The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain. William Carleton

accounts he is worth a visit.”

      “He is more likely to serve you in this matter than any one I know,” said the attorney; “or, if he can't himself, perhaps he may find out those that can. Very little has happened in the parish within the last thirty-five years with which he is not acquainted.”

      “I like the man,” replied the other, “from your description of him.”

      “At all events, you would if you knew him,” replied Birney. “He is both a good priest and a good man.”

      He then directed him to the worthy clergy-man's residence, which was not more than a mile and a half from the town, and the stranger lost little time in reaching it.

      On approaching the house, he was much struck with the extraordinary air of neatness, cleanliness, and comfort, which characterized not only the house itself, but everything about it. A beautiful garden facing the south, stretched down to the left, as you approached the elegant little whitewashed dwelling, which, placed on a green knoll, literally shone for miles over the beautiful and serene country by which it was surrounded. Below it, to the south, between firm green banks and meadows, wound a beautiful river, and to the north rose one of the most picturesque hills, probably, in the kingdom; at the hip of which was a gloomy, precipitous glen, which, for wildness and solitary grandeur, is unrivalled by anything of the kind we have seen. On the top of the hill is a cave, supposed to be Druidical, over which an antiquarian would dream half a life; and, indeed, this is not to be wondered at, inasmuch as he would find there some of the most distinctly traced Ogham characters to be met with in any part of the kingdom.

      On entering the house, our nameless friend found the good priest in what a stranger might be apt to consider a towering passion.

      “You lazy bosthoon,” said he, to a large, in fact to a huge young fellow, a servant, “was it to allow the pigs, the destructive vagabonds, to turn up my beautiful bit of lawn that I undertook to give you house-room, wages, and feeding—eh? and a bitther business to me the same feeding is. If you were a fellow that knew when he had enough, I could bear the calamity of keeping you at all. But that's a subject, God help you, and God help me too that has to suffer for it, on which your ignorance is wonderful. To know when to stop so long as the blessed victuals is before you is a point of polite knowledge you will never reach, you immaculate savage. Not a limb about you but you'd give six holidays to out of the seven, barrin' your walrus teeth, and, if God or man would allow you the fodder, you'd give us an elucidation of the perpetual motion. Be off, and get the strongest set of rings that Jemmy M'Quade can make for those dirty, grubbing bastes of pigs. The Lord knows I don't wondher that the Jews hated the thieves, for sure they are the only blackguard animals that ever committed suicide, and set the other bastes of the earth such an unchristian example. Not that a slice of ham is so bad a thing in itself, especially when it is followed by a single tumbler of poteen punch.”

      “Troth, masther, I didn't see the pigs, or they'd not have my sanction to go into the lawn.”

      “Not a thing ever you see, or wish to see, barring your dirty victuals.”

      “I hope, sir,” said the stranger, much amused in the meantime, but with every courtesy of manner, “that my request for a short interview does not come at an unseasonable hour?”

      “And, do you hear me, you bosthoon,” proceeded his reverence—this, however, he uttered sotto voce, from an apprehension lest the stranger should hear his benevolent purposes—“did you give the half crown to Widow Magowran, whose children, poor creatures, are lying ill of fever?”

      Not a word to the stranger, who, however, overheard him.

      “I did, plaise your reverence,” replied the huge servant.

      “What did she say,” asked the other, “when you slipped it to her?”

      “She said nothing, sir, for a minute or so, but dropped on her knees, and the tears came from her eyes in such a way that I couldn't help letting down one or two myself. 'God spare him,' she then said, 'for his piety and charity makes him a blessin' to the parish.' Throth, I couldn't help lettin' down a tear or two myself.”

      “You couldn't now.” exclaimed the simple-hearted priest; “why, then, I forgive you the pigs, you great, good-natured bosthoon.”

      The stranger now thought that he might claim some notice from his reverence.

      “I fear, sir,” said he—

      “And whisper, Mat,” proceeded the priest—paying not the slightest attention to him, “did you bring the creel of turf to poor Barney Farrell and his family, as I desired you?”

      “I did, your reverence, and put a good heap on it for the creatures.”

      “Well, I forgive you the pigs!” exclaimed the benevolent priest, satisfied that his pious injunctions had been duly observed, and extending a portion of his good feeling to the instrument; “and as for the appetite I spoke of, sure, you good-natured giant you, haven't you health, exercise, and a most destructive set of grinders? and, indeed, the wonder would be if you didn't make the sorrow's havoc at a square of bacon; so for heaping the creel I forgive you the digestion and the pigs both.”

      “Will you permit me.” interposed the stranger, a third time.

      “But listen again,” proceeded his reverence, “did you bring the bread and broth to the poor Caseys, the creatures?”

      “No, sir,” replied Mat, licking his lips, as the stranger thought, “it was Kitty Kavanagh brought that; you know you never trust me wid the vittles—ever since—”

      “Yes, I ought to have remembered that notorious fact. There's where your weakness is strongest, but, indeed, it is only one of them; for he that would trust you with the carriage of a bottle of whiskey might be said to commit a great oversight of judgment. With regard to the victuals, I once put my trust in God, and dispatched you, after a full meal, with some small relief to a poor family, in the shape of corned beef and greens, and you know the sequel, that's enough. Be off now, and get the rings made as I desired you.”

      He then turned to the stranger, whom he scanned closely; and we need hardly assure our reader that the other, in his turn, marked the worthy priest's bearing, manner, and conversation with more than usual curiosity. The harmless passion in which he found him—his simple but touching benevolence, added to the genuine benignity with which he relaxed his anger against Mat Euly, the gigantic servant, because he told him that he had put a heap upon the creel of turf which he brought to poor Barney Farrell and his family, not omitting the tears he represented himself to have shed from Christian sympathy with Widow Magowran, both of which acts were inventions of the purest water, resorted to in order to soften the kind-hearted priest; all this, we say, added to what he had heard from Birney, deeply interested the stranger in the character of Father Peter. Nor was he less struck by his appearance. Father MacMahon was a round, tight, rosy-faced little man, with laughing eyes, full of good nature, and a countenance which altogether might be termed a title-page to benevolence. His lips were finely cut, and his well-formed mouth, though full of sweetness, was utterly free from every indication of sensuality or passion. Indeed, it was at all times highly expressive of a disposition the most kind and placable, and not unfrequently of a comical spirit, that blended with his benevolence to a degree that rendered the whole cast of his features, as they varied with and responded to the kindly and natural impulses of his heart, a perfect treat to look upon. That his heart and soul were genuinely Irish, might easily be perceived by the light of humor which beamed with such significant contagion from every feature of his face, as well as by the tear which misery and destitution and sorrow never failed to bring to his cheek, thus overshadowing for a time, if we may say so, the whole sunny horizon of his countenance. But this was not all; you might read there a spirit of kindly sarcasm that was in complete keeping with a disposition always generous and affectionate, mostly blunt and occasionally caustic. Nothing could exceed the extreme neatness with which he attended to his dress and person. In this point he was scrupulously exact and careful; but this attention to the minor morals was the result of anything but personal pride, for we are bound to say, that,