"For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful." There was a tremor in his voice, but it held out to the end.
With still lowered head Horatio moved to the head of the table, and, standing by the side of Mr. Robert Baxter, lifted the cover from Kate Clendennin's omelette and placed it on the sideboard.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE
Long established usage on desert islands has ordered that the first duty of the shipwrecked, after locating the crystal spring and ascertaining that the cocoanuts are ripe and the mango (or bread fruit tree) abounds, is to signal for help. Accordingly, at this first meal after the desolation of Ipping House the sole topic of conversation concerned ways and means of obtaining new servants without delay. But the Merles took no part in the discussion.
From the outset the Reverend Horatio's domestic ministrations had been accepted, in the picnickian spirit of the occasion, as the whim of an eccentric parson and quickly forgotten by all but Harriet in the absorbing topic of the moment.
Harriet watched him now as he moved quietly to and fro, carrying the large silver platter, bending gravely as he held it in turn for each of the chatterers at the table. "Heathens" she reflected bitterly. "They are raging about menials, heedless that they are being served by an angel!"
A rare partisan was Harriet Merle. With her on his side, Horatio might well liken himself to a hero of old armed with an invincible spear. Harriet gloried in opposition, and it was only when opposing forces were equal that there was any doubt in her husband's mind which side she would take. At such times something totally unexpected, weighing with the infinitesimal preponderance of a hair, would sway the balance. So it had been this morning when Horatio had spoken of long ago days and the look of long ago had shone in Horatio's eyes.
An hour before, if the priestly Ezekiel himself had appeared to the curate's wife and prophesied that she would soon be abetting her husband in this, the maddest of his mad ideas, Harriet would in all probability have shown the presentient son of Buzi to the door. (Hiram Baxter would have told him he was talking through his halo.) Yet now that very thing was actually happening, and the strangest part of it was that it did not seem strange to her.
As Horatio stood, with his back to the room, occupied with things on the sideboard, there was to Harriet something solemnly familiar about his attitude, his quiet movements. Nor was the good churchwoman shocked when she realized what it recalled to her mind. It was but an added proof, if such were needed, that to Horatio this was indeed a ritual, and no common service he was performing.