God be wid the time when I went to the classical seminary ov Firdramore! when I’d bring my sod o’ turf undher my arm, and sit down on my shnug boss o’ straw, wid my back to the masther and my shins to the fire, and score my sum in Dives’s denominations or the double rule o’ three, or play fox-and-geese wid purty Jane Cruise that sat next me, as plisantly as the day was long, widout any one so much as saying, “Mikey Heffernan, what’s that you’re about?”—for ever since I was in the one lodge wid poor ould Mat I had my own way in his school as free as ever I had in my mother’s shebeen. God be wid them days, I say again, for its althered times wid me, I judge, since I got under Carlisle and Whateley. Sich sthrictness! sich ordher! sich dhrilling, and lecthiring, and tuthoring as they do get on wid! I wisht to gracious the one-half of their rules and rigilations was sunk in the say. And they’re getting so sthrict, too, about having fair play for the heretic childher! We’ve to have no more schools in the chapels, nor masses in the schools. Oh, by this and by that it’ll never do at all! The ould plan was twenty times betther; and, for my own part, if it wasn’t that the clargy supports them in a manner, and the grant’s a thing not easily done widout these hard times, I’d see if I couldn’t get a sheltered spot nigh-hand the chapel, and set up again on the good ould principle: and faix, I think our Metropolitan ’ud stand to me, for I know that his Grace’s motto was ever and always, that “Ignorance is the thrue mother ov piety.”
But I’m running away from my narrative entirely, so I am. “You’ll plase to ordher up the housekeeper, then,” says Father Tom to the Pope, “wid a pint ov sweet milk in a skillet, and the bulk ov her fist ov butther, along wid a dust ov soft sugar in a saucer, and I’ll show you the way of producing a decoction that, I’ll be bound, will hunt the thirst out ov every nook and corner in your Holiness’s blessed carcidge.”
The Pope ordhered up the ingredients, and they were brought in by the head butler.
“That’ll not do at all,” says his Riv’rence, “the ingredients won’t combine in due proportion unless ye do as I bid yez. Send up the housekeeper,” says he, “for a faymale hand is ondispinsably necessary to produce the adaptation ov the particles and the concurrence ov the corpuscles, widout which you might boil till morning, and never fetch the cruds off ov it.”
Well, the Pope whispered to his head butler, and by-and-by up there comes an ould faggot ov a Caillean, that was enough to frighten a horse from his oats.
“Don’t thry for to desave me,” says his Riv’rence, “for it’s no use, I tell yez. Send up the housekeeper, I bid yez: I seen her presarving gooseberries in the panthry as I came up: she has eyes as black as a sloe,” says he, “and cheeks like the rose in June; and sorra taste of this celestial mixthir shall crass the lips ov man or mortial this blessed night till she stirs the same up wid her own delicate little finger.”
“Misther Maguire,” says the Pope, “it’s very unproper ov you to spake that way ov my housekeeper: I won’t allow it, sir.”
“Honour bright, your Holiness,” says his Riv’rence, laying his hand on his heart.
“Oh, by this and by that, Misther Maguire,” says the Pope, “I’ll have none of your insiniwations: I don’t care who sees my whole household,” says he; “I don’t care if all the faymales undher my roof was paraded down the High Street of Room,” says he.