“I see you in the gallery there, Rafferty. What do you pass that well-dressed woman for?--thry back --ha!--see that--she had her money ready if you only asked for it--don't go by that other woman there--oh, oh!--So you won't give anything, ma'am. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. There is a woman with an elegant sthraw bonnet, and she won't give a farthing. Well now--afther that--remember--I give it from the althar, that _from this day out sthraw bonnets pay fi'penny pieces._
£ s. d. Thomas Durfy, Esq. 1 0 0 “It's not his parish and he's a brave gentleman.
£ s. d. Miss Fanny Dawson 1 0 0 “_A Protestant out of the parish_, and a sweet young lady, God bless her! Oh, 'faith, the Protestants is shaming you!!!
£ s. d. Dennis Fannin 0 7 6 “Very good, indeed, for a working mason.”
Jemmy Riley 0 5 0 “Not bad for a hedge-carpenther.”
“I gave you ten, plaze, your reverence,” shouted Jemmy, “and by the same token, you may remember it was on the Nativity of the Blessed Vargin, sir, I gave you the second five shillin's.”
“So you did, Jemmy,” cried Father Phil--“I put a little cross before it, to remind me of it; but I was in a hurry to make a sick call when you gave it to me, and forgot it after: and indeed myself doesn't know what I did with that same five shillings.”
Here a pallid woman, who was kneeling near the rails of the altar, uttered an impassioned blessing, and exclaimed, “Oh, that was the very five shillings, I'm sure, you gave to me that very day, to buy some little comforts for my poor husband, who was dying in the fever!”--and the poor woman burst into loud sobs as she spoke.
A deep thrill of emotion ran through the flock as this accidental proof of their poor pastor's beneficence burst upon them; and as an affectionate murmur began to rise above the silence which that emotion produced, the burly Father Philip blushed like a girl at this publication of his charity, and even at the foot of that altar where he stood, felt something like shame in being discovered in the commission of that virtue so highly commended by the Holy One to whose worship the altar was raised. He uttered a hasty “Whisht--whisht!” and waved with his outstretched hands his flock into silence.
In an instant one of those sudden changes common to an Irish assembly, and scarcely credible to a stranger, took place. The multitude was hushed--the grotesque of the subscription list had passed away and was forgotten, and that same man and that same multitude stood in altered relations--_they_ were again a reverent flock, and _he_ once more a solemn pastor; the natural play of his nation's mirthful sarcasm was absorbed in a moment in the sacredness of his office; and with a solemnity befitting the highest occasion, he placed his hands together before his breast, and raising his eyes to Heaven he poured forth his sweet voice, with a tone of the deepest devotion, in that reverential call to prayer, “_Orate_, _fratres_.”