About one in the morning the Doctor made his appearance at the Swan Inn, and acquainted the stranger gentleman, that he wished him joy of being the father of a healthy boy, and that the mother was, in the usual phrase, as well as could be expected.
The stranger heard the news with seeming satisfaction, and then exclaimed, “He must be christened, Doctor! he must be christened instantly!”
“There can be no hurry for that,” said the Doctor.
“We think otherwise,” said the stranger, cutting his argument short. “I am a Catholic, Doctor, and as I may be obliged to leave this place before the lady is able to travel, I desire to see my child received into the pale of the Church. There is, I understand, a Catholic priest in this wretched place?”
“There is a Catholic gentleman, sir, Mr. Goodriche, who is reported to be in orders.”
“I commend your caution, Doctor,” said the stranger; “it is dangerous to be too positive on any subject. I will bring that same Mr. Goodriche to your house to-morrow.”
Gray hesitated for a moment. “I am a Presbyterian Protestant, sir,” he said, “a friend to the constitution as established in Church and State, as I have a good right, having drawn his Majesty's pay, God bless him, for four years, as surgeon's mate in the Cameronian regiment, as my regimental Bible and commission can testify. But although I be bound especially to abhor all trafficking or trinketing with Papists, yet I will not stand in the way of a tender conscience. Sir, you may call with Mr. Goodriche, when you please, at my house; and undoubtedly, you being, as I suppose, the father of the child, you will arrange matters as you please; only, I do not desire to be though an abettor or countenancer of any part of the Popish ritual.”
“Enough, sir,” said the stranger haughtily, “we understand each other.”
The next day he appeared at the Doctor's house with Mr. Goodriche, and two persons understood to belong to that reverend gentleman's communion. The party were shut up in an apartment with the infant, and it may be presumed that the solemnity of baptism was administered to the unconscious being, thus strangely launched upon the world. When the priest and witnesses had retired, the strange gentleman informed Mr. Gray, that, as the lady had been pronounced unfit for travelling for several days, he was himself about to leave the neighbourhood, but would return thither in the space of ten days, when he hoped to find his companion able to leave it.
“And by what name are we to call the child and mother?”