"I know that—I'm no fool. And I tell you it's worth while. To-night makes me and my whole life worth while, the good and the bad of it together. Risks? I'll take all that's coming. You stay here and say some prayers for me, parson, if it makes you feel any better. As for me, I'm off."
At that I lost my every last shred of commonplace everyday sanity, and let myself swing without further reserve into the wild current of the night.
"Oh, very well!" said I shrilly. "You will take chances, you will run risks, hein? My friend, you do not stir out of this house this night without me!" He stared, as well he might, but I folded my arms and stared back. Let him leave me, bent on such an errand? I to sit at home idly, awaiting the issue, whatever it might be?
"I mean it, John Flint. I am going with you. Was it not I, then, who saved those tools and had them ready to your hand? Whatever happens to you now happens to me as well. It is quite useless for you to argue, to scowl, to grind the teeth, to swear like that. And it will be dangerous to try to trick me: I am going!"
For he was protesting, violently and profanely. His profanity was so sincere, so earnest, so heartfelt, that it mounted into heights of real eloquence. Also, he did everything but knock me down and lock me indoors.
"Whatever happens to you happens to me," I repeated doggedly, and I was not to be moved. I had a hazy notion that somehow my being with him might protect him in case of any untoward happening, and minimize his risks.
I ran into his bedroom and clapped his best hat on my head, leaving my biretta on his bed; and I put on his new dark overcoat over my cassock. Both the borrowed garments were too big for me, the hat coming down over my ears, the coat-sleeves over my hands. I being as thin as a peeled willow-wand, and the clothes hanging upon me as on a clothes-rack, I dare say I cut a sad and ludicrous figure enough. Flint, standing watching me with his burglarious bundle under his arm, gave an irrepressible chuckle and his eyes crinkled.
"Parson," said he solemnly, "I've seen all sorts and sizes and colors and conditions of crooks, up and down the line, in my time and generation, but take it from me you're a libel and an outrage on the whole profession. Why, you crazy he-angel, you'd break their hearts just to look at you!" And he grinned. At a moment like that, he grinned, with a sort of gay and light-hearted diablerie. They are a baffling and inexplicable folk, the Irish. I suppose God loves the Irish because He doesn't really know how else to take them.
"It will break my own heart, and possibly my mother's and Mary Virginia's will break to keep it company, if anything evil happens to you this night," said I, severely. I was in no grinning humor, me.
He reached over and carefully buttoned, with one hand, the too-big collar about my throat. For a moment, with that odd, little-boy gesture of his, he held on to my sleeve. He looked down at me; and his eyes grew wide, his face melted into a whimsical tenderness.