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CHAPTER XX.
Cormac Cullen was at his desk, making up certain weekly returns to the National School, on the Saturday afternoon, when the door of the large empty room was opened, and he heard a strident voice exclaiming, “All right! He’ll know me when he sees me.” And therewith the coadjutor-priest of Rienvella parish entered, riding-whip in hand, and wearing high boots, as if he had just come from horseback. After the usual brief salutation, he pompously seated himself in the chair of the chief master before the central desk.
“A fine room,” said he, looking along the broad bare space, whence the benches were piled for cleansing purposes. “All Catholics, I suppose, on the lists?”
“Very few others, sir,” answered the assistant-master, who was standing with his pen in his hand.
“Then the teachers must be Catholic,” said Mr. Devenish, casting a scrutinizing look at Cormac; “the Church cannot permit it otherwise.”
“So they are, sir.”
“Cormac, don’t equivocate to your clergy. I hear a bad report of you. ‘Twas that brought me here to-day. You’ve doubts of your religion, sir. Why don’t you come to your clergy to have ‘em solved.”
“Mr. Devenish, I am not in your parish at present.”
“But all your family are, and I see you often at mass in our place. I’m come to talk to you as a friend, and advise you not to damage your prospects by going with them Biblicals. A turncoat is a marked man, Mr. Cormac Cullen.”
The assistant-master took no notice of this hint, except that the colour on his square, beardless face heightened a little. The priest fixed him with his penetrating eyes.
“Suppose I had doubts, as you say, Mr. Devenish, and was disposed to bring ‘em to you, being a clergyman, for explanation, may I ask how you would go about setting me right, sir?”
Mr. Devenish settled himself deeper in the arm-chair.
“I’d show you the authority of the Church as all-sufficient; our Catholic Church having every mark of the true Church, in unity—that’s being one and indivisible,—in antiquity, and in apostolicity—that’s coming right down from the Apostles through the Popes of Rome,—besides being universal, as you know the word Catholic means, Cormac,—which is, having the most people in it. Look at this very special school—two or three Protestants, and, I suppose, a hundred Catholics.”
“A hundred and twenty-seven, sir. But, Mr. Devenish, in England it would be quite the other way. In England there would be only one or two Catholics, may be none at all; and in Russia, there’s the Greek Church.”
“I’m afraid you’ve learned to be a great quibbler, Cormac. Of course there’s plenty of heretics, which isn’t much matter to you, so long as you ar’n’t one yourself. As to the Protestants, we all know Luther invented their religion three hundred years ago.”
“If I wasn’t arguing just for argument’s sake, I’d say the Bible is older than Luther, Father Devenish.”
“Yes; but there’s tradition besides the Bible, and there’s the only true interpretation of the infallible Church.”
“Sir, if my father sent me a letter, it isn’t only to the messenger that brought it I’d look to see if what was inside was true.”
“These familiar comparisons, Cormac, are unbecoming the gravity of controversy, which is a branch of theology, and not to be lightly handled.” And the priest proceeded to press his great point, the supreme authority of the Church, knowing well that the whole question of doctrine is settled for any man who thoroughly embraces the principle that the Roman Church must decide for him “what is truth.” Very soon he had Cormac completely nonplussed—run down by a torent of assertion and showy but baseless reasoning, formidable to his imperfect knowledge.
“Next time you come over to your father’s, Cullen, call on me for a book that’ll explain more fully what I’ve been saying. It’s ‘The End of Controversy,’ and I hope will put a clean finish to it with you, Cormac,” said Mr. Devenish, standing up in high good humour. Head and shoulders he towered over the small, neat-built figure of the young schoolmaster, who had on his intelligent face no satisfied expression. The other saw it, and paused in his departure. “It’s a wonder a clever young fellow like you never thought of Maynooth.”
High flattery this, and Cormac almost rose to the bait; but he only said, “My line of life is settled now, your reverence.”
“Don’t spoil it, then, by meddling with injurious things you’ve no call to. I’d be sorry your father’s son would hurt himself; and I’m afraid I’ll be compelled to make an example in my parish before very long.”
If Cormac had any doubt as to Mr. Devenish’s meaning, it was made plain to him on the Monday following. The people coming into market brought word how the “soupers” had been cursed with book and bell, and all the solemnities of altar excommunication. Nobody was to hold intercourse with them, even in the ordinary matters of buying and selling, on pain of being read out from the chapel rails by name. Nobody was to speak to them on the road, or enter their cabins on any pretense whatever.
“Well, that’s hard lines enough,” said Cormac to his younger brother, a lad who had come into Roonard with the farm produce. “And who are the soupers?”
“O, the Manuscript Man first an’ foremost, as it was he began it all; an’ he got the worst handling. ‘All his following an’ all his favouring,’ says Father Devenish, ‘in secla seclorum, amen.’ O, he pronounced the Latin awful entirely—ever so much of it at the beginning, with a big black book under his arm which he pulled out and shut with a bang. The mother was frightened out of her life.”
“All his following and all his favouring,” repeated Cormac. “Sure he didn’t curse the innocent wife and daughter?” as an image of Maureen, deserted by all the world, rose before his mind.
“I don’t know; but Pat Colman got it also, hot and heavy. ‘Anathema maranatha be your portion, Pat,’ says Father Devenish, an’ rang the little bell furious, an’ blew out the blessed candles; an’ the whole of it is, there isn’t one in the parish this minute daur show them one bit of common civility; and the bitterest of all aginst ‘em are the votheens an’ the scapularians.”
Cormac went back to his classes with many chafing thoughts in his heart. Here was tyranny as real as he had read about in history books. These obscure men were fighting a battle for freedom of conscience, and his young blood yearned to their side. Would he ever have looked into the controversy between the error of Rome and the truth of God, had it not been for this persecution waging under his eyes? He might have been satisfied with half-skeptical indifferentism which is the natural transition state of the educated Romanist who thinks his way out of early superstitions.
His next Saturday found him early on the road to Rienvella, to see for himself how matters went with his friends.
A short way past the streamlet boundary of the parish, he came up to Mr. Armstrong, the rector, standing with a little girl by the hand, looking at a corner of a field where the beautiful blue flax was in flower.
It has been previously mentioned that this good man, having a large family and a small income, was obliged to farm, as eking out his resources, and making all hands available. Consequently, every thing home-made was the rule in the rector’s household; the straw hat on his head had been plaited by his daughter, notwithstanding its close resemblance to Leghorn’ the snowy linen of the little one’s pinafore was from flax of his own growing; the gray tweed of his coat was grown on their own sheep. No wonder that he stopped to look at the flax; lovelier than any other crop on all the land, it waved its lithe stalks and blades of tenderest green, supporting petals of ultramarine colour.
“Your servant, sir,” said Cormac, pausing. Suddenly it had come into his mind, “Here is the man who can explain all my difficulties; and at all events, I’ll hear the other side of Father Devenish’s talk, for I don’t believe but the Biblicals have more to say for themselves than he allows.”
And so Cormac acted on impulse. But he had been during the week a frequent student of the Bible which the Manuscript Man had lent him; in his sympathy for the persecution of his friend, he had sought to sift whether the reason for the prohibition, so severely enforced, was what he began to suspect.
“I wanted a few words with you, sir, on a controversial subject.”
“Some neophyte fain to try his debating weapons,” thought the rector, as he looked at the clearly-cut, clever face of the young man.
“Certainly,” he said aloud; “I shall be glad to speak with you. Flossy,” to his little girl, as he lifted her over the fence into the grass walk round the field, “run home and tell your brothers to go to lessons without me. I’ll be back presently.”
The little thing ran off, her tiny feet twinkling on the path, only stopping on the elevation of the stone stile leading to the lawn to look back at her papa and the strange man, who were in close conversation. While she stood a moment she heard the hoofs of a rapid rider coming along the dusty road in their direction: somebody, who gave a sort of check to his horse on seeing them, as if he would have stopped to speak; but who, on second thoughts, rode foward at the same energetic pace. Did Father Devenish, for it was no other man than he, think that “The End of Controversy” (in his pocket) was anticipated?