"And the cocksure folk are the people he gets first," added Miss Bishop.
"Then," said Paul shrewdly, "you ought to look out, Miss Bishop."
"Paul," said his father sternly, "you forget yourself."
(5)
Yet one might almost have supposed that Miss Bishop had indeed stirred the devil into action. She would have said that he was positively waiting for cocksure Paul that very first afternoon of the May term. His emissary was a youthful-looking man, rather small, light and quick in movement, fair of complexion, with alert, keen, grey-blue eyes that perpetually brimmed over with humour, although the home of it was low down in them, out of sight. He was decorously dressed in black, but with a rather shabby buttoned frock-coat, for he was careless of appearances, and when he spoke at first to strangers, or if he were unusually moved, there was often a little stammer in his voice. He was, in short, the Rev. Father Vassall, a Popish priest.
Paul found him in Hannam's rooms, Hannam being the new acquaintance of the previous term. He kept in the rooms below Paul, who did not care for him particularly, and had, indeed, done no more than call the first term. But Hannam was a lonely individual, of somewhat eccentric tastes, one of which was for verse. He, therefore, admired Paul and Paul's writings, and latterly the two had seen more of each other. Paul knew, that he was a Catholic, but as one did not exactly associate religion of any sort with Hannam, who, nevertheless, was tolerant of Paul's ardent faith, this fact had not obtruded as one might have expected.
Thus, then, it chanced that Kestern arrived at St. Mary's a day before Manning, and by an earlier train than that of any of his more intimate friends. He was chaffing old Tom about four of the clock in the First Court, and on his way to his rooms knocked by an impulse at Hannam's door.
"Hallo, Kestern," cried Hannam joyfully as he entered, "glad you're up early. Want some tea? Do come in. Let me introduce you—Father Vassall, Mr. Kestern of this college."
Paul found himself shaking hands with the Popish priest. He did it nervously, but with obvious interest. Odd as it may seem, Popish priests were as rare and as strange to Paul as Buddhist monks. The stranger seemed to appreciate the fact. His eyes twinkled. "H-H-Hannam has t-told me a little about you, Mr. K-Kestern," he said.
Paul laughed engagingly, and much more pleasantly than one ought to do with the devil. But then there was an air about this priest that was amazingly boyish, eager and attractive. You felt at once, as it were, his radiant personality. Besides there were no hypocrisies about Father Vassall, and he always came straight to the point. His tone suggested to Paul what he meant.