The sunrise of Joyce's wedding day was just breaking when Filmer's Spectre gave up the struggle and sleep came. The only trophy of the victory was the discarded flask, which lay untouched where the hand of the master—for that time at least—had flung it.
CHAPTER VI
The word had passed along, and all St. Angé knew that Jock Filmer had a raw specimen of a parson up at his shack, in safe keeping for the Sunday events. For Joyce's wedding-day fell upon a Sunday.
"He's fattening him up," said Tom Smith, "and the Lord knows he needs it! Such a spindling youngster I never saw—a parson!" The contempt was too deep for Smith's expression, so he gave up. "And to think," added the train conductor, stretching his long legs in Tate's tavern, "there he was on my car, and I never sensed his ideas. Talk about entertaining angels unaware, it ain't in it! He even cussed mild when I told him his ticket was punched for Green Lake, and he was headed for St. Angé. I never would have took him for anything but a plain milksop till he let forth his opinions."
"I don't call it a proper attitude," broke in Tate, mixing a glass of vile dilution for Murphy's consumption. "I don't call it a proper attitude for a parson to appear so much like other folks that you can't tell 'im. It's suspicious, says I. How do we know as he is a parson?"
This suggestion caused the company a moment's pause.
"He better be!" muttered Peter Falstar. "He'd better be what he claims to be, even if it is a parson. We don't stand for any tricks from strangers."
This lifted the spirits somewhat. Looked at that way, they had the matter in their own hands.