The moment he saw us he dropped the pannikin, and rose to greet us, a funny round tub of a man, with his braces dangling behind him.
“Och, sure, an’ it’s the bhoys! Come yez in, an’ a merry Christmas to yez. Come yez in, an’ I ‘ll brew yez some scaltheen in honor av the day.”
Scaltheen was what Father Maguire was famous for, and exactly what we had come for. It was, in truth, rather a potent drink, consisting as it did of whisky, sugar, butter, and water, all boiled together in the little black kettle now singing away on the hob, and assisted materially in raising fresh difficulties round that already difficult path through the rocks.
As the old gentleman bustled round mixing his scaltheen, we became aware of another occupant of the cabin, a tall, thin, dark-haired, cadaverous-looking young priest, just fresh from All Hallows’. He sat there solemnly on an upturned brandy case in the corner, and glared disapprovingly out of his hollow black eyes at the revel going on round him. Father Maguire remembered his existence after a bit and introduced him.
“Sure an’ it’s Father Mahoney, bhoys, jist out from ould Ireland. Faix an’ he’s falin’ a bit lonesome. Sure, now, Father dear, sing, sing--it’ll do yez good. The ‘Wearin’ o’ the Green,’ Father, or ‘Garry-owen.’ Come now. His voice it’s jist beautiful, bhoys; och, but ye should jist hear him,” and the poor old father nodded confidentially at us, fell back in his chair, his eyes gradually closed, the pannikin dropped out of his hands, and the whiskey trickled down on to the earthen floor.
Father Mahoney evidently felt that the time had now come for him to speak or for ever after hold his peace, as the marriage service has it. He rose from his seat, and stalked across the room, a tall thin figure in his long black coat, and stood over his prostrate brother.
“Father Maguire,” he said in the broadest of Cork brogues, without the ghost of a smile on his grave Irish face, “is it a song yez wantin’? Well, thin, it’s just a jeremiad I ‘d be singin’ yez, an’ not another song at all, at all.”
Then, without deigning to take any notice of us, he flung open both door and window--the atmosphere stood greatly in need of a little freshening, I must admit--and went out on to the hillside, leaving us irreverent youngsters convulsed with laughter. The fun was over now as far as we were concerned, for Father Maguire, overcome by his own magic brew, was calmly sleeping, and no efforts of ours could elicit more than a grumpy, “Arrah, thin--be still now--will yez?”