Grandmother and the Priests (41 page)

“And why not? Ye hae lifted your hand many’s the time to a man, have ye not?”

The Squire looked at him again, then looked away. He let his eyes rove over the new slates which had been fastened in place. “There’s one not sae good, near the chimney,” he said.

He climbed higher on the ladder. He was still deathly white, and the priest could see the tension about his mouth.

“I’d not have taken ye for a man of spirit,” said the Squire. “Ye are but a lad, a puling bairn, fresh from his mother’s breast. And where did we get this fine high spirit?”

“Here,” said Father Tom, making a gesture that encompassed the village.

“It’s good for something then, my hamlet.”

“Ye may own the land and the hooses, but ye do not own the souls, nor do ye own any man unless he lets ye. I will pray for such a man.”

The Squire grunted. “Then, ye’ll pray for a’ of them.”

“And ye, too, while I am aboot it.”

The Squire’s face changed again. “Ye’ll not be saying your nasty prayers aboot me!” he said. “I want none of your Popish prayers! I hae done with — ” He paused. Then he climbed still higher, and pointed to the chimney. “Ye’ll hae that falling and bashing in your saucy head. It’s fair falling now.”

“I know that. I will buy some mortar and mend it.” The priest turned slowly again, chipped off a damaged slate and replaced it. The Squire watched him. “I’ll give a man his due,” he said. “That’s an unco good job ye are doing. There’s many could learn from ye.”

“I need more nails,” said the priest, and the Squire, as if musing, went down and fetched more nails. Father Tom began to sing; the Squire winced, then joined in, and one voice was boyishly tenor and the other deep bass:

“Oh, never, never, Scotia’s realm desert,

But still the patriot, and the patriot bard,

In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!”

They ended on a loud and lusty note. Not a soul appeared, though the street had rung with melody. They smiled at each other. “I dinna take it back,” said the Squire. “Ye hae a fearsome voice. Ye’ll shrivel the eardrums o’ the communicants.”

The bee was humming very fast over the priest’s mind. “I’ll be mair enchanted to shrivel yours,” he said. The Squire’s face became harsh and cold. “Hae ye done?” he asked, as the hammer paused.

“Aye, I hae done,” said the priest, and he followed the Squire down the ladder. They stood face to face now, both tall even for Highlanders, but one massive and the other lean. “Ye’ll be needing some meat on those bones. A plucked fowl,” said the Squire. “Will ye come to tea tonight?”

“No,” said the priest. “There is my sermon, and tomorrow is Confessions.”

“Sunday, then?”

Mrs. Logan heard this exchange, and put her hand over her rounded mouth of astonishment.

“No, and I thank ye,” said the priest. “And I canna come Monday; I hae the other hoose to make tight.”

“I will send ye a man,” said the Squire. “It isna right for a priest to be mending other folks’ hooses. Shameful.”

Father Tom had a tantalizing vision of the Squire’s ‘man’ appearing at the manse to repair the wee minister’s roof, and he smiled longingly. Then he was surprised over this entire episode. Ah, but the man had a way with him, for all his tyrannies and his hard, proud and righteous heart, his lack of humility, his arrogance. And, the bee was very insistent in Father Tom’s mind now, buzzing quite noisily.

“I’ll come Tuesday for tea, sir,” he said. “If it will please ye.”

“Tuesday, then, it is,” said the Squire. He swung lithely up upon his horse, who was nuzzling the priest curiously. The young man patted the silken nose. “Ye hae a bonnie face,” said the Squire, with abruptness, and pulled on the reins and cantered off down the road.

The odd encounter was all over the village not too long after the lingering twilight, via the avid gossip of Mrs. Logan. The pub chattered with it. The Squire had ‘taken’ to the young priest. By the time it was truly dark the Squire had also helped to ‘bang on the slates’. There were excited rumors among Father Tom’s flock that the Squire had promised to replace all the plain glass windows in the kirk with ones similar to that which he had already given. There were even rumors that he would be ‘converted’.

“We’ll hae a saint o’ our ain at last, Ian MacVicar,” said some of the Catholics optimistically. A little boy, born at midnight, was named Ian in honor of the first ‘saint’, who was somberly drinking too much whiskey at that hour. At two in the morning he was dead drunk and slept on a sofa in his parlor. It was often that he did this, and his housekeeper was loyal and devoted and so no one ever knew. “He hae his sorrows,” she would tell herself, shaking her head. She cooled a glass of barley-water and took it sympathetically to her master in the morning. It was sae sad to suffer from a delicate stomach.

