The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 106

Father Farrell turned for a moment and whispered to his companion, "I'll see about the hurt man, and do you try and keep the boys quiet.

I can see that Shanvilla is ready for a fight. Tell them that I'll be with them in a very few minutes, if the man is not badly hurt. If he is, my friend, I'm afraid we shall have a hard task to keep Shanvilla quiet. Could you not send your men home at once?"

"I'll do what I can; but you can do more with your own men than I can.

Rathcash will not strike a blow, I know, until the very last moment."

They then separated, Father Farrell dismounting and going over to where Emon-a-knock still lay in M'Dermott's arms; and Father Roche up toward the Rathcash men.

"Boys," said he, addressing them, "this is a sad ending to the day's sport; but, thank G.o.d, from what I hear, the man is not much hurt. Be steady, at all events. Indeed, you had better go home at once, every man of you. Won't you take your priest's advice?"

"An' why not, your reverence? to be sure we will, if it comes to that; but, plaise G.o.d, it won't. At worst it was only an accident, an' we're tould it won't signify. We'll stan' our ground another while, your reverence, until we hear how the boy is. Sure, there's two barrels of beer an' a dance to the fore, by-an'-by."

"Well, lads, be very steady, and keep yourselves quiet. I'll visit the first man of you that strikes a blow with condign--"

"We'll strike no blow, your reverence, if we bant struck first. Let Father Farrell look to that."

"And so he will, you may depend upon it," said Father Roche.

The Shanvilla men had great confidence in Father Farrell in every respect, and there was not a man in the parish who would not almost die at his bidding from pure love of the man, apart from his religious influence. They knew him to be a good physician in a literal, as well as a moral, point of view; and he had been proving himself the good Samaritan for the last seventeen years to every one in the parish, whether they fell among thieves or not. He had commenced life as a medical student, but had (prudently, perhaps) preferred the Church.

{703} In memory, however, of his early predilections, he kept a sort of little private dispensary behind his kitchen; and so numerous were the cures which nature had effected under his mild advice and harmless prescriptions, that he had established a reputation for infallibility almost equal to that subsequently attained by Holloway or Morrison.

Never, however, was his medical knowledge of more use as well as value than on the present occasion.

Shanvilla grounded their weapons at his approach, and waited for his report. Father Farrell of course first felt the young man's pulse. He was not pedantic or affected enough to hold his watch in his other hand while he did so; but, like all good physicians, he held his tongue. He then untied the handkerchief, and gently examined the wound so far as possible without disturbing the work which Phil M'Dermott had so promptly and judiciously performed. His last test of the state of his patient was his voice; and upon this, in his own mind, he laid no inconsiderable stress. In reply to his questions as to whether he felt sick or giddy, Emon replied, much more stoutly than was expected, that he felt neither the one nor the other. Father Farrell was now fully satisfied that there was nothing seriously wrong with him, and that giving him the rites of the Church, or even remaining longer with him then, might have an unfavorable effect upon the already excited minds of the Shanvilla men. He therefore said, smiling, "Thank G.o.d, Emon, you want no further doctoring just now; and I'll leave you for a few minutes while I tell Shanvilla that nothing serious has befallen you."

He then left him, and hastened over toward his parishoners, who eagerly met him half-way as he approached.

"Well, your reverence?" "Well, your reverence?" ran through the foremost of them.

"It is well, and very well, boys," he replied; "I bless G.o.d it is nothing but a scalp wound, which will not signify. Put by your hurls, and go and ask the Rathcash girls to dance."

"Three cheers for Father Farrell!" shouted Ned Murrican of the black curly head. They were given heartily, and peace was restored.

Father Farrell then remounted his strawberry cob, and rode over toward where Father Roche was with the Rathcash men. They were, "in a manner," as anxious to hear his opinion of Emon-a-knock as his own men had been. They knew nothing, or, if they did, they cared nothing, for any private cause of ill-will on their leader's part toward Emon-a-knock. They were not about to espouse his quarrel, if he had one; and, as they had said, they would not have struck a blow unless in self-defence.

Father Farrell now a.s.sured them there was nothing of any consequence "upon" Emon; it was a mere tip of the flesh, and would be quite well in a few days. "But, Tom _a-wochal_," he added, laughing, "you don't often aim at a crow and hit a pigeon."

"I was awkward and unfortunate enough to do so this time, Father Farrell," he replied. And he then entered into a full, and apparently a candid, detail of how it had happened.

