Next morning, Father Elgy was duly christened Patrick; renounced Martin Luther, in the great chapel of Wexford, as an egregious impostor; and being appointed a coadjutor, celebrated mass with considerable dexterity and proper gesticulation. He subsequently set about getting the double manual by heart, that he might be ready to chaunt, as soon as Father Cahill should teach him the several tunes.
The archdeacon, though he had no great reason to be ashamed of his second christening, (particularly as he had always prayed against sudden death while he was a Protestant,) could yet never bear, in after times, to hear the circumstance alluded to, since it could not be mentioned but a laugh was unavoidable. I often saw Murphy afterward: he had been generally humane, saved many lives, and was not prosecuted. He himself told me the foregoing story, with that exquisite simplicity which belongs almost exclusively to his rank of Irishmen.
Another Protestant clergyman did not fare quite so well as the archdeacon, being never able to look any man straight in the face afterward. Parson Owen, brother to Miss Owen of Dublin (heretofore mentioned in the anecdotes of Doctor Achmet Borumborad), had a small living in the neighbourhood of Wexford; and as he looked for church preferment, was, of course, a violent, indeed an outrageous royalist. Now, as almost every man among his parishioners held a different creed, both in religion and politics, he was not over-popular in quiet days; and when the bustle began, thinking it high time to secure his precious person, he retired for better security into the town of Wexford. He had not, however, consulted an oracle;—that being the first place attacked by the rebels: and Major Maxwell, as has been stated, having with his garrison retreated without beat of drum, the parson found himself necessitated to resort to a cockloft in a grocer’s house in the Bull-ring at Wexford; where, provisions not being quite handy, and an empty stomach good for contemplation, he had ample opportunity to reflect on the species of death he would, most likely meet. The promotion of Father Pat Elgy had not come to his knowledge.
Previous to this event, the parson had fallen in love with the only daughter of Mr. Brown, a rich trader, who had formerly kept a tan-yard in Enniscorthy; or rather his reverence fell in love with a great number of government debentures, bearing interest at five per cent per annum, which the young lady informed him would be all her own if she “behaved herself.” He had, therefore, three cogent reasons for seeking to prolong his life:—first, the natural love of it; secondly, the debentures; and lastly, the damsel.
However, his security was by no means permanent. Early one morning, wishing to get a mouthful of fresh air, his reverence ventured to peep out of his garret-window into the street, and was instantly recognised by one of the wattle-boys, as the pike-men were then called.
“Hah! hah! your reverence is there, sure enough,” said the man of the wattle. “Ough! by my sowl if you budge out of that peep-hole till I come back again, we’ll make a big bonfire of ye and your Orange family altogether. Plaze, now, don’t let me lose sight of your reverence while I run for my commander: it’s he’ll know what to do with the likes of ye.”
The rebel immediately ran off, but soon returned with the same “Captain Murphy,” and a whole company of pike-men, just to “skiver the parson.” Owen was a dapper, saucy, pert-looking, little fellow: he had good sharp eyes, an excellent use of his tongue, and was considered keen: and though a high churchman, he was thought at times to be rather more free and easy in his little sensualities than most bishops could reasonably have approved of. On this latter account, indeed, it was said that Mr. Brown, before-mentioned, did not relish him for a son-in-law. Ladies, however, are sometimes more charitable in this respect; Miss Brown conceived that whatever his piety might amount to, his love, at least, was orthodox; and in this belief, she privately counselled her swain to affect more holiness before her papa:—to be lavish, for instance, in abuse of the powers of darkness; to speak slower, and in a more solemn tone; to get longer skirts made to his coats and waistcoats, let his hair grow lank, and say grace with becoming gravity and deliberation,—not as if he were impatient to rush at the eatables before they were properly blessed. “Eating,” added the didactic lady, “may become a vice if too luxuriously gratified; whereas hunger must be a virtue, or the popes would not so strongly recommend fasting.”
At this stage of the treaty, and of the castle-building on the foundation of a tan-yard, his reverence was unfortunately seized in the cockloft by Captain Murphy; and though the captain was a neighbour of his, and a decent sort of cattle-dealer, yet Parson Owen gave himself up for lost to an absolute certainty. His love was, therefore, quite quenched in horror: his throat swelled up as if he had a quinsy, and he anticipated nothing short of that which he had prayed against (like Doctor Elgy) every Sunday since he obtained holy orders—namely, a sudden death. He thought repentance was, as the French say, meilleur tard que jamais, and accordingly began to repent and implore as hard as possible,—though without the most remote idea that his supplications would have time to reach heaven before he himself was turned loose on the road thither.
Captain Murphy, who, as we have seen, was, although coarse, a good-tempered fellow, on entering the room with half-a-dozen wattle-boys, otherwise executioners, very civilly told Parson Owen, “He would be obliged to him just to prepare himself for the other world: whether the other world was a better place or a worse, he would not attempt to divine;—all he could assure his reverence was, that he should not be very long going there.—The boys below,” continued Captain Murphy, “having a good many more to send along with you to-day, your reverence will be so good as to come down to the first floor as soon as convenient, that you may drop more agreeably from thence out of the window on the pikes!”
Without much ceremony, the poor parson was handed down one flight of stairs, when Captain Murphy opening a window as wide as he could, begged Owen would be kind enough to take off his coat and waistcoat, and throw them to the boys below; the remainder of his dress they might take from the corpse, after his reverence had stiffened!