“But the father muttered, ‘Tha’st called hoo Jahn, and hoo’s a wench.’” (General assent.)
The Canon rose wrathfully from his seat: “Goodfellow, you call that a new story! do you know that it is to be found in the ‘Life of St. Augustine,’ in the chapter describing his reception in Kent in the year 596? Where is the book?” And he went to the bookshelves, picked up a huge folio, and read with some fluency:
Inde, precibus finitis, postquam omnes dispersi essent, advenit femina filiolam in manibus gerens. “Quid petis, mea filia” inquit Augustinus: “Ut infantem baptizare velis” respondet mater. (H’m, it’s very poor print.) Quo concesso omnes redierunt, et ad Fontem aggrediebantur.
“Now that is very interesting,” interposed Johnson, to give the Canon time. “You see ‘Fons’ would not be the font, of course, but a spring: Augustine, no doubt, was preaching on a hillside, and at the foot in the meadow there would be a fons, or spring. I beg pardon for interrupting you, Miller.”
“Not at all,” said the Canon, grinning with complete understanding of the motive: he had spent the interval in careful study of the folio, and now resumed more easily:
“Nomina hunc infantem” inquit sacerdos.
“Lu-lu-lucia” respondit illa, balbutiens propter quandam hesitationem linguæ.
“Quid dixisti, mulier?” petit Augustinus; quippe qui—(“‘quippe qui’ is good,” muttered Johnson to me)—post tot pericula per terram et mare, et tantos labores paululum surdus erat;—
“Is it ‘erat’ or ‘esset’?” enquired Johnson, with kindly concern for the Latinity of Augustine, or his biographer.
“‘Esset’ of course: it’s the vilest print,” said the Canon, smothering a laugh: “where was I? h’m, h’m”: