\u201cForgive me Father,\u201d the boy\u2019s voice whispered in the dark, \u201cfor I have sinned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd what,\u201d asked the kindly voice of Father McDonald \u201chave you done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve murdered someone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A brief silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI see, my child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI poisoned Father McPhearson.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
It was no secret that the late Father McPhearson, hard of hearing and loud of voice was the terror of children during confessional. When hearing a lad confess his sins, McPhearson who generally regarded all boys with suspicion, let his thunderous voice bellow out what he had just been told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou played with yourself?!\u201d he\u2019d often boom so that the boys\u2019 mothers, waiting outside the confessional booth, would hear all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as a teacher? During classes he\u2019d slap a tardy boy\u2019s knuckles with his ruler, yell at anyone who dared yawn when he spoke, or sneer at the ignorant in such a way as to invite the rest of the class to cruelly chortle. So, the notion of a vengeful pupil poisoning the old priest was certainly conceivable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow did it happen?\u201d Father McDonald inquired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI heard Father McPhearson had a peanut allergy; so, I brought a packet of peanuts to class and crushed them into powder. When he wasn\u2019t looking, I poured the packet into his coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd what did you intend?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just wanted to make him sick,\u201d the boy\u2019s voice almost sobbed. \u201cI wanted to get my own back for being caned!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Father McDonald knew that McPhearson had indeed flung a pack of peanuts at some hapless choir boy but not because of any allergies, rather the lad didn\u2019t fetch a packet of crisps as asked for. Father McPhearson\u2019s explosion was aimed at the lad\u2019s inattentiveness more than anything, but this anecdote had grown with every retelling until in its final form, Father McPhearson beat a boy half to death for almost killing him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prosaic explanation of Father McPhearson\u2019s passing was a stroke in his sleep, but Father McDonald listening to the sobbing voice, had a hunch that it belonged to the petulant and misbehaving Syd Forbes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syd Forbes was a kid who had \u201cissues with authority\u201d which meant he loathed being told what to do, but like anybody who was a natural born anarchist, when given a fraction of power, like being put in charge of a study group for example, he\u2019d predictably turned into a mini dictator, acting not unlike Father McPhearson when it came down to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now Forbes sounded so distraught, so guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy child,\u201d Father McDonald coughed, knowing he might finally be able to get this kid to behave \u201cIf you want to be forgiven of your sins\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cForgive me Father,\u201d the boy\u2019s voice whispered in the dark, \u201cfor I have sinned.\u201d \u201cAnd what,\u201d asked the kindly voice of Father McDonald \u201chave you done?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve murdered someone.\u201d A brief silence. \u201cI see, my child.\u201d \u201cI poisoned Father McPhearson.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211","service":"facebook","timestamp":1781767597,"status":"success"},{"account":"twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305","service":"twitter","timestamp":1781767597,"status":"error"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1792,1881],"tags":[859,114,642,95,8,20,1886,1885,1884,1887,651,1189,11,159,172],"class_list":["post-2709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1792","category-july-2026-confession","tag-boy","tag-but","tag-father","tag-had","tag-he","tag-his","tag-lad","tag-mcdonald","tag-mcphearson","tag-packet","tag-so","tag-voice","tag-was","tag-what","tag-when"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-HH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2710,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions\/2710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}