The Lake eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 278 pages of information about The Lake.

The Lake eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 278 pages of information about The Lake.
and it will look like any other church, and another link will be broken.  “Which is the better—­a great memory or some trifling comfort?"’ A few moments after the car turned the corner and he caught sight of Father Moran, ‘out for his morning’s walk,’ he said; and he compared Moran’s walk up and down the highroad with his own rambles along the lake shores and through the pleasant woods of Carnecun.

For seven years Father Oliver had walked up and down that road, for there was nowhere else for him to walk; he walked that road till he hated it, but he did not think that he had suffered from the loneliness of the parish as much as Moran.  He had been happier than Moran in Bridget Clery’s cottage—­a great idea enabled him to forget every discomfort; and ‘we are never lonely as long as our idea is with us,’ he ejaculated.  ’But Moran is a plain man, without ideas, enthusiasms, or exaltations.  He does riot care for reading, or for a flower garden, only for drink.  Drink gives him dreams, and man must dream,’ he said.

He knew that his curate was pledged to cure himself, and believed he was succeeding; but, all the same, it was terrible to think that the temptation might overpower him at any moment, and that he might st agger helpless through the village—­a very shocking example to everybody.

The people were prone enough in that direction, and for a priest to give scandal instead of setting a good example was about as bad as anything that could happen in the parish.  But what was he to do?  There was no hard-and-fast rule about anything, and Father Oliver felt that Moran must have his chance.

‘I was beginning to think we were never going to see you again;’ and Father Moran held out a long, hard hand to Father Oliver.  ’You’ll put up your horse?  Christy, will you take his reverence’s horse?  You’ll stay and have some dinner with me?’

’I can’t stay more than half an hour.  I’m on my way to Tinnick; I’ve business with my sister, and it will take me some time.’

‘You have plenty of time.’

’No, I haven’t?  I ought to have taken the other road; I’m late as it is.’

‘But you will come into the house, if only for a few minutes.’

Father Oliver had taught Bridget Clery cleanliness; at least, he had persuaded her to keep the f owls out of the kitchen, and he had put a paling in front of the house and made a little garden—­an unassuming one, it is true, but a pleasant spot of colour in the summer-time—­and he wondered how it was that Father Moran was not ashamed of its neglected state, nor of the widow’s kitchen.  These things were, after all, immaterial.  What was important was that he should find no faintest trace of whisky in Moran’s room.  It was a great relief to him not to notice any, and no doubt that was why Moran insisted on bringing him into the house.  The specifications were a pretext.  He had to glance at them, however.

’No doubt if the abbey is to be roofed at all the best roof is the one you propose.’

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Project Gutenberg
The Lake from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.