“You can corn the trouts, Barny, and the eels too; but should you catch nothing, go to Pat Hartigan, Captain Sloethorn's gamekeeper, and, if you tell him it's for me, he'll drag you a batch out of the fish-pond.”
“Ah! then, you're Reverence, it's himself that'll do that wid a heart an' a half.”
Such was the conversation which took place between the Reverend Philemy M'Guirk, and those of his parishioners in whose houses he had appointed to hold a series of Stations, for the week ensuing the Sunday laid in this our account of that hitherto undescribed portion of the Romish discipline.
Now, the reader is to understand, that a station in this sense differs from a station made to any peculiar spot remarkable for local sanctity. There, a station means the performance of a pilgrimage to a certain place, under peculiar circumstances, and the going through a stated number of prayers and other penitential ceremonies, for the purpose of wiping out sin in this life, or of relieving the soul of some relation from the pains of purgatory in the other; here, it simply means the coming of the parish priest and his curate to some house in the town-land, on a day publicly announced from the altar for that purpose, on the preceding Sabbath.
This is done to give those who live within the district in which the station is held an opportunity of coming to their duty, as frequenting the ordinance of confession is emphatically called. Those who attend confession in this manner once a year, are considered merely to have done their duty; it is expected, however, that they should approach the tribunal,* as it is termed, at least twice during that period, that is, at the two great festivals of Christmas and Easter. The observance or omission of this rite among Roman Catholics, establishes, in a great degeee, the nature of individual character. The man who,frequents his duty will seldom be pronounced a bad man, let his conduct and principles be what they may in other respects; and he who neglects it, is looked upon, by those who attend it, as in a state little short of reprobation.
* That is, of confession—so going to confession is
termed by the priests.
When the “giving out” of the stations was over, and a few more jests were broken by his Reverence, to which the congregation paid the tribute of a general and uproarious laugh, he turned round, and resumed the performance of the mass, whilst his “flock” began to finger their beads with faces as grave as if nothing of the kind had occurred. When mass was finished, and the holy water sprinkled upon the people, out of a tub carried by the mass-server through the chapel for that purpose, the priest gave them a Latin benediction, and they dispersed.
Now, of the five individuals in whose houses the “stations” were appointed to be held, we will select Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy for our purpose; and this we do, because it was the first time in which a station was ever kept in his house, and consequently Phaddhy and his wife had to undergo the initiatory ceremony of entertaining Father Philemy and his curate, the Reverend Con M'Coul, at dinner.
Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy had been, until a short time before the period in question, a very poor man; but a little previous to that event, a brother of his, who had no children, died very rich—that is, for a farmer—and left him his property, or, at least, the greater part of it. While Phaddhy was poor, it was surprising what little notice he excited from his Reverence; in fact, I have heard him acknowledge, that during all the days of his poverty, he never got a nod of recognition or kindness from Father Philemy, although he sometimes did, he said, from Father Con, his curate, who honored him on two occasions so far as to challenge him to a bout at throwing the shoulder-stone, and once to a leaping match, at both of which exercises Father Con, but for the superior power of Phaddhy, had been unrivalled.
“It was an unlucky day to him,” says Phaddy, “that he went to challenge me, at all at all; for I was the only man that ever bate him, and he wasn't able to hould up his head in the parish for many a day afther.”