“Oh, father!” I cried, “and must we never go into the woods and towns any more?”
He smiled again and stroked my hair.
“Not in these fields, boy,” said he, “but perhaps in more spacious, less perplexed. Be good, be simple, be kind! Tis all I know.”
We heard the steps of Father Joyce upon the stairs.
“All I know!” repeated the priest. “Fifty years to learn it, and I might have found it in my mother's lap. Chère ange—the little mother—'twas a good world! And Fanchon that is dead below the snow in Louvain—oh, the sweet world! And the sunny gardens of bees and children—”
His eyes were dull. A pallor was on his countenance. He breathed with difficulty. Kilbride, who stood by, silent, put a finger on his pulse. At that he opened his eyes again, once more smiling, and Father Joyce was at the door.
“Kiss me, Paul,” said the dying man, “I hear them singing prime.”
When Father Joyce was gone I came into the room again where the priest lay smiling still, great in figure, in the simplicity and sweetness of his countenance like a child.
Kilbride and I stood silent for a little by the bed, and the Highlander was the first to speak. “I have seen worse,” said he, “than Father Hamilton.”
It may seem a grudging testimony, but not to me that heard it.