father martin's crow

Irish Jesuit Province

Father Martin's CrowAuthor(s): Beatrice CarrollSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 70, No. 833 (Nov., 1942), pp. 459-465Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515070 .

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459

Father Martin's Crow

By BEATRICE CARROLL.

F A THER MARTIN'S presbytery, with its green roof, rested in a cluster of copper beeches on the side of the

mountain. All around it lay the farms of the parish, dotted with their yellow thatched cottages.

And these mountainy farmers were convinced that the priest who lived in the green-tiled house on the hill was a saint.

" He's a walking saint," said the old men and women who walked no more, and sat in the chimney corner in the wistful, twilight reverie of old age. Many a homeless beggar talked to them over the half door as he ambled down the mountain after

being fed in body and soul at the presbytery. " He's a saint," said the free man of the road, as he resumed his travels in search of fortune.

No matter how rich he was in the morning, lhe never lhad a penny at night. He gave it all to the needy of his flock, and very often the greedy joined in to leave the priest very poor indeed. He saw God in every soul because he was pure of heart, and why should a soul be left in need when it mirrored the good God?

Thus the priest in his simple way confounded the wise. They say that no man is a hero to his valet, but Father Martin was a saint in the eyes of Nell, his housekeeper. She had her troubles and worries with him, no doubt. Even a saint can be troublesome at times. But she was a loyal soul. When she found his larder as empty as his pocket, she assured only herself



460 THE IRISH MONTHLY

that he was a fool for Christ's sake; she assured the rest of the world that the priest was a saint.

But the !day came when Father Martin, who could not bear to see anyone cold, was shivering with the cold himself. And

Nell, finding his wardrobe empty, put the remaining suit of clothes under lock and key. She looked long and thoughtfully at the accusing little key which lay in the hollow of her palm.

She had treated the holy man as if he were a truant schoolboy, and her conscience smote her for the terrible deed. She felt

she had become a martinet, but peace gradually re-entered her

soul. " He'd give it away; saints give everything away," she

assured herself, and her conscience was at rest.

The priest's divine compassion was not reserved for his flock; he saw the face of God in all nature. He loved the white carpet of snow on the mountain; the flower-scented fragrance of the

mid-summer heat; and the earliest piping of the birds as he arose with their song at dawn. Their chorus, thrilling and exultant in the hush of dawn, was a foretaste of paradise, and

the priest's soul was filled with holy joy.

One day as he took his solitary walk in the pine wood on the mountain top, a crow, only a few weeks old, fell from its stick nest in the tree and dropped at his feet. It lay helpless with

its wing broken, and the priest who could not look on suffering unmoved, took the wounded crow home in his pocket. He bandaged the broken wing, and laid the invalid in a box fitted with a cosy nest of straw.

Now the newcomer, like the other guests at the presbytery, had a keen appetite, and every time Father Martin came to the box with a morsel of food, the crow sprang up, yelling, his neck thrust out, and his great beak opening into his throat.



FATHER MARTIN'S CROW 461

"He reminds me of a Jack in the box," declared Nell, as she watched the strange bird.

" Then we'll call him Jacky," decided the priest, and in a short time Jacky was hopping about the kitchen uttering baby caws and making mischievous pecks at Nell's heels.

The dainty fare and the kind treatment soon made the crow a domesticated bird. But not a respectable one. He grew and grew. He developed into a sturdy young crow with a coat as glossy and shining ac polished jet, but he also developed no end of tricks.

Once when he fluttered into a crock of cream, Nell drew him out by the scruff of the neck, a white crow, and decided to banish him from the presbytery for ever.

" He's young and innocent," pleaded the priest. " He has me swearing," confessed the irate old woman. The

saint and the sinner were face to face; he reproved her with his gentle eyes.

" Jacky is a source of temptation to you," he said sadly. " Ah, Father, he's a limb of the devil," said the repentant

Nell. So that the crow might cease to be an occasion of sin, he was

carried off to the security of the priest's room. Here he was at a disadvantage at first. He missed the shining objects of the kitchen, the pots, pans, and kettles, safe landmarks for his rest less claws and prying beak.

But the crow came of ancestors famed for their resourceful ness in the day of need. He started a collection of the silver

teaspoons on the table, and deposited them in an old stick nest on the top of the elm tree in the garden. Collectors are apt to

become greedy folk, and Jacky watched over his steadily mount

ing possessions with an eye as glittering as ever a miser turned on his hoard.




And while she preserved her loyal front to the world, in her

secret soul Nell laid the guilt of the teaspoons on the priest. " He's given them away," she moaned in the privacy of the

kitchen when her stock of cutlery daily disappeared before her

eyes. In his goodness of heart, Father Martin wvelcomed the crow

to his table, where Jacky, true to the instinct of his race, became

an opportunist. He was tempted to share in the frugal meal which Nell served to the ascetic priest. Of what daintier dish could a crow partake than a hot potato on a priest's plate? Day after day, with his eye on the door, the crow dined by his master's side. Bit by bit, bit by bit. But familiarity with danger breeds contempt. Nell entered while he was off guard one day and threw him out of doors in disgrace.

