You could have recorded each of the Church’s seasons by Anastasia’s humming of the antiphons of Our Lady. At first Father Maloney had suffered the humming with what patience he might. It now affected him no more than the droning of the bees in his garden.
For twenty minutes, half an hour, perhaps, he sat motionless, his thoughts very far away. Suddenly he came back to the present. He was conscious, in some subtle fashion, that he was not alone. It was a moment or so before the consciousness found articulation in his brain. He looked up. The garden was as empty of any human presence but his own as it had been hitherto.
He turned.
In the field, on the other side of the yew hedge, a tall man was standing. He was big, he was loose-limbed, he was red-headed. His face, squarish and short-chinned, had a somewhat doggy expression. He was looking at the flowers, seemingly unconscious, for the moment at all events, of the presence of the owner of the garden.
Father Maloney coughed. The stranger’s eyes left the flowers, and turned towards Father Maloney.
“I was looking at the flowers,” quoth he, and a trifle shame-facedly, after the manner of a schoolboy caught in some venial offence.
“You’re welcome,” said Father Maloney genially. “Looking is free to all.” And then a sudden idea struck him, and he stiffened imperceptibly, or perhaps he fancied it was imperceptibly, for the stranger spoke.
“I’ll be off,” said he. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
A little odd shadow had passed over his face, the expression of a child who has been snubbed. It sat oddly, and a trifle pathetically on him. He turned, limping slightly.
“It’s not disturbing me at all you are,” said Father Maloney quickly. The honour of his hospitality had been pricked. The merest touch will suffice for an Irishman.