"I'm afraid I do not, sir."
"You know his manuscripts."
"Just casually, sentimentally."
"You don't know much about your uncle's work, then?"
"Not very much."
"Did you know," the old priest said—and his urbanity disappeared; there was pique in his tones—"that your uncle was the man who definitely decided for us that the Highlanders of Scotland migrated from Ireland to Scotland? Did you know that?"
"I don't suppose," the old man was sarcastic, "that seems important to you."
"To confess, Dr. Hegan, it does not. Is it?"
"My child," the old priest smiled—it was so queer to be called "my child" at forty-seven—"all knowledge is important. All details of knowledge. We come we know not whence, and we go we hope we know whither. Our history, our motives, our all, is vague. All we have is faith, a great broad river, but knowledge is the little piers ..."