He had told me stories about the catacombs and about

Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of

the different ceremonies of the Mass and of the different vestments

worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting

difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain

circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial

or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and

mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had

always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest

towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional

seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever

found in himself the courage to undertake them; and I was not

surprised when he told me that the fathers of the Church had

written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely

printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these

intricate questions. Often when I thought of this I could make no

answer or only a very foolish and halting one upon which he used

to smile and nod his head twice or thrice. Sometimes he used to

put me through the responses of the Mass which he had made me

learn by heart; and, as I pattered, he used to smile pensively and

nod his head, now and then pushing huge pinches of snuff up each

nostril alternately. When he smiled he used to uncover his big

discoloured teeth and let his tongue lie upon his lower lip--a habit

which had made me feel uneasy in the beginning of our

acquaintance before I knew him well.


As I walked along in the sun I remembered old Cotter's words and

tried to remember what had happened afterwards in the dream. I

remembered that I had noticed long velvet curtains and a swinging

lamp of antique fashion. I felt that I had been very far away, in

some land where the customs were strange--in Persia, I thought....

But I could not remember the end of the dream.


In the evening my aunt took me with her to visit the house of

mourning. It was after sunset; but the window-panes of the houses

that looked to the west reflected the tawny gold of a great bank of

clouds. Nannie received us in the hall; and, as it would have been

unseemly to have shouted at her, my aunt shook hands with her for

all. The old woman pointed upwards interrogatively and, on my

aunt's nodding, proceeded to toil up the narrow staircase before us,

her bowed head being scarcely above the level of the banister-rail.

At the first landing she stopped and beckoned us forward

encouragingly towards the open door of the dead-room. My aunt

went in and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated to enter, began

to beckon to me again repeatedly with her hand.


I went in on tiptoe. The room through the lace end of the blind was

suffused with dusky golden light amid which the candles looked

like pale thin flames. He had been coffined. Nannie gave the lead

and we three knelt down at the foot of the bed. I pretended to pray

but I could not gather my thoughts because the old woman's

mutterings distracted me. I noticed how clumsily her skirt was

hooked at the back and how the heels of her cloth boots were

trodden down all to one side. The fancy came to me that the old

priest was smiling as he lay there in his coffin.


But no. When we rose and went up to the head of the bed I saw

that he was not smiling. There he lay, solemn and copious, vested

as for the altar, his large hands loosely retaining a chalice. His face

was very truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous

nostrils and circled by a scanty white fur. There was a heavy odour

in the room--the flowers.


We crossed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs

we found Eliza seated in his arm-chair in state. I groped my way

towards my usual chair in the corner while Nannie went to the

sideboard and brought out a decanter of sherry and some

wine-glasses. She set these on the table and invited us to take a

little glass of wine. Then, at her sister's bidding, she filled out the

sherry into the glasses and passed them to us. She pressed me to

take some cream crackers also but I declined because I thought I

would make too much noise eating them. She seemed to be

somewhat disappointed at my refusal and went over quietly to the

sofa where she sat down behind her sister. No one spoke: we all

gazed at the empty fireplace.


My aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said:


"Ah, well, he's gone to a better world."


Eliza sighed again and bowed her head in assent.