The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1920-12-18
THE MIDNIGHT MASS.
Continued from page 81

| Continued from page 80
from the bright, buoyant, and roman
| tic Dinny Kilbride who footed it here
a hundred years before!
He was surprised in this strange
thought by suddenly meeting on this
lonely mountain road, at this lone
hour, colleen of handsome figure
| and face, tripping airily along, and
| humming an old tune to herself, all
unafraid. In the Gaelic, which came
back to him like a flash, she saluted
him: God guide you, stranger" 60
| ing calmly past. Then he remem
bered that in Ireland, the loneliest
road at the loneliest hour was walked
without apprehension by any girl
| howsoever young and beautiful
Well, it was a strange country, surely!
And when he timidly ventured to
| hail her, to ask some directions, she
stood with him and chatted as kindly
yet unconcernedly, as she might in the
midst of fair at midday Well, II
was a strange country!
He reached Lanty's+he remem
bered it. The Christmas candle was
just going in the window when he
came up, and-and-he was suddenly
| halted on the road, and then made
to stagger back step or two! He
| could swear he beheld bending over
the candle the oval face and flashing
black eyes that had, on such night
| and on such occasion, fascinated him
more than twenty years before
Oracle Brennan!" he had calculated
before he recovered his self-posses
sion. Then he no longer saw a face
| at the candle. His fancy had played
him trick. He growled at himself
for an idiot. But he walked fur
long past Lanty McFadden's, to col
lect himself Returning to it, he
| pricked up his ears, at hearing a hum
which he knew must have been once
familiar. What was it? Then he
remembered in flash. 1t was the
long-forgotten hum of the family
Rosary. How regularly he used to
hear and raise his hat to it once
passing the cottages at this hour OF
the night. He didn't raise his hat
now. He scowled instead.
He was a good bit irritated to find
for this he had forgotten-that they
| did not cease their Rosary when a
stranger entered. The old lady, the
bean-a-tighe, in white bordered cap
| who was leading the Rosary, got up
and without stopping her prayer, gave
the stranger kindly bow, welcom
ing hand-shake-and a chair whereat
to kneel-and resumed her position.
He determined, even at the price OF
being rude, detiantly to sit him down
on the chair-but, to his surprise, he
found himself on his knees the next
moment. And as, with one hand over
his eyes, he hardened to the Rosary
| being chorused with full heart and
full voice by the kneeling circle around
the blazing turf-fire, a score of years
seemed somehow to fall from his
shoulders.
But when having come to "the
trimmings" (the word leaped into his
memory!) the bean-a-tighe, after get
ting prayers for the living, the dying
and the dead, for all friends and rela.
tives, not forgetting poor souls in
Purgatory, especially them who died
in wrecks and wars, and them that
left no one to pray for them,' asked
One Pater and Ave for all our poor
boys and girls in American and for.
eign parts that the Lord may guard
and guide them, hold their feet in the
ways Of faith, and the Blessed Virgin
be a candle before them, all days, till
they come to their own again"-Mr
Kilbride WINGED, and in confused
kind of way wished that the Rosary
was over with. Anyhow, it was hay.
Ing a queer influence on him. He had
almost to- pinch himself to realize
that this person was Mr.. Dennis Kill
bride, at a Rosary against his will
not little Dinny Mcbride back in the
long ago, saying the soothing Ros.
airy by his own mothers fireside
Something like the mesmerism he
had often heard Of was the effect
when, from somewhere outside the
maze wherein he felt himself being
drawn, he heard the soft voice of the
bean.a-tighe saying: And we'll now
wind up, with the kind stranger leadin'
us in one decade from our hearts to
the infant Savior born this night, and
the Holy Mother who bore Him. to
grant each and every one OF us the
special blessin' of which he or she
islands sorest need INSTEAD of being
stunned by the request he, next MO
ment, heard himself in beseeching
voice, leading the, decade to the heart.
full chorusing of the household
the thoughts he hadn't thought, and
the words he hadn't uttered Tor TWEEN