A Pocketful of Rye by A. J. Cronin

for you.’
    There was nothing else for it. I had to go. The old autocrat was in a wheeled chair, but still erect, with a book on his knee. His eyes, sunken, but still burning in their sockets, unmistakably alive, took me all in.
    â€˜So,’ he said, when he’d finished looking me over. ‘ I’d a notion to see you before they sent me to the scrap heap.’ Without taking his eyes off me, he felt for his snuff box from under his soutane, using his good left hand and, still adeptly, inhaled a pinch. ‘ I perceive that you have slipped, Carroll. Badly. It’s written all over you.’
    I felt the blood rush into my face and neck.
    â€˜At least you’ve still the grace to be ashamed of yourself. I needn’t remind you it was you I wanted in there. I worked hard on you too. All those Friday afternoons.’ He nodded sideways. ‘ But, with that slippery Irish side to you, you got away. However, don’t think you’ll ever escape. The seed is in you and you’ll never get rid of it.’
    There was a pause. I was grateful that he spared me a cross-examination of my faults, and somehow sad and shamed that I had disappointed him.
    â€˜I hope you’re feeling better, Canon,’ I mumbled.
    â€˜I’m as well as ever I was, except for the use of one flipper, and good for another ten years. I’ll have my eye on you, Carroll.’
    â€˜I’ve always appreciated your interest in me, Canon, and all that you did for me.’
    â€˜Drop the blarney, Carroll. Just let some of our Fridays stick.’
    Another pause. He took up the book. ‘As a quasi literary character, notably an essayist, do you ever read poems?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜Well, take this. It’s a prize they gave me at Blairs many a year ago. I’ve marked one poem. It might have been written specially for you.’
    When I took the book he snapped the snuff box shut.
    â€˜Kneel down, sinner.’ I had to obey. ‘I’m going to bless you, Carroll, and it’s not only the Lord’s will, but mighty appropriate in your case that I have to do so with the wrong hand. For before God, if ever you achieve salvation it’ll be the wrong way – by falling in backwards through the side door.’
    As I left the sacristy, horribly discomposed, I realized I had barely uttered a single coherent word. To recover myself I sat down in the now empty church and opened the book he had given me. ‘The Poems of Francis Thompson’. I had never heard of him. His photograph was the frontispiece, an emaciated, self-tortured face with a faint straggle of moustache.
    A bookmark indicated the poem towards which my attention had been directed. I looked at the opening lines, I began to read. My mind, full of the recent interview, and the puzzle of Frank and Cathy, was not on the words, but I wanted to get rid of Davigan, so I sat there reading on, without real comprehension; until I came to the end. Absently, I put the book in my pocket, got up slowly, and left the church. And there outside, still waiting for me, was Davigan.
    â€˜I never thought you’d be that long. But maybe he wanted to hear you. Where are you off to?’
    â€˜To visit my grandparents.’
    â€˜That’s my way also. I’ll give you a butty along Renton Road.’
    In subsequent encounters since that memorable interruption in the Longcrags Wood, my dislike for Davigan had not been mitigated, a feeling which, under his habitual ingratiating effusiveness, I sensed he returned with interest. And now, armed with a greater confidence, an exudation of affluence, and cherishing some secret satisfaction that imparted a smirk to his heavy, pallid features, he struck me as even more objectionable. He was got up in a stiff white choker, spongebag trousers and a cutaway coat, the sidesman’s outfit, in which he showed people to their places and shovelled up the two collections, but this sartorial