Everybody instantly became as red as a scalding-hot capsicum, some with shame, one with disgust, others from sheer fear. Church-students easily are frightened, because there generally is less grace than nature in them; and you only have to disclose a knowledge of the latter for them to desire (as phrenetically as possible) the predominance of the former. This makes for uneasiness, often for hypocrisy—in both cases, for mental and corporeal effort and a sudden flux of blood to the extremities.
“To murder a cat, Holy Father?” the vice-rector ejaculated. He was responsible for discipline.
“Yes. They used to murder stray cats here, just to pass the time. We have seen it. The one thing, which We remember in connection with your shrubbery, is a rush of ramping infuriated boys with spades and pitchforks, chasing and smashing a poor stray cat. We can see the horror now, with its broken back, and one eye hanging out on its whiskers. We can hear its dreadful heartrending yells. Boys, don’t do such things—to cats of all creatures!”
He spoke with fervence. Some savages wondered what the blazes He was driving at. There was a little silence. No one seemed to know how to break it. Then the sparrow-like student appeared with a red chair which he had taken the liberty of extracting from the reception-room; and dragged it behind the Pontiff at the stairhead. It was a welcome interruption. Hadrian sat down; and dismissed Cardinal Carvale with the superiors. He was going to have the college to Himself for half-an-hour. The improvised throne stood alone in the bare corridor: the students clustered up the stairs below it. Hadrian perceived the inevitable odour of hot boy. He produced a sentence wherewith to address them.
“Dear children,” he said, feeling as old as Methuselah for the moment, “do learn to love: don’t be hard, don’t be cruel to any living creature.” And that was all.
He beckoned the dean who came and kneeled before Him: laid His hand on the young man’s head; and blessed him. The others followed in rotation. In a secret voice, He invited each one to ask a favour. Most asked Him to pray for them and held up their beads for a blessing: some asked for the apostolic benediction in the hour of death for themselves and their relations: the fastidious person asked for nothing.
“Nothing?” the Pope whispered.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” (very tenderly)
“Everything, O Sanctity:” the stoic responded with a sob and a stony glare. Hadrian inquired for the number of his room; and put a similar question to the other four whom He had noted. When He had blessed all, He sent them away, and sat alone for a minute or two. Then He went to visit the big boy: who looked at Him bravely, with tearful innocent eyes. To Hadrian, it was wonderful to see this great virile virgin of nineteen. He elicited a not unusual and simple tale: a little Gaelic farm, always Catholic through all persecutions, the third of eight sons, the Vocation at twelve years of age, the mother wanted to confess to her own son. It was idyllic. It would come exquisitely in the objective bucolic manner of Theokritos. The long shapely limbs trembled before Him; the grand shoulders bowed. He gave the boy His Own white sash as a present for his mother: bade him be a good priest; and left him wallowing in happiness. Hadrian stopped in the corridor, disappointed because the lad came from a farm: He had placed him beside the sea, and had conceived a mental image of him, barelegged, in a blue guernsey, at the rudder of a fishing-smack. But the next, the muscular hobbledehoy, really did come from a farm: his skin had the unmistakable tan of the sun on a wheat-field: and his front was bovine. So was his manner. He was so frightened by the importance of his visitor that he spoke with surliness, and in the voice of a child of thirteen. Hadrian was astonished at the discrepancy between the voice and the speaker: He made him less uncomfortable by substituting an official manner for His friendly one (which the hobbledehoy could not understand) asking his name and ordinary questions about his status and addressing him as Mr. Macleod. It was a magnificent animal, incapable of the finer sentimental emotions, likely to conceal fat in a cassock (or in corduroy, if on a farm) before the age of
