Letheby's life. He did
not know whither to turn. Every taunt and insult of these ignorant men
came back to sting him. What would it be if the whole thing came to
publicity in the courts, and he was made the butt of unjust
insinuations by some unscrupulous barrister, or the object of the lofty,
moral indignation of the bench! Yet he felt bound, by every law of
honor, to pay these men two hundred pounds. He might as well be asked to
clear off the national debt. Now and again he paused in his walk, and,
leaning on his umbrella, scrutinized the ground in anxious reverie; then
he lifted up his eyes to the far horizon, beneath whose thin and misty
line boat and captain were sleeping. Then he went on, trying in vain to
choke down his emotion. "Star of the Sea! Star of the Sea!" he muttered.
Then, half unconsciously: "Stella maris! Stella maris!! Porta manes, et
stella maris, succurre cadenti surgere qui curat populo!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: "Utopian," I suppose, the poor man meant.]

CHAPTER XXIX

STIGMATA?

I do not think it was personal humiliation, or the sense of personal
shame, or dread of further exposure, that really agitated Father Letheby
during these dreary days, so much as the ever-recurring thought that his
own ignominy would reflect discredit on the great body to which he
belonged. He knew how rampant and how unscrupulous was the spirit of
criticism in our days; and with what fatal facility the weaknesses and
misfortunes of one priest would be supposed, in the distorted mirrors of
popular beliefs, to be reflected upon and besmirch the entire sacred
profession. And it was an intolerable thought that, perhaps in far
distant years, his example would be quoted as evidence of folly or
something worse on the part of the Irish priesthood. "When Letheby
wasted hundreds of pounds belonging to the shopkeepers of Kilkeel," or,
"Don't you remember Letheby of Galway, and the boat that was sunk?"
"What was his bishop doing?" "Oh, he compelled him to leave the
diocese!" These were the phrases, coined from the brazen future, that
were flung by a too fervid or too anxious imagination at his devoted
head; and if the consolations of religion healed the wounds rapidly,
there were ugly cicatrices left behind, which showed themselves in
little patches of silver here and there in his hair, and the tiny
fretwork of wrinkles in his forehead and around his mouth. Then, whilst
speaking, he grew frequently abstracted, and wo