Well, I thought at first that someone must have let a dog in. Seriously. All I could hear was this infernal scuffling and bumping. I’d heard the door open and close, sure enough. I thought nothing of the silence at first. You know how it is; the old ones like to get comfortable before they begin, the occasional ones forget the preliminaries and, now and again, well not so frequently, perhaps, there is the real humdinger of a sin that has the penitent struggling to overcome their shame before uttering the whole dark business. Do you get more than one of those in a year by the way? I’ve only heard the two since I was ordained.
Well, as I was saying, there was I, waiting with all the appropriate decorum and…nothing! So, very carefully, didn’t I draw back the grill; just a fraction of an inch at a time, mind you, to check that somebody really was there?
Well, weren’t there shadows jumping in the gloom? And grunts. Sure, I knew then it was no dog. At least it was a Hell of a hound if it was; a great dane at least, so high were the shadows it cast.
Well, then didn’t I hear the voice asking forgiveness? I’d the grill a quarter open but nothing was to be seen. And wasn’t the voice coming from above? I thought to myself, Colm, you need to be at the bottom of this. So I knelt down at the screen, like a sinner myself, staring up at what for all the world seemed to be a pair of knees to me.
“Whose there?” said I.
“Tis me father,” says he. Well didn’t the devil take my tongue? There he was, just a snip of a boy, standing on the elbow rest, talking down at me through his knees.
“What are you doing up there?” I shouted, hoping to sound suitably stern. Well, it was plainly his first confession and wasn’t I about to make allowances for that and explain the normal procedure to him when, with an almighty racket, he tumbled from above and crashed through the confessional door?
And couldn’t you hear the gasps of the waiting penitents echo up to the rafters? Now, by the help of the Holy Family, I emerged from the box looking suitably severe and ready to chastise the young eejit. But before I could begin I found myself defending the scamp. Wasn’t his sister there beating him about the head, the little vixen, accusing him of preventing her from completing her penance? So didn’t I send her packing with the threat of a review of the penance I had given; setting the boy aside meanwhile with an instruction to wait until last when I would attend to him?
Ah, so timid he looked. Anyway, when he came in I left the grill aside so as not to make him feel like a man condemned. Sure, I jollied him along to ease his discomfort. I used his own name to win his confidence and let him speak freely. And did he gush? What a first confession it was. No mere rudeness to parents or silent cursing, no inattentiveness during the mass for this boy. No, to be sure! Attempted murder on two counts would you believe?