“With a place of worship in their midst! That ought to do something towards refining them.”
“Ought; and would, I dare say, if ’twar the right sort—which it a’nt. Instead, o’ a kind as only the more corrupts ’em—being Roman.”
“Oh! A Roman Catholic chapel. But how does it corrupt them?”
“By makin’ ’em believe they can get cleared of their sins, hows’ever black they be. Men as think that way a’nt like to stick at any sort of crime—’specialty if it brings ’em the money to buy what they calls absolution.”
“Well, Jack; it’s very evident you’re no friend, or follower, of the Pope.”
“Neyther o’ Pope nor priest. Ah! captain; if you seed him o’ the Rogue’s Ferry Chapel, you wouldn’t wonder at my havin’ a dislike for the whole kit o’ them.”
“What is there specially repulsive about him?”
“Don’t know as there be any thin’ very special, in partickler. Them priests all look bout the same—such o’ ’em as I’ve ever set eyes on. And that’s like stoats and weasels, shootin’ out o’ one hole into another. As for him we’re speakin’ about, he’s here, there, an’ everywhere; sneakin’ along the roads an’ paths, hidin’ behind bushes like a cat after birds, an’ poppin’ out where nobody expects him. If ever there war a spy meaner than another it’s the priest of Rogue’s Ferry.”
“No?” he adds, correcting himself. “There be one other in these parts worse than he—if that’s possible. A different sort o’ man, true; and yet they be a good deal thegither.”
“Who is this other?”