“My people invariably address me by my Christian name, and I beg, sir, as you are now within my bailiwick, that you will continue to do so.”
“As I am within your bailiwick, I must needs do your bidding, Father Maurice.”
Such a genial, happy voice! Such frank, kind blue eyes! Such a well knit, strong-built figure!
The priest gazed at a young man of about five-and-twenty, six feet high, with crisp brown curly hair, beard en Henri Quatre, broad forehead, and manly, sunburnt neck and face, attired in a suit of light homespun tweed, a blue flannel shirt very open at the throat, a scarlet silk tie knotted sailor fashion, and heavy shoes, broad-toed and thick-soled.
“My name is Brown,” he said. “I am an artist. I have walked over from Castlebar. I am doing picturesque bits of this lovely country—not your confounded beaten tracks, but the nooks which must be sought like the violet. I have very little money, and needs must rough it. This stick and knapsack constitute my impedimenta, and, like Cæsar, I have carried my Commentaries before now in my teeth while bridging a river by swimming it. I asked for the inn, and I was referred to Father Maurice.”
“I can answer for it, Mr. Brown, that you will find every house in Monamullin willing to shelter you; and, further, that you will find this to be possibly the best. I am unfortunately compelled to travel seven miles along the coast to-night, but will be back, please God, to-morrow; in the meantime my housekeeper will try what some broiled fish and a dish of ham and eggs can do towards appeasing what ought to be a giant’s appetite. And I can answer for the sheets being well aired, having pulled the lavender myself in which they are periodically enshrined.”
Father Maurice ushered his guest into the cottage with a welcome so genuine that Mr. Brown felt at his ease almost ere the greeting had died upon the priest’s lips, and proceeded to hang up his hat and knapsack with the air of a man who was completely at home.
The neat little parlor was cosily furnished. A genuine bit of Domingo mahogany stood in the centre of the room, and round it half a dozen plump horse-haired, brass-nailed chairs, with a “Come and sit on us, we are not for show” air about them peculiarly inviting. A venerable bureau, black as ebony from age, and brass-mounted, ornamented one corner, and opposite to it a plaster-of-paris bust of Pius IX. upon a fluted pedestal, while the recesses at either side of the fireplace were furnished with antique book-cases containing a well-thumbed library of ecclesiastical literature, the works of St. Augustine being prominently conspicuous. Over the mantel-piece hung a portrait of Daniel O’Connell, with the autograph of the Liberator in a small frame beneath, and at his right and left engravings, and of no mean order either, of Henry Grattan and John Philpot Curran. The walls were adorned with copies of the cartoons of Raphael, a view of Croagh Patrick from Clew Bay, a bird’s-eye glance at St. Peter’s, and an illuminated address from the inhabitants of Monamullin to their beloved pastor upon the completion of his thirtieth year on the mission—an address the composition of which conferred undying renown upon Tim Rafferty, the schoolmaster, and begat for the boy who wrote it a fame only second to that of the erudite pedagogue.
“You are delightfully snug here, Father Maurice,” observed his guest, seating himself and glancing admiringly round the apartment. “What a treasure of an antique bureau! Why, the brokers in London are giving any amount of money for such articles; we are all running mad over them. If you could get it whispered that Dean Swift or Joe Addison worked at that desk, it would be worth its weight in gold. It’s Queen Anne now or nothing.”
“You are an Englishman?”