第19章

He saw instead Father Forbes, in the white and purple vestments, standing by poor MacEvoy's bedside, with his pale, chiselled, luminous, uplifted face, and he heard only the proud, confident clanging of the girl's recital,--BEATUM MICHAELEM ARCHANGELUM, BEATUM JOANNEM BAPTISTAM, PETRUM ET PAULUM--EM!--AM!--UM!--like strokes on a great resonant alarm-bell, attuned for the hearing of heaven.

He caught himself on the very verge of feeling that heaven must have heard.

Then he smiled again, and laid the matter aside, with a parting admission that it had been undoubtedly picturesque and impressive, and that it had been a valuable experience to him to see it.At least the Irish, with all their faults, must have a poetic strain, or they would not have clung so tenaciously to those curious and ancient forms.

He recalled having heard somewhere, or read, it might be, that they were a people much given to songs and music.

And the young lady, that very handsome and friendly Miss Madden, had told him that she was a musician!

He had a new pleasure in turning this over in his mind.

Of all the closed doors which his choice of a career had left along his pathway, no other had for him such a magical fascination as that on which was graven the lute of Orpheus.

He knew not even the alphabet of music, and his conceptions of its possibilities ran but little beyond the best of the hymn-singing he had heard at Conferences, yet none the less the longing for it raised on occasion such mutiny in his soul that more than once he had specifically prayed against it as a temptation.

Dangerous though some of its tendencies might be, there was no gainsaying the fact that a love for music was in the main an uplifting influence--an attribute of cultivation.

The world was the sweeter and more gentle for it.And this brought him to musing upon the odd chance that the two people of Octavius who had given him the first notion of polish and intellectual culture in the town should be Irish.

The Romish priest must have been vastly surprised at his intrusion, yet had been at the greatest pains to act as if it were quite the usual thing to have Methodist ministers assist at Extreme Unction.And the young woman--how gracefully, with what delicacy, had she comprehended his position and robbed it of all its possible embarrassments!

It occurred to him that they must have passed, there in front of her home, the very tree from which the luckless wheelwright had fallen some hours before; and the fact that she had forborne to point it out to him took form in his mind as an added proof of her refinement of nature.

The midday dinner was a little more than ready when Theron reached home, and let himself in by the front door.

On Mondays, owing to the moisture and "clutter" of the weekly washing in the kitchen, the table was laid in the sitting-room, and as he entered from the hall the partner of his joys bustled in by the other door, bearing the steaming platter of corned beef, dumplings, cabbages, and carrots, with arms bared to the elbows, and a red face.It gave him great comfort, however, to note that there were no signs of the morning's displeasure remaining on this face;and he immediately remembered again those interrupted projects of his about the piano and the hired girl.

"Well! I'd just about begun to reckon that I was a widow," said Alice, putting down her fragrant burden.

There was such an obvious suggestion of propitiation in her tone that Theron went around and kissed her.

He thought of saying something about keeping out of the way because it was "Blue Monday," but held it back lest it should sound like a reproach.

"Well, what kind of a washerwoman does THIS one turn out to be?" he asked, after they were seated, and he had invoked a blessing and was cutting vigorously into the meat.

"Oh, so-so," replied Alice; "she seems to be particular, but she's mortal slow.If I hadn't stood right over her, we shouldn't have had the clothes out till goodness knows when.

And of course she's Irish!"

"Well, what of THAT?" asked the minister, with a fine unconcern.

Alice looked up from her plate, with knife and fork suspended in air."Why, you know we were talking only the other day of what a pity it was that none of our own people went out washing," she said.

"That Welsh woman we heard of couldn't come, after all;and they say, too, that she presumes dreadfully upon the acquaintance, being a church member, you know.So we simply had to fall back on the Irish.And even if they do go and tell their priest everything they see and hear, why, there's one comfort, they can tell about US and welcome.

Of course I see to it she doesn't snoop around in here."Theron smiled."That's all nonsense about their telling such things to their priests," he said with easy confidence.

"Why, you told me so yourself," replied Alice, briskly.

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"It must have been by way of a figure of speech,"remarked Theron, not with entire directness."Women are great hands to separate one's observations from their context, and so give them meanings quite unintended.They are also great hands," he added genially, "or at least one of them is, at making the most delicious dumplings in the world.

I believe these are the best even you ever made."Alice was not unmindful of the compliment, but her thoughts were on other things."I shouldn't like that woman's priest, for example," she said, "to know that we had no piano.""But if he comes and stands outside our house every night and listens--as of course he will," said Theron, with mock gravity, "it is only a question of time when he must reach that conclusion for himself.Our only chance, however, is that there are some sixteen hundred other houses for him to watch, so that he may not get around to us for quite a spell.Why, seriously, Alice, what on earth do you suppose Father Forbes knows or cares about our poor little affairs, or those of any other Protestant household in this whole village? He has his work to do, just as I have mine--only his is ten times as exacting in everything except sermons--and you may be sure he is only too glad when it is over each day, without bothering about things that are none of his business.""All the same I'm afraid of them," said Alice, as if argument were exhausted.