“M. l’Abbé has without doubt heard of that prêtre from the New England who instructs a flock outside the walls of Halifax?”
Le Loutre scowled darkly.
“Art thou a heretic already? I feared as much.”
“No, M. l’Abbé,” replied the boy in the same restrained tones; “yet I confess that the faith of my fathers holds much of interest for me. And he is good, monsieur, oh, good! like our own beloved curé.”
Here he hesitated; then took courage, and went on rapidly:
“He bade me always to remember, even if I should not in the end turn to my father’s faith, that one of its noblest commands is: Never do evil that good may come. Also that my father obeyed that command. O mon père, choose some one else for thy purpose; one who is not divided in heart as I, but who hates the English as my blood will not let me do, and to whom the Holy Catholic Church is the only church!”
For a moment it seemed as though the priest would strike the pleading face upturned to his, so fierce a flame of wrath swept over him, but instead he said with a sneer:
“And thou wouldst thrust the words of a heretic down the throat of a priest of God and the king? There is but one explanation, boy, thou art a coward!”
The hot blood surged into Gabriel’s cheeks. All his prudence was tossed aside beneath the lash of that tongue. Flinging back his head he confronted Le Loutre with an air which compelled, as it never had failed to do, the reluctant admiration of the man to whom courage seemed the best of God’s gifts to mortals.
“M. l’Abbé,” said the boy, in the low tones of an unbending resolve, “I am no coward; but I should be both coward and liar were I to do your bidding.”