"What's wrong with ye?" asked the priest solemnly. "Faith, 'tis no advice I'm giving; but as I was remarking, marry, my children, I'd sooner stand before a man not warranted safe than a woman, who might take to shying pretty charms at my head! Faith, me lambs, ye'll learn that I speak true."
As Mr. Jack MacKenzie used to put it in his peppery reproof, I always did have a knack of tumbling head first the instant an opportunity offered. This time I had gone in heels and all, and now came up in as fine a confusion as any bashful bumpkin ever displayed before his lady. Frances Sutherland had regained her composure and came to my rescue with another attempt to take the lead from the loquacious churchman.
"I'm so grateful to you for arranging this trip," and she turned directly to me.
"Hm-m," blurted Father Holland with unutterable merriment, before I could get a word in, "he's grateful to himself for that same thing. Faith! He's been thankin' the stars, especially Venus, ever since he got marching orders!"
"How did you reach Fort Gibraltar?" she persisted.
"Sans boots and cap," I promptly replied, determined to be ahead of the interloper.
"Sans heart, too," and the priest flicked my broncho with his whip and knocked the ready-made speech, with which I had hoped to silence him, clean out of my head. Frances Sutherland took to examining remote objects on the horizon. Hers was a nature not to be beaten.
"Let us ride faster," she suddenly proposed with a glance that boded roguery for the priest's portly form. She was off like a shaft from a bow-string, causing a stampede of our horses. That was effective. A hard gallop against a stiff prairie wind will stop a stout man's eloquence.
"Ho youngsters!" exclaimed the priest, coming abreast of us as we reined up behind the scouts. "If ye set me that gait—whew—I'll not be left for Gretna Green—Faith—it's Pembina, I mean," and he puffed like a cargo boat doing itself proud among the great liners.
He was breathless, therefore safe. Frances Sutherland was not disposed to break the accumulating silence, and I, for the life of me, could not think of a single remark appropriate for a party of three. The ordinary commonplaces, that stop-gap conversation, refused to come forth. I rehearsed a multitude of impossible speeches; but they stuck behind sealed lips.