seat,” said he, observing that Belle had started up; “I mean no offence. Well, if you will not consent to be an abbess, perhaps you will consent to follow this young Zingaro, and to co-operate with him and us. I am a priest, madam, and can join you both in an instant, connubio stabili, as I suppose the knot has not been tied already.”
“Hold your mumping gibberish,” said Belle, “and leave the dingle this moment, for though ’tis free to every one, you have no right to insult me in it.”
“Pray be pacified,” said I to Belle, getting up, and placing myself between her and the man in black, “he will presently leave, take my word for it—there, sit down again,” said I, as I led her to her seat; then, resuming my own, I said to the man in black: “I advise you to leave the dingle as soon as possible.”
“I should wish to have your answer to my proposal first,” said he.
“Well, then, here you shall have it: I will not entertain your proposal; I detest your schemes: they are both wicked and foolish.”
“Wicked,” said the man in black, “have they not—he! he!—the furtherance of religion in view?”
“A religion,” said I, “in which you yourself do not believe, and which you contemn.”
“Whether I believe in it or not,” said the man in black, “it is adapted for the generality of the human race; so I will forward it, and advise you to do the same. It was nearly extirpated in these regions, but it is springing up again, owing to circumstances. Radicalism is a good friend to us; all the liberals laud up our system out of hatred to the Established Church, though our system is ten times less liberal than the Church of England. Some of them have really come over to us. I myself confess a baronet who presided over the first radical meeting ever held in England—he was an atheist when he came over to us, in the hope of mortifying his own church—but he is now—ho! ho!—a real Catholic devotee—quite afraid of my threats; I make him frequently scourge himself before me. Well, Radicalism does us good service, especially amongst the lower classes, for Radicalism chiefly flourishes amongst them; for though a baronet or two may be found amongst the radicals, and perhaps as many lords—fellows who have been discarded by their own order for clownishness, or something they have done—it incontestably flourishes best among the lower orders. Then the love of what is foreign is a great friend to us; this love is chiefly confined to the middle and upper classes. Some admire the French, and imitate them; others must needs be Spaniards, dress themselves up in a zamarra, stick a cigar in their mouths, and say, ‘Carajo.’ Others would pass for Germans; he! he! the idea of any one wishing to pass for a German! but what has done us more service than anything else in these regions—I mean amidst the middle classes—has been the novel, the Scotch novel. The good folks, since they have read the novels, have become Jacobites; and, because all the Jacobs were Papists, the good folks must become Papists also, or, at least, papistically inclined. The very Scotch Presbyterians, since they have read the novels, are become all but Papists; I speak advisedly, having lately been amongst them. There’s a trumpery bit of a half papist sect, called the Scotch Episcopalian Church, which lay dormant and nearly forgotten for upwards of a hundred years, which has of late got wonderfully into fashion in Scotland, because, forsooth, some of the long-haired gentry of the novels were said to belong to it, such as Montrose and Dundee; and to this the Presbyterians are going over in throngs, traducing and vilifying their own forefathers, or denying them altogether, and calling themselves descendants of—ho! ho! ho!—Scottish Cavaliers!!! I have heard them myself repeating snatches of Jacobite ditties about ‘Bonnie Dundee,’ and—
“ ‘Come, fill up my cup, and fill up my can,
And saddle my horse, and call up my man.’
There’s stuff for you! Not that I object to the first part of the ditty. It is natural enough that a Scotchman should cry, ‘Come, fill up my cup!’ more especially if he’s drinking at another person’s expense—all Scotchmen being fond of liquor at free cost: but ‘Saddle his horse!!!’—for what purpose I would ask? Where is the use of saddling a horse, unless you can ride him? and where was there ever a Scotchman who could ride?”
“Of course you have not a drop of Scotch blood in your veins,” said I, “otherwise you would never have uttered that last sentence.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” said the man in black; “you know little of Popery if you imagine that it cannot extinguish love of country, even in a Scotchman. A thorough-going Papist—and who more thorough-going than myself—cares nothing for his country; and why should he? he belongs to a system, and not to a country.”
“One thing,” said I, “connected with you, I cannot understand; you call yourself a thorough-going Papist, yet are continually saying the most pungent things against Popery, and turning to unbounded ridicule those who show any inclination to embrace it.”
“Rome is a very sensible old body,” said the man in black, “and little cares what her children say, provided they do her bidding. She knows several things, and amongst others, that no servants work so hard and faithfully as those who curse their masters at every stroke they do. She was not fool enough to be angry with the Miquelets of Alba, who renounced her, and called her ‘puta’ all the time they were cutting the throats of the Netherlanders. Now, if she allowed her faithful soldiers the latitude of renouncing her, and calling her ‘puta’ in the market-place, think not she is so unreasonable as to object to her faithful priests occasionally calling her ‘puta’ in the dingle.”
“But,” said I, “suppose some one were to tell the world some of the disorderly things which her priests say in the dingle.”
“He would have the fate of Cassandra,” said the man in black; “no one would believe him—yes, the priests would: but they would make no sign of belief. They believe in the Alcoran des Cordeliers—that is, those who have read it; but they make no sign.”
“A pretty system,” said I, “which extinguishes love of country and of everything noble, and brings the minds of its ministers to a parity with those of devils, who delight in nothing but mischief.”
“The system,” said the man in black, “is a grand one, with unbounded vitality. Compare it with your Protestantism, and you will see the difference. Popery is ever at work, whilst Protestantism is supine. A pretty church, indeed, the Protestant! Why, it can’t even work a miracle.”
“Can your church work miracles?” I demanded.
“That was the very question,” said the man in black, “which the ancient British clergy asked of Austin Monk, after they had been fools enough to acknowledge their own inability. ‘We don’t pretend to work miracles; do you?’ ‘Oh! dear me, yes,’ said Austin; ‘we find no difficulty in the matter. We can raise the dead, we can make the blind see; and to convince you, I will give sight to the blind. Here is this blind Saxon, whom you cannot cure, but on whose eyes I will manifest my power, in order to show the difference between the true and the false church;’ and forthwith, with the assistance of a handkerchief and a little hot water, he opened the eyes of the barbarian. So we manage matters! A pretty church, that old British church, which could not work miracles—quite as helpless as the modern one. The fools! was birdlime so scarce a thing amongst them?—and were the properties of warm water so unknown to them, that they could not close a pair of eyes and open them?”
“It’s a pity,” said I, “that the British clergy at that interview with Austin, did not bring forward a blind Welshman, and ask the monk to operate upon him.”
“Clearly,” said the man in black; “that’s what they ought to have done; but they were fools without a single resource.”
