“What do you mane, Denis?” inquired Susan, suddenly ceasing to knit, and fixing her eyes upon him with a glance of alarm.
“To be plain, Susy, I find that Maynooth is my destination. It has been arranged between my father and Docthor Finnerty, that I must become a laborer in the vineyard; that is, that I must become a priest, and cultivate the grape. It's a sore revelation to make to an amorous maiden; but destiny will be triumphant:—
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.”
The poor girl suddenly laid down the work on which she had been engaged, her face became the color of ashes, and the reply she was about to make died upon her lips. She again resumed her stocking, but almost instantly laid it down a second time, and appeared wholly unable either to believe or comprehend what he said.
“Denis,” she at length asked, “Did you say that all is to be over between us?”
“That was my insinuation,” replied Denis, “The fact is, Susy, that destiny is adverse; clean against our union in the bonds of matrimonial ecstacy. But, Susy, my charmer, I told you before that you were not destitute of logic, and I hope you will bear this heavy visitation as becomes a philosopher.”
“Bear it, Denis! How ought I to bear it, after your saying and swearing, too, that neither father, nor mother, nor priest, nor anybody else would make you desart me?”
“But, Susan, my nightingale, perhaps you are not aware that there is an authority in existence to which father, mother, and all must knuckle down. That is the church, Susan. Reflect—dulce decus meum—that the power of the church is able to loose and unloose, to tie and untie, to forgive and to punish, to raise to the highest heaven, or to sink to the profoundest Tartarus. That power, Susan, thinks proper to claim your unworthy and enamored swain as one of the brightest Colossuses of her future glory. The Irish hierarchy is plased to look upon me as a luminary of almost superhuman brilliancy and coruscation: my talents she pronounces to be of the first magnitude; my eloquence classical and overwhelming, and my learning only adorned by that poor insignificant attribute denominated by philosophers unfathomability!—hem!—hem!”
“Denis,” replied the innocent girl, “you sometimes speak that I can undherstand you; but you oftener spake in a way that I can hardly make out what you say. If it's a thing that my love for you, or the solemn promise that passed between us, would stand in your light, or prevint you from higher things as a priest, I am willing to—to—to give you up, whatever I may suffer. But you know yourself, that you brought me on from time to time undher your promise, that nothing would ever lead you to lave me in sorrow an' disappointment. Still, I say, that—But, Denis, is it thrue that you could lave me for anything?”
The innocent confidence in his truth expressed by the simplicity of her last question, staggered the young candidate; that is to say, her words, her innocence, and her affection sank deeply into his heart.