He took the mugs from their hands, and for a minute stood like some ancient priest who had performed a noble ritual. As Sheila looked at him, she kept saying to herself:
“He’s a spirit; he isn’t a man!”
Dyck’s eye met that of Sheila, and he saw with the same feeling what was working in her heart.
“Well, we must be going,” he said to Christopher Dogan. “We must get homeward, and we’ve had a good drink—the best I ever tasted. We’re proud to pay our respects to you in your own house; and goodbye to you till we meet again.”
His hand went out to the shoulder of the peasant and rested there for a second in friendly feeling. Then the girl stretched out her hand also. The old man took the two cups in one hand, and, reaching out the other, let Sheila’s fingers fall upon his own. He slowly crooked his neck, and kissed her fingers with that distinction mostly to be found among those few good people who live on the highest or the lowest social levels, or in native tents.
“Ah, please God we meet again! and that I be let to serve you, Miss Sheila Llyn. I have no doubt you could do with a little help some time or another, the same as the rest of us. For all that’s come between us three, may it be given me, humble and poor, to help ye both that’s helped me so!”
Dyck turned to go, and as he did so a thought came to him.
“If you hadn’t food and drink for us, what have you for yourself, Christopher?” he asked. “Have you food to eat?”
“Ah, well—well, do ye think I’m no provider? There was no food cooked was what I was thinking; but come and let me show you.”
He took the cover off a jar standing in a corner. “Here’s good flour, and there’s water, and there’s manny a wild shrub and plant on the hillside to make soup, and what more does a man want? With the scone cooked and inside ye, don’t ye feel as well as though ye’d had a pound of beef or a rasher of bacon? Sure, ye do. I know where there’s clumps of wild radishes, and with a little salt they’re good—the best. God bless ye!”