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He, too, had an inclination for Home Rule, and still entertained a jealousy against the quasi-ascendency of a Protestant bishop; but he had no sympathy whatever with Father Brosnan. Ireland for the Irish might be very well, but he did not at all want to have Ireland for the Americans. Father Giles and Father Malachi certainly agreed on one thing that Brosnan was a great trouble.
"It is very difficult to get at the vagaries of mind in such a man as Mr. Brosnan. But what do you intend to do?" "I have come to you for advice. But remember this: in my present frame of mind, the suspicion that I feel as to poor Florian is ten times worse to me than the loss of all my meadows.
But it would have been unjust to him to say that he was a murderer, or that he countenanced murder. To him it was that young Florian now betook himself, and found him seated alone in the back parlour in Father Giles's house. The old priest was out, and Father Brosnan was engaged on some portion of clerical duties.
But the priest must do as his Church directs him, and the brands have to be saved from the burning. Father Brosnan sent the boy to Father Malachi, and Father Malachi told the lad to go to his terrestrial father. It was this that Mr. Jones had expected, and there the boy was received as a Catholic. But to Father Brosnan the matter was much more important in its political view.
Is there no one else? What curate lives with Father Malachi?" "There is none with him at Ballintubber. One Brosnan lives with Father Giles." "That man is a firebrand," said Mr. Blake. "He is a wretched politician, always preaching up Home Rule." "But I do not think that even he would teach a boy to deceive his own father in such a matter as this." "I am not sure," said Blake.
But Florian feeling that it would be as good to be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and feeling also that he had at last cast aside all the bonds which bound him to Pat Carroll and Father Brosnan, feeling that there was nothing left for him but the internecine enmity of his old friends, got up from the floor, and wiping away the tears from his face, spoke out boldly the whole truth as he knew it.
He had, it was said, been untrue to his religion. He had given a solemn promise to Father Brosnan, of what nature was not generally known, and had broken it. "The bittherness of the Orange feud was in his blood," said Father Brosnan. But neither did he explain the meaning of what he said, as none of the Jones family had ever been Orangemen.
Then Pat signified that he alluded to the man in the mask, and the gentleman in the mask clenched his fist and shook it, and shook his head also. "You ask Father Brosnan also, whether you ain't to be thrue to us Catholics now you're one of us? It's a great favour as has been done you. You're mindful o' that ain't you?" Poor Flory said that he was mindful.
He had gone so far as to forbid Father Brosnan to do this, or to do that on various occasions, to make a political speech here, or to attend a demonstration there; in doing which, or in not doing it, the curate sometimes obeyed, but sometimes disobeyed the priest, thereby bringing Father Giles in his old age into infinite trouble.
You have promised, and having promised, Father Brosnan has frightened you. He and Pat Carroll together have cowed the very heart within you. The consequence is that you are becoming one of them, and instead of moving as a gentleman on the face of the earth, you will be such as they are.
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