"They tould me that they had expinded the hundred pounds, an' the value of the farm, an' a little more in masses an' prayers to get me father out of purgatory. They said that I was a bit in their debt, an' that they would need a trifle yet for they hadn't got him quite free. I asked thim if that was God's truth they were speakin'. They tould me that it was. 'Thin,' says I, 'if you know so much of what's goin' on in purgatory, wud you jist give me father a message from me? Jist tell him to ask the Blissed Lord to open the dure and let him out, an' I'll stake me sowl's salvation on it that the Lord will do it at wanst, and niver ask him for a farm or a hundred pounds in the bank. For me father was a man that niver willingly hurted a chicken.' An' wid that I left them wid me farm an' the hundred pounds. But it's many a cintury me father will be restin' on the beds of flowers in glory before the fires of purgatory will have burned that farm an' the hundred pounds out of the sowls of the black dragoons who defrauded me of me inheritance. An' that's God's truth I'm tellin' you. An' moind ye, it's a Catholic I was born and a Catholic I intind to die."
For a time the three white men sat in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. The broad river streamed past them, gleaming in the sun, bearing its fleet of fishing boats and market boats and here and there a cargo boat, with big mat sails, dropping down with the current and tide, laden with tea or sugar or camphor or coal. The low green shores were quick with the life of a dense population. Beyond these the blue and purple hills rose and stretched away in wavy lines of colour till the far-off lofty peaks blended with the sky.
Dr. Sinclair turned from the natural scenery to look again at the Irish soldier who was to be his companion in the new and unaccustomed scenes which lay before him. Sergeant Gorman was looking out over river and plain and mountain. But his eyes were those of one who did not see. There was a far-away look in them. Dreams slept in their red-brown depths. He interested Sinclair strangely. He was a rare specimen in the doctor's field of research, human kind. He wanted to know more of him.
"You have put in most of your service in the Far East, Sergeant Gorman?" he said.
"I have, sir. All except two years spint at the Cape."
"Mostly in India?"
"Mostly, wid spells at Aden and in Burmah. Thin I was sint to Hong-Kong, where I picked up the pidgin. I put in my last years of service in the Straits, where I learned a bit of the lingo spoken here. At the Straits all the wurrk is done by Chinese from Amoy, the same people as these in Formosa. Thin, as there was nothing for a time-expired soldier to do, an' the climate was too hot for the wife an' childer, I came north to Amoy an' tuk service ag'in wid some more has-beens, to guard the consulate an' do a bit of police wurrk in the Settlement durin' the trouble wid the French. But, begorra, it was out of the fryin'-pan into the fire."
"How was that?"
"Me mother-in-law came to live wid us."
"That was hard lines," said McLeod sympathetically.