"I suppose we may have a procession of the children on Corpus Christi?" he said abruptly.
"Hallo! another innovation! Where are you going to stop, I wonder?"
"Why not have it?" he said. "It will be a sermon to the people!"
"Around the church, you mean," I conjectured, "and back again to the High Altar?"
"No! but through the village, and out there along the path that cuts the turf over the cliffs, and then back to the mill, where we can have Benediction (I'll extemporize an altar), and down the main road, and to the church."
"Go on! go on!" I said in a resigned manner; "perhaps you'll invite our pious friend, Campion, down to Benediction—"
"He'll be carrying the canopy."
I looked at this young prestidigitateur in a bewildered manner. He was not noticing me.
"You know," he said, "I'll put Campion and Ormsby and the doctor, and the old Tertiary, Clohessy, under the canopy. It's time that these men should be made to understand that they are Catholics in reality as well as in name."
I was dumfounded at his audacity.