Swete Jhesu now wil I Synge.
With Dyed Garments
When the second post came in one morning I saw a letter addressed to the priest, in the trembling large characters of an old man’s hand, lying upon the slab in the hall. When I came in to lunch I found the old clergyman with an open letter in his hand, and his face full of almost childish happiness.
“I have heard from my oldest friend,” he said, making a little movement with the letter. “It is months since he has written. I have known him ever since we were boys.”
We sat down to lunch, but he kept on referring to his friend, and to the pleasure the letter gave him.
“We are always planning to meet,” he said to me presently. “But we never can manage it. We are both so old. He is much more active than I am, however. He is full of good works, while I, as you know, lead an idle life. I could not take charge of a church. It is all I can do now to serve my own little chapel upstairs.”
“Where is he working?” I asked.
“I think perhaps you fancy he is in Holy Orders, but he is not. He has been on the Stock Exchange till a few years ago, and now he is living in the country, getting ready to die, as he tells me. But he is full of good works; his letter here has news about the village, and of a man whose acquaintance he has made in the reading-room there, which he himself built a year ago; but he is full of plans too, and asks my advice.”
“It is not often you come across a business man like that,” I said.