Mr. Brentano left the priest and came running up to Captain Cary, who had now dismounted from the caleche. Mr. Brentano was a middle-aged, foxy-looking man with an astute mind.
“Ah, Captain Cary,” he said, “the boatmen told me that you had not gone aboard. I hoped to catch you here as you went off. By the way, here is some mail for the Pathfinder. There is this priest, a Father Garsinton, from the mining district, who came in, just as the office closed, to beg a passage to Santa Barbara.”
“Indeed.”
“He has a letter from one of our clients, one of our most important clients.”
“Do I understand that he wants to come in the Pathfinder?”
“Well; he comes from one of our very best clients, Captain Cary, so if you could manage to strain a point. . . . He is a priest, used to every kind of hardship; you could put him in the coal-hole, anywhere, it would make no difference to him, he would give no trouble. I don’t suppose he’s very rich, but of course he would pay his passage. You see, Captain Cary, it is a very special case. He is a poor man. He has only a month’s leave of absence. He wants to reach Santa Barbara to settle the affairs of his mother, who has died there. He has missed the Alvarado. He is an Englishman and his poor sister is in Santa Barbara all alone.”
Captain Cary bit his glove, and showed a poor mouth.
“I suppose we’ll have to take him,” he growled to Sard; “I hate priests: they always take snuff. But I’ll have no nonsense about fish on Fridays.”
Mr. Brentano led up and introduced Father Garsinton. Sard noticed the priest particularly. He was a big bull of a man, with immense chest and shoulders, a short, thick neck, a compact, forceful head and little glittering eyes. There was something magnificent in his bearing. He was of about the middle age, near that time in life when muscle goes to flesh, but still on the sinewy side of it. At a first glance, his face, which was fresh-coloured, looked wholesome, hearty and healthy; but at a second glance Sard felt that there was something wanting. There was a greyish puffiness under the eyes, and something unnatural, or at least unusual, about the eyes themselves. The man’s face was unusual, the man was unusual, he was an odd-looking man, with enormous bodily strength to make his oddness felt. Sard, who had not seen any such Englishman before, realised that a man so odd would choose a way of life followed by few Englishmen. Father Garsinton wore new blacks; he was smart, for a priest from a mining camp; his cloth smelt new; his voice, as he thanked Captain Cary, was soft and gracious, but his eye was sidelong as he spoke, taking stock of Sard.
“Mr. Harker,” Captain Cary said, “will you be away, then to make those enquiries, and then follow us on board?”