“Say ye so?” he cried, turning to his sister with a flame upon his visage. “By the heavens above us, no! Sin might have been eternal; each abominable thought might have kept in our minds, constant day and night from the moment that it bred there; the theft we did might keep everlastingly our hand in our neighbor's kist as in a trap; the knife we thrust with might have kept us thrusting forever and forever. But no—God's good! sleep comes, and the clean morning, and the morning is Christ, and every moment of time is a new opportunity to amend. It is not sin that is eternal, it is righteousness and peace. Joco! We cannot be too joco, having our inheritance.”
He stopped suddenly, warned by a glance of his sister's, and turned to look in his niece's face to find bewilderment there. The mood that was not often published by Dan Dyce left him in a flash, and he laughed and put his arms round her.
“I hope you're a lot wiser for my sermon, Bud,” said he. “I can see you have pins and needles worse than under the Reverend Mr. Frazer on the Front. What's the American for haivers—for foolish speeches?”
“Hot air,” said Bud, promptly.
“Good!” said Dan Dyce, rubbing his hands together. “What I'm saying may seem just hot air to you, but it's meant. You do not know the Shorter Catechism; never mind; there's a lot of it I'm afraid I do not know myself; but the whole of it is in that first answer to 'Man's chief end.' Reading and writing, and all the rest of it, are of less importance, but I'll not deny they're gey and handy. You're no Dyce if you don't master them easily enough.”
He kissed her and got gayly up and turned to go. “Now,” said he, “for the law, seeing we're done with the gospels. I'm a conveyancing lawyer—though you'll not know what that means—so mind me in your prayers.”
Bell went out into the lobby after him, leaving Bud in a curious frame of mind, for “Man's chief end,” and Bruce's spider, and the word “joco,” all tumbled about in her, demanding mastery.
“Little help I got from you, Dan!” said Bell to her brother. “You never even tried her with a multiplication table.”
“What's seven times nine?” he asked her, with his fingers on the handle of the outer door, his eyes mockingly mischievous.
She flushed and laughed, and pushed him on the shoulder. “Go away with you!” said she. “Fine you ken I could never mind seven times!”