" I'm going to leave the house!" she cried, on the verge of

tears. " Then I'll be poor indeed," said the holy priest. " And Jacky will miss you sorely," he added. His piety was

only equalled by his fun. " My purgatory is here," sighed Nell with resignation.

Keeping house for a saint, though it tried her temper, had

taught her wisdom. It was better to suffer here, and to fly straight up on wings to the hereafter. Nor was she proof against the resources of Jacky. She had no sooner turned her

back than he re-entered by the window, and finished his meal to the priest's quiet amusement.

From that day, Father Martin and he had a secret signal at mealtime. As soon as Nell knocked at the door, Jacky hopped under the table, and he contrived to pass the time in seclusion

by pecking open the knots on the priest's shoe laces. Thus the priest, like the Good Shepherd, guarded his flock.

But there was one person he could not please. It is a cold fact



FATHER MARTIA'S CROW 463

that you cannot please everybody in this world, no matter how hard you try. His Auunt Eliza, who lived in the neighbouring town, dearly loved the world. She was ambitious to see her nephew wear the ring and crozier of a Bishop. She closed her eyes to see the vision splendid, for our dreams are always more vivid than reality. She saw herself visit the Bishop's palace, and heard the people whisper as she passed: "There is the Bishop's aunt."

"Father Martin knows nothing about the world," she con fided to Nell, hoping that the housekeeper could reform his extravagant ways. But Nell's quick ear detected the insinu ation of the Evil One; she refused to be tempted.

" He knows a little about the next," she answered dryly. Aunt Eliza sighed. The simple priest failed to fulfil her worldly hope, and she was a disappointed woman.

" He'll always be a poor curate," she decided. " He'll always be a saint," said the faithful Nell. And it

would seem that Jacky resented her intrusion on the peace of the presbytery, for he slyly picked the hairpins out of her coiled

hair, and Aunt Eliza went down the mountain with her long sling curls trailing on her shoulders.

But there is nothing so certain in nature as nature's revenge. The priest cared little about his body, and one day for revenge his body contracted influenza and took a peremptory holiday. Father Martin lay in bed too weak and feverish to notice the crow who flew to Nell for companionship.

In the kitchen, Nell was about to make broth for the sick priest, but to her amazement the chicken she had chosen was

no longer on the pantry shelf. "He's given it away!" she

cried. And of the small offerings of money he had received

from time to time, there was not a penny piece in the house.

The tormented Nell spoke the words aloud: '' Not wan penny.-"




Jacky, who had been sitting on the window-sill watching her

with his head sunk back into his neck, and the wisdom of an old crow in his jet black, glittering eyes, suddenly croaked,

"Ca-aw ". But the overwrought Nell thought she detected a note of

mockery in his voice, it sounded very like " Pshaw ". She con cluded that while she encountered a saint each day of her life, she also encountered the devil in disguise. And does not the devil tempt little souls in little ways?

" I'll make broth of your bones," she said, flinging the soup spoon out of the window at him, and the unwanted crow flew to the pine wood on the mountain top where the priest took his way of meditation every afternoon.

But to-day no footfall sounded on the path, and the solitary Jacky perched on the pine tree alone. A few wild crows stalked about the wood in search of food, but he scorned the rough fare of his wild brethren. Who would blame the crow that had dined off a priest's plate despite the constant vigilance of Nell's eye?

Presently the old landlord and his gamekeeper came up the path with a bagful of game. Although the land belonged to the tenants, the landlord retained the shooting rights, and he turned up at intervals for a day's sport. He was an extraordinary old

man. At eighty-five he was jumping ditches, breaking fences, cutting barbed wire where he met it, and challenging the farmer on whose land he trespassed to fight a duel. At the same time, he was throwing handfuls of sovereigns to the children, and pushing fistfuls of banknotes into the hand of every beggar he met. People certified he was not right in the head, but he had his faithful followers among children and beggars.

Like meets like, as if drawn together by magnetic power at times, and the wayward ones, the landlord and the crow, met.



FATHER MARTIN'S CROW 465

Jacky croaked at the strangers invading the path with all the mischief of his nature, and the landlord raised his gun to silence him for ever.

"Let him be!" cried the gamekeeper hastily. "That's Father Martin's crow."

" And who's Father Martin?" demanded the landlord, angry at the interruption of his sport.

" He's the priest, sir; and he's a saint." The landlord raised startled eyes to the sky. He thought the

saints had a happy planet up there, and that sinners only walked this planet of ours.

"A saint!" he said, fixing his fierce eye on his companion. The gamekeeper nodded. "He's a saint," he repeated in his laconic way.

The landlord had seen the world; people said he had seen too much for his peace of mind, but all at once he was filled with a desire to see more.

cI want to meet your saint," he said, and the poor game keeper, jumping at his heels over the ditches on the mountain side, had a secret fear that he would challenge Father Martin to fight a duel.

That evening a golden shaft of the setting sun filtered across the bed where the invalid lay, and Jacky stalked impudently

where its mellow warmth lay full on the coverlet. His collec

tive instinct paramount, he tugged at the banknotes which the landlord had placed in the priest's hands, and the saint's eyes rested thoughtfully on the bird whose mischievous innocence

had brought them there.



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