Father Farrell listened with much attention, bowing at him now and then, like the foreman of a jury to a judge's charge, to show that he understood him. When he had ended. Father Farrell placed his hand upon his shoulder, and, bending down toward him, whispered in his ear, "Oh, Tom Murdock, but you are the fortunate man this day! for if the blow had been one inch and a half lower, all the priests and doctors in Connaught would not save you from being tried for manslaughter."

"Or murder," whispered Tom's heart to himself.

By this time Emon-a-knock, with M'Dermott's help, had risen to his feet; and leaning on him and big Ned Murrican, crept feebly along toward the boreen which formed the entrance to the common.

{704}

Father Farrell, perceiving the move, rode after him, and said, as he pa.s.sed, that he would trot on and send for a horse and cart to fetch him home, as he would not allow him to walk any further than the end of the lane. Indeed, it was not his intention to do so; for he was still scarcely able to stand, and that not without help.

Before he and his a.s.sistants, however, had reached the end of the lane, Father Farrell came entering back, saying, "All right, my good lads; there is a jennet and cart coming up the lane for him."

Emon c.o.c.ked his ear at the word jennet; he knew who owned the only one for miles around. And there indeed it was; and the sight of it went well-nigh to cure Emon, better than any doctoring he could get.

TO BE CONTINUED.

From The Month.

INQUIETUS.

We put him in a golden cage With crystal troughs; but still he pined For tracts of royal foliage.

And broad blue skies and merry wind.

We gave him water cool and dear; All round his golden wires we twined Fresh leaves and blossoms bright, to cheer His restless heart: but still he pined.

We whistled and we chirped; but he Trilled never more his liquid falls, But ever yearned for liberty, And dashed against his golden walls.

Again, again, in wild despair, He strove to burst his bars aside; At last, beneath his pinion fair, He hid his drooping head and died!

And so against the golden bars-- Life's golden bars--our poor souls smite.

Pining for tracts beyond the stars.

Freedom and beauty, truth and light

Those bars a Father's hands adorn With leaves and flowers--earth's loveliest things-- With crystal draughts; but still we mourn With thirsting for the "living springs."

Nor crystal draughts, nor leaves and flowers, The exiled heart can satisfy: We shake the bars; and some few hours We droop and pine, and then we die,

We die! But, oh, the prison-bars Are shatter'd then: then far away, We pa.s.s beyond the sky, the stars-- Beyond the change of night and day.

{705}

From Chambers's Journal.

A KINGDOM WITHOUT A KING.

Lichtenstein is the name of the smallest princ.i.p.ality in the great German "Vaterland," and this has. .h.i.therto been the most remarkable thing that could be said about it, for in the great political world it has as yet played no part. It appears, however, that its time has now arrived; and for the benefit of those who might receive this bit of intelligence with a sceptical smile, I subjoin a few words of explanation.

In order fully to appreciate this important question, it will be necessary to commence by going back into the past--if not so far as to the Flood, at least to some part of the twelfth century.

It will not do to believe that the Lichtensteiners are people of vulgar extraction. True, their ancestors hardly antic.i.p.ated that the house of Lichtenstein would ever be reckoned among the reigning families of Europe; but this did not affect the n.o.bleness of their quarterings. The founder of the house was a lively and enterprising Lombard, and related to the Este family. He went to Germany with the object of making his fortune, and there he married, 1145 A.D., a little princess of the house of Schwaben. They had not the slightest fraction of a princ.i.p.ality, but they had plenty of children to educate and provide for. Their fortune was not very large, but, in his quality of Lombard, the father exercised the lucrative business of an usurer, whenever the occasion presented itself. The sovereigns of those times were often in want of money, and our Lombard supplied them with this article, proper security being forthcoming. When the time of rest.i.tution arrived, it was not always convenient to the debtors to pay in cash, and the affair was therefore generally settled by means of small pieces of land, t.i.tles, or privileges. The Lichtensteiners soon became allied to the greatest German families. In the year 1614, the Emperor Matthias ceded to them, in settlement of their pecuniary claims, the princ.i.p.ality of Troppau, in Schlesien. Ten years later, the Emperor Ferdinand II. added to their possessions the princ.i.p.ality of Jagendorff. Then they obtained the t.i.tle of "Prince of the Holy Roman Empire;" and by this time they had purchased the districts of Vadutz and Schnellenberg, on the borders of the Rhine, and close to the Swiss frontier. These possessions form the actual princ.i.p.ality of Lichtenstein, which has the small town of Vadutz for its capital.

The Congress of Vienna--contrary to its principles of mediatization--resolved, for reasons which we abstain from investigating, to maintain Lichtenstein as a sovereign and independent state, and gave it an entire vote in the German Confederation.