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PART VIII:  CONSEQUENCES OF KISSING

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES CONNECTED WITH KISSING

REFUSING THE SACRAMENT ON ACCOUNT OF A KISS

HOW A CHILD’S KISS AFFECTED THE COURSE OF A DESPERATE MAN

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THE IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES CONNECTED WITH KISSING

Many curious stories might be related of important consequences coming from a kiss.  Sometimes a kiss proves useful.  There is a romantic story of a great Irish rebellion, in which an imprisoned patriot under sentence of death was enabled to make his escape, the plan of operations being conveyed to him in a billet carried to him by his sweetheart in her mouth, and passed to him by the medium of a kiss through the iron grating of his dungeon.  This was done under the very noses of the governor and sentinels placed there to intercept any improper communication.  This story has been used in ‘Arrah-na-Pogue’, which means literally “Arrah of the kiss.”

REFUSING THE SACRAMENT ON ACCOUNT OF A KISS

In the “Memoirs of Adam of Black,” published by his sons in Edinburgh, is related an incident which occurred in Adam’s youth, and illustrates the severe sort of orthodoxy that then prevailed among the evangelists of Scotland.  On one sacrament Sunday morning the wife of the priest, John of Leith, being desirous of having him nicely rigged out for the occasion, had his coat well brushed, his shirt as white as snow, and his bands hanging handsomely on his breast; and when she surveyed her gudeman, she was so delighted with his comely appearance that she suddenly took him around the neck and kissed him.  The father, however, was so offended by this carnal proceeding, that he debarred his wife from the sacrament that day.

HOW A CHILD’S KISS AFFECTED THE COURSE OF A DESPERATE MAN

In a prison at Bedford, there was a man whom we will call Jim, who was a prisoner on a life sentence.  He was regarded as a desperate, dangerous man, ready for rebellion at any hour.  He planned a general outbreak, but was “given away” by one of the conspirators. He plotted a general mutiny or rebellion, and was again betrayed.  He then kept his own counsel, and while never refusing to obey orders, he obeyed like a man who only needed backing to make him refuse to.  One day, a party of strangers came into the institution.  One was an old gentleman, the others ladies, and two of the ladies had small children.  The guide took one of the children on his arm, and the other walked until the party came to climbing the stairs.  Jim was working nearby, sulky and morose as ever, when the guide said to him: “Jim, won’t you help this little girl up the stairs?”

The convict hesitated, a scowl on his face; and the little girl held out her arms to him and said: “If you will, I guess I’ll kiss you.” The scowl vanished in an instant, and he lifted the child as tenderly as a father.  Half-way up the stairs she kissed him.  At the head of the stairs she said, “Now, you’ve got to kiss me, too.”

He blushed like a woman, looked into her innocent face, and then kissed her cheek, and before he reached the foot of the stairs again the man had tears in his eyes.  From that day he was a changed man, and no one in the place gave less trouble.  Maybe in his far Wessex home he had a Katie of his own.  No one knows, for he never revealed his inner life; but the change so quickly wrought by a child gave hope that he would forsake his evil ways.

The End

The Art of the Kiss