August Gale by Barbara Walsh Page B

Paddy’s grand home many Sundays, but the skipper was often on his schooner more than he was on land, leaving the priest alone to stew in his morose moods. Yet, on those lonesome nights, there had always been Jocko to comfort the reverend. The two of them had sat there before the roaring fire for hours, McGettigan rocking in his chair with a glass of rum by his side and the dog stretched out before him on the rug. Surely the old fellow missed his scoundrel of a dog. Did the reverend feel a twinge of guilt for drowning his loyal companion? Sure now, even if he harbored remorse, the priest could absolve himself for killing the animal. He could offer himself absolution for just about anything now couldn’t he?
    Lizzie heard the chair stop rocking and quickly pushed her musings from her mind. She listened closely for more hints to the priest’s intentions. God forbid his holiness’s dinner was late .
    In the parlor, McGettigan stood and reached for the glass decanter on the table before him. He poured himself a generous amount of the amber-colored rum and sat back down in his rocker. Taking a sip from his glass, he drew in the scent of the sweet liquor he purchased from the nearby French island of St. Pierre. ’Tis at least one benefit to living in this isolated outport , the priest thought. Rubbing his temples, McGettigan sighed. Dusk had not settled in on the shores outside, yet he could easily retire to bed for the night. Over the last few months, a deepening fatigue had overcome the middle-aged priest, a leaden feeling he could not seem to shake. Was it the summer heat , McGettigan wondered, or thoughts of the long winter ahead? No, the priest knew it was more than the frigid temperatures that froze the bay over into thick sheets of ice. On Sunday mornings, he could hardly bear to look down upon Marystown’s families as he preached from the pulpit. They sat, the men, women, and children, in the wooden benches looking to him for hope, for guidance from God, for a sign that soon things would get better; that they would have something more than turnips and potatoes for dinner, that soon the fish prices would rise again like they had before these miserable times had emptied their cupboards and forced them to live like their ancestors in Ireland: desperate and hungry, with no chance of a future, no belief of a better tomorrow.
    Ah, how could he expect anyone to listen to his sermons, about the love of God, the fear of the Almighty, when their stomachs rumbled and ached from the emptiness? He saw it in the fishermen’s eyes, their defiant glares, the anger and resentment of working so hard for so little. Even his good friend Paddy, who was never troubled by anything a’tall, appeared worn down, burdened by his mounting debt. McGettigan had done his best over the past nine years to bolster the spirits of his parish and to grow the community as well as the economics allowed. He had brought in the Sisters of Mercy to better school the children; he had built a new parish hall and a new school. He had counseled and chastened Marystown’s wayward sinners, broken up more fights than he cared to count, married young and naïve couples, and baptized innumerable babies. In return, the village men and women offered him what they could: spare vegetables, an odd chicken or two, a bucket of milk, a few pennies in the collection box. From the start of his appointment at Sacred Heart Church in 1926, McGettigan had admired the determination of Marystown’s men and women, how they made do with so little, how they kept their pride despite their tattered clothes and humble homes. But by the mid-1930s, the will and fortitude of the fishing community slipped away like the tide; despair and death shrouded the outport like the smell of fish that hovered incessantly in the parsonage meadow.
    In recent years, he anointed holy oil on the foreheads of far too many of Marystown’s young and old, parents and