“Well, I forgive you the pigs!” exclaimed the benevolent priest, satisfied that his pious injunctions had been duly observed, and extending a portion of his good feeling to the instrument; “and as for the appetite I spoke of, sure, you good-natured giant you, haven't you health, exercise, and a most destructive set of grinders? and, indeed, the wonder would be if you didn't make the sorrow's havoc at a square of bacon; so for heaping the creel I forgive you the digestion and the pigs both.”
“Will you permit me.” interposed the stranger, a third time.
“But listen again,” proceeded his reverence, “did you bring the bread and broth to the poor Caseys, the creatures?”
“No, sir,” replied Mat, licking his lips, as the stranger thought, “it was Kitty Kavanagh brought that; you know you never trust me wid the vittles—ever since—”
“Yes, I ought to have remembered that notorious fact. There's where your weakness is strongest, but, indeed, it is only one of them; for he that would trust you with the carriage of a bottle of whiskey might be said to commit a great oversight of judgment. With regard to the victuals, I once put my trust in God, and dispatched you, after a full meal, with some small relief to a poor family, in the shape of corned beef and greens, and you know the sequel, that's enough. Be off now, and get the rings made as I desired you.”
He then turned to the stranger, whom he scanned closely; and we need hardly assure our reader that the other, in his turn, marked the worthy priest's bearing, manner, and conversation with more than usual curiosity. The harmless passion in which he found him—his simple but touching benevolence, added to the genuine benignity with which he relaxed his anger against Mat Euly, the gigantic servant, because he told him that he had put a heap upon the creel of turf which he brought to poor Barney Farrell and his family, not omitting the tears he represented himself to have shed from Christian sympathy with Widow Magowran, both of which acts were inventions of the purest water, resorted to in order to soften the kind-hearted priest; all this, we say, added to what he had heard from Birney, deeply interested the stranger in the character of Father Peter. Nor was he less struck by his appearance. Father MacMahon was a round, tight, rosy-faced little man, with laughing eyes, full of good nature, and a countenance which altogether might be termed a title-page to benevolence. His lips were finely cut, and his well-formed mouth, though full of sweetness, was utterly free from every indication of sensuality or passion. Indeed, it was at all times highly expressive of a disposition the most kind and placable, and not unfrequently of a comical spirit, that blended with his benevolence to a degree that rendered the whole cast of his features, as they varied with and responded to the kindly and natural impulses of his heart, a perfect treat to look upon. That his heart and soul were genuinely Irish, might easily be perceived by the light of humor which beamed with such significant contagion from every feature of his face, as well as by the tear which misery and destitution and sorrow never failed to bring to his cheek, thus overshadowing for a time, if we may say so, the whole sunny horizon of his countenance. But this was not all; you might read there a spirit of kindly sarcasm that was in complete keeping with a disposition always generous and affectionate, mostly blunt and occasionally caustic. Nothing could exceed the extreme neatness with which he attended to his dress and person. In this point he was scrupulously exact and careful; but this attention to the minor morals was the result of anything but personal pride, for we are bound to say, that, with all his amiable eccentricities, more unaffected humility never dwelt in the heart of a Christian minister.
He had, in fact, paid little or no attention to the stranger until Mat Ruly went out; when, on glancing at him with more attention, he perceived at once that he was evidently a person of no ordinary condition in life.
“I have to ask your pardon, sir,” said he, “for seeming to neglect you as I did, but the truth is, I was in a white heat of passion with that great good-natured colossus of mine, Mat Ruly, for, indeed, he is good-natured, and that I can tell you makes me overlook many a thing in him that I would not otherwise pass by. Ah, then, sir, did you observe,” he added, “how he confessed to heaping the creel of turf for the Farrells, and crying with poor Widow Magowran?”
The stranger could have told him that, if he had seen the comical wink which the aforesaid Mat had given to one of the servant-maids, as he reported his own sympathy and benevolence to his master, he might probably have somewhat restricted his encomium upon him.
“I can't say, sir,” he replied, “that I paid particular attention to the dialogue between you.”