy’s switches if it were avoidable. He recollected that the great bishops and archbishops who were roasted alive in Queen Mary’s time, for the very same reason, got but little credit from posterity for their martyrdom; and how could he expect any for being piked, which was not half so dilatory a death as roasting? Then, again, he considered that twenty pikes in a man’s body would not be near as nourishing as one barnacle or lobster (on which he had for many years loved to feed). He deemed it better to make a merit of necessity; and accordingly, putting on a civil face, agreed to all their proposals. He then took a drink of holy water (which Captain Murphy always carried in a bottle about with him); made several crosses upon his forehead with a feather dipped in some “blessed oil” (tinged with green); and after every pike-man had shaken him by the fist, and called him Father Pat Elgy, it was finally settled he should next day be rechristened in “the big chapel” by all the Fathers, taught to celebrate mass as well as the best of them, and get a protection for having taken on as a true Catholic.
The gentlemen with their switches now retired, uplifting shouts of exultation at having converted the archdeacon, while that dignitary tottered back to his family, who had given him up for lost, were bewailing his cruel martyrdom, and triumphed at his return, though at the expense of his orthodoxy. A cold roast leg of mutton was then produced;—and heartily discussing that creature comfort, his reverence could not avoid congratulating himself when he observed the mark of the spit, and reflected that there would have been two-and-twenty much wider perforations drilled through his own body had not Captain Murphy made a papist of him.