The two Masses were attended encouragingly that Sunday. The communicants swarmed to the Communion rail. That afternoon Father Tom, feeling that things were getting on very well indeed, called on his brother in Christ, the Reverend Mr. Bruce Gregor, and his Betsy. The rectory was as tiny as Father Tom’s own, but less cared for, and the slates were higgledy-piggledy all over the roof. However, there was a beautiful little garden like a rainbow with late summer flowers, and when he entered the house the priest was immediately impressed with the air of love and innocence which pervaded it.

The young pastor was shyly delighted, and brought his very young wife by the hand. She was most obviously pregnant, and timidly tried to conceal her state. The rumors had been quite right, thought the priest. She was a very lovely lass, with light brown curls, very large dark eyes, a complexion like a tearose and a mouth the color of a particularly bright carnation. She was as small as her husband. It was evident that they loved each other devotedly. Their very presence lighted up the mean little parlor like the sun itself.

“Gooseberry tarts, my Betsy’s,” said Bruce, with pride. The girl blushed. They all blushed together. The tea was hot if a little, and necessarily, weak. There was loaf sugar and a pitcher of cream, and not only the boasted tarts but fresh hot scones and current jam and a lump of butter. Father Tom had not forgotten his share of the feast; he had asked Mrs. Logan to boil a large section of the ham. She had then wrapped it in a white tea towel which she had brought from her own house. There was no doubt that she thought it imprudent of him to be visiting the wee minister, who lived outside almost everyone’s pale. Squire MacVicar would not like it at all.

The minister tried to hide how desperately hungry he was, therefore he began by insisting that he was not hungry, that he had had a fine dinner, cooked by his Betsy, and that the priest must eat the major part of the ham, himself. Betsy would ‘taste’ a little. But Father Tom stoutly insisted that he had a large joint for dinner that day, and would not be famished for a week in consequence. So, at first with reluctance, then with youthful avidity, the minister and his wife fell upon the ham and ate it with an expression of touching rapture on their faces. Father Tom, feeling rich and overstuffed and elderly, could have wept with sympathy. This did not keep him from enjoying the scones and tarts, however, and he ravaged them. There were only sixty-one years among the three of the young people about the tea table, if that many.

It began to rain, and the minister threw a small lump or two of coal on the fire. The room chilled and darkened. Betsy lighted a paraffin lamp. The little kettle sang over the coals. Betsy drew the curtains. The boyish clergymen sat before the fire and sipped their tea. Father Tom regretted that he had forgotten to bring the whiskey the Squire had left for him. It would cheer the minister, and the priest would enjoy the thought of him drinking his father-in-law’s whiskey. Betsy went to the scullery to wash up.

The minister stammered, “I hope ye’ll not be taking it as impertinent,” he said, “but I hae heard that the — that the — Squire — himself, himself, hae invited you to tea in his hoose on Tuesday. It is but a rumor, perhaps?”

“No,” said the priest. “He was very civil.” He smiled an unecclesiastical smile. “And I hae insulted him.”

The minister’s mouth opened in consternation. “You were nae afraid of him, then?”

“Him?” said Father Tom, superbly. “A man of mean temper and pride, but a human soul for a’ that,” he hurriedly added.

The minister apparently considered that a vast overstatement, and stared gloomily at the fire, his fine red hair like a copper nimbus over his long head. Then he turned awed and fascinated eyes on this doughty priest.

“I envy ye your courage,” said Bruce Gregor.

No one, at any time before this, had envied Father Tom’s courage. On the contrary. He sat up very tall in his stiff chair and his white collar glimmered. He looked every inch the Older Man. He waved his hand deprecatingly. “A petty tyrant, and it is naebody’s fault but the villagers that he is so.”

The roof began to leak a little and the minister regarded it with dismay. “It didna leak in here before this,” he said, and ran for a pan to catch the drops. “Only the bedroom and the scullery,” he said, as he came back with the pan. Father Tom stared at the whitewashed ceiling and marked the spot accurately with his eye. He wondered if he should tell the little minister that a ‘man’ would repair the roof tomorrow, the ‘man’ being himself. No. They would be embarrassed enough when he wheeled his barrow here and demanded a ladder. He said, “Ye hae a ladder, Bruce?”

“A ladder?”

“So if one comes to repair the roof he’ll not need to bring his own,” said the priest, patiently.

“A ladder,” repeated the minister, reflectively. He called, “Betsy, hae we a ladder?”

She assured him, from the scullery, that there was a ladder ‘aboot’. The young minister sighed. “But none will come to the manse, Tom. There were but eight folk in the kirk this morning. Four shillings in a’ in the plate.”

Father Tom thought of the ham. At least these young people would have meat for a few days, and he regretted all the jam and butter and scones he had eaten.

