Mr. Cotton recalled his eyes from the diamonds with an effort. "I will, if you like, Mrs. Kirby!" he said, looking at her, like an old horse, down his long, deplorable nose, "but I fear they will be not of much use, as the glawss is remorkably low!"

Prayers for the modification of the weather are often treated as a permissible subject for mirth, and Mrs. Kirby availed herself of the convention; even Frederica and Mrs. St. George, stricken though they were, smiled wanly.

CHAPTER XXI

At about this time, that imposing spectacle, once described by Mrs.

Twomey as "The Big Doctor and little Danny Aherne walking the streets of Cluhir like two payc.o.c.ks," was vouchsafed to the town rather more frequently than was usually the case. Dr. Aherne had sent a patient, who was no less a person than the priest of the parish of Pribawn, to the private ward of the Infirmary in Cluhir, where he would, among other advantages, receive daily visits from Dr. Mangan. Father Sweeny was suffering from a broken leg, and other damages; a midnight drive to a dying parishioner had ended, disastrously, in an unguarded road-side ditch, and Dr. Aherne had thought it best to consign a patient of such importance to the care of hands less occupied, as well as of higher renown, than his own.

Thus it was that the Big Doctor and his kinsman saw more of each other than is often possible for men whose work is as widespread and incessant as is that of Irish Dispensary Doctors. On this windy June morning they had met in the dreary yard of the Workhouse, to which the Infirmary was attached, and together they paced the long, whitewashed, slate-paven pa.s.sages that led to the Infirmary, pausing at intervals to talk of matters quite unconnected with their patients, but, if the frequency of the pauses, filled by the sibilant whispers of the little doctor, and the deep growls of the big one, was any criterion, none the less absorbing.

"His name's been accepted," ended the Big Doctor, after the lengthiest of these, "and it would be no harm for you to be slipping in a word, now and again, with the people through the country, according as you'd get the chance, Danny."

"I will, I will," replied the little doctor, as he opened the door of Father Sweeny's room.

"You're doing very well, Father," said Dr. Mangan, his inspection of the patient ended. "I consider you couldn't be progressing more satisfactorily." He seated himself by Father Tim Sweeny's bedside, while the Nursing Sister-in-Charge rolled up bandages, and conferred in lowered tones with Dr. Aherne, on the subject of what he called the patient's "dite."

"You'll be going as strong as ever you did in a few weeks' time,"

continued Dr. Mangan, encouragingly.

Father Sweeny returned the Doctor's look morosely.

"I'm sick and tired of being here as it is," he said, gloomily, "and you talk to me of weeks!"

"Ah, they'll pa.s.s, never fear they'll pa.s.s!" said the Big Doctor, cheerfully. "I never saw the weeks yet that didn't pa.s.s if you waited long enough! And I wouldn't say but that you mightn't go home before you're out of our hands entirely."

Father Sweeny received these consolations with an unpropitiated grunt.

His large face, with its broad cheeks and heavy double-chins, that was usually of a sanguine and all pervasive beefy-red, now hung in pallid purple folds, on which dark bristles, that were as stiff as those on the barrel of a musical box, told that the luxury of shaving had hitherto been withheld. There are some professions that tend more than others to grade the men that follow them into distinct types. The Sea is one of these, the Church, and pre-eminently the Church of Rome, is another. The ecclesiastical types vary no less than the nautical ones, and neither need here be enumerated. It is sufficient to say that Father Sweeny, when in his usual robust health, in voice, in appearance, and in manner, provoked, uncontrollably, a comparison with a heavy and truculent black bull.

"'Tis highly inconvenient to me to be boxed up in bed this way, at this time," said Father Sweeny, with a small hot eye upon his attendant nun that would have said instantly to any one less entirely kind, religious, and painstaking, that he had no immediate need of her services; "Sister Maria Joseph, I wonder would you be so kind as to bring me the paper? I didn't see it to-day at all."

Sister Maria Joseph turned her amiable, unruffled face, with that pure complexion that would seem to be one of the compensations for the renunciation of the world, towards her patient, and said, obsequiously:

"I beg your pordon, Fawther?"

The little eyes had a hotter sparkle as Father Sweeny repeated his request.

