CHAPTER XXVIII.
PATTY AND HER PATIENT.
We left Patty standing irresolute in the road. The latch-string of her father's house was drawn in; she must find another home. Every Methodist cabin would be open to her, of course; Colonel Wheeler would be only too glad to receive her. But Colonel Wheeler and all the Methodist people were openly hostile to her father, and delicacy forbade her allying herself so closely with her father's foes. She did not want to foreclose every door to a reconciliation. Mrs. Goodwin's was not to be thought of. There was but one place, and that was with Kike's mother, the widow Lumsden, who, as a relative, was naturally her first resort in exile.
Here she found a cordial welcome, and here she found the schoolmaster, still attentive to the widow, though neither he nor she dared think of marriage with Kike's awful displeasure in the back-ground.
"Well, well," said Brady, when the homeless Patty had received permission to stay in the cabin of her aunt-in-law: "Well, well, how sthrange things comes to pass, Miss Lumsden. You turned Moirton off yersilf fer bein' a Mithodis' and now ye're the one that gits sint adrift." Then, half musingly, he added: "I wish Moirton noo, now don't oi? Revinge is swate, and this sort of revinge would be swater on many accounts."
The helpless Patty could say nothing, and Brady looked out of the window and continued, in a sort of soliloquy: "Moirton would be that glad. Ha! ha! He'd say the divil niver sarved him a better thrick than by promptin' the Captin to turn ye out. It'll simplify matters fer Moirton. A sum's aisier to do when its simplified, loike. An' now it'll be as aisy to Moirton when he hears about it, as twice one is two—as simple as puttin' two halves togither to make a unit." Here the master rubbed his hands in glee. He was pleased with the success of his illustration. Then he muttered: "They'll agree in ginder, number and parson!"
"Mr. Brady, I don't think you ought to make fun of me."
"Make fun of ye! Bliss yer dair little heart, it aint in yer ould schoolmasther to make fun of ye, whin ye've done yer dooty. I was only throyin' to congratilate ye on how aisy Moirton would conjugate the whole thing whin he hears about it."
"Now, Mr. Brady," said Patty, drawing herself up with her old pride, "I know there will be those who will say that I joined the church to get Morton back, I want you to say that Morton is to be married—was probably married to-day—and that I knew of it some days ago."
Brady's countenance fell. "Things niver come out roight," he said, as he absently put on his hat. "They talk about spicial providinces," he soliloquized, as he walked away, "and I thought as I had caught one at last. But it does same sometoimes as if a bluntherin' Oirishman loike mesilf could turn the univarse better if he had aholt of the stairin' oar. But, psha! Oi've only got one or two pets of me own to look afther. God has to git husbands fer ivery woman ixcipt the old maids. An' some women has to have two, of which I hope is the Widdy Lumsden! But Mithodism upsets iverything. Koike's so religious that he can't love anybody but God, and he don't know how to pity thim that does. And Koike's made us both mortally afeard of his goodness. I wish he'd fall dead in love himself once; thin he'd know how it fales!"