The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer – Complete. Lever Charles James
"It is about four years ago," said the doctor, "since the Bishop, Dr. Plunkett, took it into his head that he'd make a general inspection, 'a reconnoisance," as we'd call it, Mr. Lor — that is, my lord! Through the whole diocese, and leave no part far nor near without poking his nose in it and seeing how matters were doing. He heard very queer stories about his reverence here, and so down he came one morning in the month of July, riding upon an old grey hack, looking just for all the world like any other elderly gentleman in very rusty black. When he got near the village he picked up a little boy to show him the short cut across the fields to the house here; and as his lordship was a 'sharp man and a shrewd,' he kept his eye on every thing as he went along, remarking this, and noting down that.
"'Are ye regular in yer duties, my son?' said he to the gossoon.
"'I never miss a Sunday,' said the gossoon; 'for it's always walking his reverence's horse I am the whole time av prayers.'
"His lordship said no more for a little while, when he muttered between his teeth, 'Ah, it's just slander — nothing but slander and lying tongues.' This soliloquy was caused by his remarking that on every gate he passed, or from every cabin, two or three urchins would come out half naked, but all with the finest heads of red hair he ever saw in his life.
"'How is it, my son,' said he, at length; 'they tell very strange stories about Father Malachi, and I see so many of these children with red hair. Eh — now Father Malachi's a dark man.'
"'True for ye,' said the boy; 'true for ye, Father Malachi's dark; but the coadjutor! — the coadjutor's as red as a fox.'"
When the laugh this story caused had a little subsided, Father Malachi called out, "Mickey Oulahan! Mickey, I say, hand his lordship over 'the groceries'" — thus he designated a square decanter, containing about two quarts of whiskey, and a bowl heaped high with sugar — "a dacent boy is Mickey, my lord, and I'm happy to be the means of making him known to you." I bowed with condescension, while Mr. Oulahan's eyes sparkled like diamonds at the recognition.
"He has only two years of the lease to run, and a 'long charge,' (anglice, a large family,) continued the priest.
"I'll not forget him, you may depend upon it," said I.
"Do you hear that," said Father Malachi, casting a glance of triumph round the table, while a general buzz of commendation on priest and patron went round, with many such phrases as, "Och thin, it's his riv'rance can do it," "na bocklish," "and why not," As for me, I have already "confessed" to my crying sin, a fatal, irresistible inclination to follow the humour of the moment wherever it led me; and now I found myself as active a partizan in quizzing Mickey Oulahan, as though I was not myself a party included in the jest. I was thus fairly launched into my inveterate habit, and nothing could arrest my progress.
One by one the different individuals round the table were presented to me, and made known their various wants, with an implicit confidence in my power of relieving them, which I with equal readiness ministered to. I lowered the rent of every man at table. I made a general jail delivery, an act of grace, (I blush to say,) which seemed to be peculiarly interesting to the present company. I abolished all arrears — made a new line of road through an impassable bog, and over an inaccessible mountain — and conducted water to a mill, which (I learned in the morning) was always worked by wind. The decanter had scarcely completed its third circuit of the board, when I bid fair to be most popular specimen of the peerage that ever visited the "far west." In the midst of my career of universal benevolence, I was interrupted by Father Malachi, whom I found on his legs, pronouncing a glowing eulogium on his cousin's late regiment, the famous North Cork.
"That was the corps!" said he. "Bid them do a thing, and they'd never leave off; and so, when they got orders to retire from Wexford, it's little they cared for the comforts of baggage, like many another regiment, for they threw away every thing but their canteens, and never stopped till they ran to Ross, fifteen miles farther than the enemy followed them. And when they were all in bed the same night, fatigued and tired with their exertions, as ye may suppose, a drummer's boy called out in his sleep — 'here they are — they're coming' — they all jumped up and set off in their shirts, and got two miles out of town before they discovered it was a false alarm."
Peal after peal of laughter followed the priest's encomium on the doctor's regiment; and, indeed, he himself joined most heartily in the mirth, as he might well afford to do, seeing that a braver or better corps than the North Cork, Ireland did not possess.
"Well," said Fin, "it's easy to see ye never can forget what they did at Maynooth."
Father Malachi disclaimed all personal feeling on the subject; and I was at last gratified by the following narrative, which I regret deeply I am not enabled to give in the doctor's own verbiage; but writing as I do from memory, (in most instances,) I can only convey the substance:
It was towards the latter end of the year '98 — the year of the troubles — that the North Cork was ordered, "for their sins" I believe, to march from their snug quarters in Fermoy, and take up a position in the town of Maynooth — a very considerable reverse of fortune to a set of gentlemen extremely addicted to dining out, and living at large upon a very pleasant neighbourhood. Fermoy abounded in gentry; Maynooth at that, time had few, if any, excepting his Grace of Leinster, and he lived very privately, and saw no company. Maynooth was stupid and dull — there were neither belles nor balls; Fermoy (to use the doctor's well remembered words) had "great feeding," and "very genteel young ladies, that carried their handkerchiefs in bags, and danced with the officers."
They had not been many weeks in their new quarters, when they began to pine over their altered fortunes, and it was with a sense of delight, which a few months before would have been incomprehensible to them, they discovered, that one of their officers had a brother, a young priest in the college: he introduced him to some of his confreres, and the natural result followed. A visiting acquaintance began between the regiment and such of the members of the college as had liberty to leave the precincts: who, as time ripened the acquaintance into intimacy, very naturally preferred the cuisine of the North Cork to the meagre fare of "the refectory." At last seldom a day went by, without one or two of their reverences finding themselves guests at the mess. The North Corkians were of a most hospitable turn, and the fathers were determined the virtue should not rust for want of being exercised; they would just drop in to say a word to "Captain O'Flaherty about leave to shoot in the demesne," as Carton was styled; or, they had a "frank from the Duke for the Colonel," or some other equally pressing reason; and they would contrive to be caught in the middle of a very droll story just as the "roast beef" was playing. Very little entreaty then sufficed — a short apology for the "dereglements" of dress, and a few minutes more found them seated at table without further ceremony on either side.
Among the favourite guests from the college, two were peculiarly held in estimation — "the Professor of the Humanities," Father Luke Mooney; and the Abbe D'Array, "the Lecturer on Moral Philosophy, and Belles Lettres;" and certain it is, pleasanter fellows, or more gifted with the "convivial bump," there never existed. He of the Humanities was a droll dog — a member of the Curran club, the "monks of the screw," told an excellent story, and sang the "Cruiskeen Lawn" better than did any before or since him; — the moral philosopher, though of a different genre, was also a most agreeable companion, an Irishman transplanted in his youth to St. Omers, and who had grafted upon his native humour a considerable share of French smartness and repartee — such were the two, who ruled supreme in all the festive arrangements of this jovial regiment, and were at last as regular at table, as the adjutant and the paymaster, and so might they have continued, had not prosperity, that in its blighting influence upon the heart, spares neither priests nor laymen, and is equally severe upon mice (see Aesop's fable) and moral philosophers, actually deprived them, for the "nonce" of reason, and tempted them to their ruin. You naturally ask, what did they do? Did they venture upon allusions to the retreat upon Ross? Nothing of the kind. Did they, in that vanity which wine inspires, refer by word, act, or inuendo, to the well-known order of their Colonel when reviewing his regiment in "the Phoenix," to "advance two steps backwards, and dress by the gutter." Far be it from them: though indeed either of these had been esteemed light in the balance compared with their real crime. "Then, what was their failing —