"It's a wonder to me," he growled to Dr. Mangan, after Sister Maria Joseph had left the room, having taken, in her anxiety to show respect, quite half a minute in closing the door with suitable noiselessness, "why people can't attend to what's said to them! If there's a thing I hate, it's being bothered repeating an entirely trivial matter, which--"--here Father Tim's voice began to take on the angry, high tenor of one of his prototypes--"she had a right to have heard at the first offer! I declare I'm beside meself sometimes with the annoyance I get!"

Dr. Mangan laid his spatulate fingers upon the sufferer's hairy wrist.

"We'll have to give his Reverence a sedative, Danny," he said, winking at his colleague. "I'd be sorry to see you that way, Father; the bed's narrow enough for you as it is, without having you beside yourself in it!"

Father Sweeny's mood was one to which chaff did not commend itself. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand from beneath the Doctor's fingers, and picked up some letters that lay beside him.

"Look at this, I ask you! From Mary Murphy, saying her husband is quite well, and that he took the turn for good from the minute he was anointed! And me lying here crippled!"

"'The dog it was that died!'" quoted Dr. Mangan, smoothly.

"What dog?" demanded Father Sweeny, with indignation, "I d'no what you're talking about!"

"Ah, nothing, nothing," said the Big Doctor, with a lift of the spirit at the thought of his superior culture, "but surely it wasn't to show me Mary Murphy's letter that you sent poor Sister Maria Joseph on a fool's errand?"

"Why a fool's errand?" demanded the now incensed Father Sweeny. "What d'ye mean?"

"Look at the newspaper on the floor here," returned the Doctor.

"You'll have her back in a minute, begging your pardon again, to tell you so."

Father Sweeny glared, speechless, at his tormentor for an instant; then, rinding the Big Doctor unmoved "in the furnace of his look," he fell back on his pillows.

"Lock the door!" he commanded angrily. He pushed a letter into the Doctor's hand. "Read that!"

"Hullo! The Major! What's _he_ got to say to you, Father Tim?"

"Read it, I tell you!"

Dr. Mangan did so, with attention, and read it a second time before he replaced it in its envelope and handed it back to the priest.

"That's a nice letter!" said Father Sweeny, with a snort that he believed to be a laugh. "What d'ye think of that now, you that are so fond of Protestants!"

"I think the man is justified," said the Doctor, stoutly. "There's no such great hurry, and anyhow, his authority is at an end. He couldn't give you as much as'd sod a lark now--"

"Nor he wouldn't if he could!" broke in Father Sweeny. "And there _is_ hurry, and great hurry! How will I build my chapel without the land to put it on? Will you tell me that?"

"Ah, you haven't the money gathered yet. The delay isn't worth exciting yourself about!" said the Doctor, soothingly. Father Tim amused him, and he liked him, being well aware that if his temper was hot, his heart was correspondingly warm. "You'll see the young chap will give you the site as soon as look at you."

"And how do I know the young chap will be any easier than the old one?

Isn't he there at Mount Music all day and every day, at their tea-parties and their dinner-parties? Won't they have him married up to one of the daughters before you can look around? He may call himself a Catholic, but them English Catholics--COME IN!"

Sister Maria Joseph's faint tap at the door had as instant an effect as a squib, planted in the mane of the monarch of the bull-ring, might produce.

"I cannt--the door's locked, Fawther!" came Sister Maria Joseph's gentle voice, in mild protest. "I couldn't find the--"

"Never mind it! I have it myself--_I have it_, I tell you!"

shouted Father Tim; in his voice the appeal to a merciful Heaven to grant patience was unmistakable.

Sister Maria Joseph, recognising with trembling her superfluousness, withdrew.

"It's Barty will have that job we were speaking of just now, before you were coaxing Sister Maria Joseph to go away from you," resumed Dr.

Mangan. "Maybe you didn't hear he's got the Coppinger's Court Agency?

Young Coppinger offered it to him yesterday."

"It's a good thing it's out of Talbot-Lowry's hands anyhow," growled Father Sweeny.

"Larry's up at my house every day now, about a concert they're to have," went on the Doctor, tranquilly. "Tishy's helping him. He's very fond of music. I think you're mistaken in thinking he'll be married to one of the Major's daughters in such a hurry!"