Suddenly Father Bowles got up from his chair, ran across the room to the window with his napkin in his hand, and pounced eagerly upon a fly that was buzzing on the pane. Then he carefully opened the window, and flicked the dead thing off the sill.
"I beg your pardon," he said humbly to Mrs. Fountain as he returned to his seat. "It was a nasty fly. I can't abide 'em. I always think of Beelzebub, who was the prince of the flies."
Laura's mouth twitched with laughter. She promised herself to make a study of Father Bowles.
And, indeed, he was a character in his own small way. He was a priest of an old-fashioned type, with no pretensions to knowledge or to manners. Wherever he went he was a meek and accommodating guest, for his recollection went back to days when a priest coming to a private house to say Mass would as likely as not have his meals in the pantry. And he was naturally of a gentle and yielding temper—though rather sly.
But he had several tricks as curious as they were persistent. Not even the presence of his bishop could make him spare a bluebottle. And he had, on the other hand, a peculiar passion for the smell of wax. He would blow out a candle on the altar before the end of Mass that he might enjoy the smell of it. He disliked Jesuits, and religious generally, if the truth were known; excepting only the orphanage nuns, who knew his weaknesses and were kind to them. He had no love for modern innovations, or modern devotions; there was a hidden Gallican strain in him; and he firmly believed that in the old days before Catholic emancipation, and before the Oxford movement, the Church made more converts than she did now.
* * * * *
Towards the end of the lunch Laura inquired of Mr. Helbeck whether any conveyance was to be got in the village.
"I wish to go to Browhead Farm this afternoon," she said rather shortly.
"Certainly," said Helbeck. "Certainly. I will see that something is found for you."
But his voice had no cordiality, and Laura at once thought him ungracious.