“The auld faether — he was fair afraid of the Squire,” said Bruce. “But his people came to the kirk — ” He looked at the priest questioningly.

“It is a serious sin to miss Sunday Mass, unless for serious cause,” said the priest.

“Eh! That must be a wondrous thing, to hae such authority,” the minister said, wistfully.

“God is the Authority,” said the priest, with some surprise, for he knew little of Scots Presbyterianism. “The duty to obey is man’s. A man hae no merit of his own, save that Our Lord grants him through His own merits. A man must labor with God in the saving of his ain soul.”

The wee minister seemed somewhat confused at this. “Aye, but God hae predestined man before his birth to heaven or hell, and it comes to me sometimes that it is possible that the Squire is predestined to heaven and Betsy and me to hell.”

Father Tom thought this idea entirely unlikely. “A man hae free will,” he said, cautiously, and suddenly remembered the Presbyterian doctrine of Predestination.

“Ah, that he doesna have,” said the minister, sadly. “Not entirely, but only within the framework of Predestination. Man is the puppet of his predetermined destiny.”

Father Tom had been taught not to engage in arguments with other clergy concerning points of faith, for that was not ‘prudent’ and only incited enmity. But he was a young man and the very thought of such a stern belief depressed him and upset him. Life was hard enough, God knew, but how much harder it was if the shadow of hell lay on a man’s spirit so that he believed that no merit he could acquire, and no faith he could be given, could save him if his Lord had determined to cast him into eternal fire.

“Ye mean,” said the priest, appalled, “that one such as the Squire, who hae no heart and only virtue, is assured of heaven if it were determined before his birth?”

The minister nodded. “Aye, that, he hae virtue, full and overflowing, though nae heart. I am a sinful man, I know, and oft do I wonder where my destiny lies. Hell, mayhap, for I am rebellious at times, and is not rebellion the sign of Satan?”

“What is it ye rebel against?” asked the priest, feeling as if he were in some heavy darkness full of pits and dragons.

The minister sighed and sighed. “I rebel that none here hae the courage to come to the kirk because the Squire hates me, and he hates those who will stand with me. The hamlet’s life depends on his ain good will. I rebel that my Betsy mourns to be with her faether, whom she loves, and he willna have her the noo. I rebel when she, who is with our child, pretends to have no appetite so that I may hae something to eat. I rebel that man’s heart is sae hard and there is no kindness in him, but only darkness. ‘Man is desperately wicked and evil from his youth.’ The Master showed the way, but man willna follow it, and laughs at his shepherd. I rebel that I, the minister, am sae futile! And have sae little spirit. I rebel that the Squire terrorizes the countryside so that nae man dare oppose him, and that the Squire will let nae man have a little joy and merriment in his life, in the name of virtue.”

All these things did not seem ‘rebellion’ to the priest, and he said warmly, “That is nae rebellion, Bruce! That is good and not evil. The Squire is a bad and wicked man, for a’ that he does in the name of virtue. Evil is an excess of virtue, sae often times. You have too scrupulous a conscience, and scrupulosity is oft an error.”

The minister was a little shocked and sat back and stared at the priest. “Tom! A man’s conscience canna be too scrupulous!”

We are not speaking the same language, thought the priest in distress, and it came to him, in a startling fashion, that semantics could be a stony barrier between man and his brother, not bringing them together but holding them apart. He had never thought highly of Socrates, so bent on his exact definition of terms and his exact semantics that he had lost touch with the warm heart of man, but now he conceded that Socrates may have had a point. Father Tom thought of the Tower of Babel. It had not only been the cause of new languages among men but had confused the same language which all spoke in common.

It was a relief to the priest when the lovely little Betsy shyly rejoined the two young men. She appeared tired. She sat down and looked earnestly at the priest. “I hae heard my faether is not sae well,” she murmured. “Did he appear so to you?” Her eyes were full of wretched love.

“He seemed,” said Father Tom, with his new grimness, “unco well indeed.” He wanted to add the Scots saying, “The divil takes care of his ain,” but that would have been not only un-Christian but would have upset little Betsy.

He could not resist, however, saying to the minister, “God does not ‘determine’ a man’s immortal fate when He creates that man’s soul. God gives man free will. If He did not, then He would be the creator of evil and not of sublime and absolute good.”

The minister was freshly shocked.

“He gives man the choice,” went on the priest, firmly. “He knew, when He created the soul of the Blessed Mother, that she would accept Christ as her Son, but she had the free will to accept or not. God is omniscient, but man’s will is his own.”

The minister was embarrassed at this sudden spout of dogma, and ashamed that he had put the priest into this position. His innocent eyes filled with tears. “I am not even a good host,” he said with miserable contrition. “I thought to make ye my friend.”