"We must make him angry," thought the priest.
Seeing that Neville was a Protestant, he began relating the deeds wrought by priests.
"Do you recall, Father White," he said, "how the natives brought their chief to die in the mission house, and how Father Copley laid on him a sacred bone, and how the sick man recovered, and went about praising God and the fathers?"
"I do remember it well," Father White answered.
"Yes," continued the younger priest, "and I recall how Brother Fisher found a native woman sick unto death. He instructed her in the catechism, laid a cross on her breast, and behold, the third day after, the woman rose entirely cured, and throwing a heavy bag over her shoulder walked a distance of four leagues."
"Wonderful! wonderful!" murmured Mary Brent.
Neville was irritated, and thought to turn Father Mohl's tales to ridicule. Whom the gods would destroy they first make droll.
"Did you ever hear of the miracle of the buttered whetstone?" he asked.
"Pray you tell it," said Father Mohl, with his ominous smile.
"Why, there was a friar once in London who did use to go often to the house of an old woman; but ever when he came she hid all the food in the house, having heard that friars and chickens never get enough."