“And this thing is a warning to the nuns here to close up their convent and take in no more novices, because the church can’t recognize them or their order. It’s queer old Latin, but that’s what I make it out to be.”
“’T is an illegant scholar ye are, sir!” exclaimed Jerry, in honest admiration.
“No,” said Bernard; “only they started me in for a priest, and I got to know Latin as well as I did English, or almost. But my godliness wasn’t anywhere near high-water mark, and so I got switched off into engineering. I dare say the change was a good thing all around. If it’s all the same to you,” he added, turning to Linsky, “I’ll put this parchment in my pocket for the time being, I want to look it over again more carefully. You shall have it back.”
The two Irishmen assented as a matter of course. This active-minded and capable young man, who had mining figures at his finger’s ends, and could read Latin, and talked lightly of fifteen hundred ways to outwit O’Daly, was obviously one to be obeyed without questions. They sat now and watched him with rapt eyes and acquiescent nods as he, seated on the table with foot on knee, recounted to them the more salient points of his interview with O’Daly.
“He was a dacent ould man when I knew him first,” mused Jerry, in comment, “an’ as full of praises for the O’Mahonys as an egg is of mate. ’T is the money that althered him; an’ thin that brat of a bye of his! ’T is since thin that he behaved like a nagur. An ’t is my belafe, sir, that only for him Miss Katie’d never have dr’amed of interin’ that thunderin’ old convint. The very last toime I was wid him, egor, he druv us both from the house. ’T was the nuns made Miss Katie return to him next day. ’T is just that, sir, that she’s no one else bechune thim nuns an’ O’Daly, an’ they do be tossin’ her from wan to the other of ’em like a blessid ball.”
“The wonder is to me she’s stood it for a minute,” said Bernard; “a proud girl like her.”
“Ah, sir,” said Jerry, “it isn’t like in Ameriky, where every wan’s free to do what phases him. What was the girl to do? Where was she to go if she defied thim that was in authority over her? ’T is aisy to talk, as manny’s the toime she’s said that same to me; but ’t is another matther to do!”
“There’s the whole trouble in a nutshell,” said Bernard. “Everybody talks and nobody does anything.”
“There’s truth in that sir,” put in Linsky; “but what are you proposin’ to do? There were fifteen hundred ways, you said. What’s wan of ’em?”
“Oh, there are fifteen hundred and two now,” responded Bernard, with a smile. “You’ve helped me to two more since I’ve been down here—or, rather, this missing O’Mahony of yours has helped me to one, and I helped myself to the other.”