“I will, my Lord; only, my Lord, just before I go—about the Undher Gaolership?”
“Your appointment to it is cancelled,” replied the other, “for many reasons; you avoided prosecuting that wild priest.”
“But sure I said, my Lord, that when I'd get into my situation—”
“Your appointment to it is cancelled, I repeat; the fact is, O'Drive, I have too much regard for your morals and the advances you have recently made in scriptural knowledge to place you in such a situation. It is only some hardened sinner, some irreclaimable knave, and not an honest man like you, that oughht to be appointed to such an office; the nature of its duties would only draw you into bad habits and corrupt your principles. The fact is, your very virtues and good qualities; prevent you from getting it—for get it, you assuredly shall not.”
“Is that your last detarmination, my Lord?”
“My last respecting that matter,” replied the prelate.
“Then, upon my conscience,” returned Darby, “according to that rule, hell resave the ha'porth of the kind there was to prevent you from bein' a bishop. I hear you're goin' up to Dublin to be consecrated, and be me sowl, you want it; but I'd take my book oath that all the grace in your church won't be able to consecrate you into thrue religion. The back o' my hand to you, I say; for I hate everything that is ungrateful.”
It often happens that a petty insult, coming from an unexpected source, excites our indignation more than an offence from a higher quarter. The new made prelate actually got black in the face, and giddy in the head, with the furious fit of passion which seized him on hearing this language from Darby.
In the meantime, we leave him to cool as best he can, and follow Darby to Castle Cumber, where he thought it probable he might meet Father M'Cabe; nor was he mistaken. He found that very zealous gentleman superintending the erection of a new chapel on a site given to Father Roche by Mr Hartley. The priest, who knew that the other had recently avoided him, felt considerably surprised at seeing the bailiff approach him of his own free will.
“Well,” said he, in a voice which contained equal parts of irony and anger, “what do you want with me, Mr. Protestant? Ah, what a blessed Protestant you are! and what a hawl they made when they caught you! What do you want, you shuffling scoundrel?”