“It was that chalice he broke.... That
was the beginning of it. Of course, they say
it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean.
But still.... They say it was the boy’s
fault. But poor James was so nervous, God be
merciful to him!”
“And was that it?” said my aunt.
“I heard something....”
Eliza nodded.
“That affected his mind,” she said.
“After that he began to mope by himself, talking
to no one and wandering about by himself. So one
night he was wanted for to go on a call and they couldn’t
find him anywhere. They looked high up and low
down; and still they couldn’t see a sight of
him anywhere. So then the clerk suggested to
try the chapel. So then they got the keys and
opened the chapel and the clerk and Father O’Rourke
and another priest that was there brought in a light
for to look for him.... And what do you think
but there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark
in his confession-box, wide- awake and laughing-like
softly to himself?”
She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened;
but there was no sound in the house: and I knew
that the old priest was lying still in his coffin
as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death,
an idle chalice on his breast.
Eliza resumed:
“Wide-awake and laughing-like to himself....
So then, of course, when they saw that, that made
them think that there was something gone wrong with
him....”
It was Joe Dillon who introduced the Wild
West to us. He had a little library made up of
old numbers of The Union Jack , Pluck and The Halfpenny
Marvel . Every evening after school we met in
his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He
and his fat young brother Leo, the idler, held the
loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm;
or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But,
however well we fought, we never won siege or battle
and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon’s war
dance of victory. His parents went to eight-
o’clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street
and the peaceful odour of Mrs. Dillon was prevalent
in the hall of the house. But he played too fiercely
for us who were younger and more timid. He looked
like some kind of an Indian when he capered round
the garden, an old tea-cosy on his head, beating a
tin with his fist and yelling:
“Ya! yaka, yaka, yaka!”
Everyone was incredulous when it was reported that
he had a vocation for the priesthood. Nevertheless
it was true.
A spirit of unruliness diffused itself among us and,
under its influence, differences of culture and constitution
were waived. We banded ourselves together, some
boldly, some in jest and some almost in fear:
and of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians
who were afraid to seem studious or lacking in robustness,
I was one. The adventures related in the literature
of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at
