‘Listen to me, Patrick Blake,’ said Peebles solemnly. ‘I met Moya Macartney last night. Poor lass! Her spirit’s sadly broken. Says she to me—“Peebles, it’s eighteen years since I spread the report of my own death; my hair is white, and my heart is broken; gang to Mr. Blake and ask him, as he values his own soul, to tell ye if ever he was in holy orders.”’
Blake breathed hard, staring at Peebles with a face gone white.
‘Answer!’ cried the old man, ‘and for God’s sake answer truly!’
‘Well, then,’ said Blake, ‘I was; but not when I married Moya Macartney to Lord Kilpatrick.’
‘Had they unfrocked ye?’ asked Peebles. ‘Tell me that!’
‘I’d unfrocked myself,’ answered Blake. ‘The Bishop said I was a disgrace and scandal to the Church, and took from me the only cure of souls I ever had.’
‘But at the time ye married Moya were ye drummed out o’ the Kirk?’
‘Devil the drum about it,’ responded Blake. ‘The Bishop persuaded me to quit, so I just civilly retired. ’Twas convanient at the time, for sure I had creditors enough to man a Queen’s ship.’
‘But ye had been a priest, and properly ordained?’ asked Peebles.
‘Faith, I was as well ordained as any priest need be. What the divil’s the matter wid ye?’ he asked, as Peebles sprang from the seat he had taken and broke into a Highland fling. ‘Is it mad ye are?’