‘Weel, it should lighten your heart! Ay! ye should fall on your knees and thank God, who’s kinder to ye than ye deserve, that ye have not that puir lassie’s death on your conscience!’
‘Have ye come here to preach?’ asked Blake.
‘Na, na!’ said Peebles. ‘That’s not my business, but it’s yours, Mr. Ryan O’Connor, if a’ tales are true!’
There could be no mistaking the effect of this speech on Blake. He half rose from his seat, clutching the sides of the table with trembling hands, and stared at Peebles with his eyes standing out of his head with surprise.
‘And how the thunder did you know _that?_’ he asked.
‘That’s _my_ business,’ retorted the old Scotchman dryly.
‘Holy powers!’ muttered Blake, falling back into his chair, and passing his hand across his eyes in a bewildered fashion. ‘’Tis dreamin’ I am!’
‘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?’
‘Clean daft wi’ joy!’ cried the old man. ‘Gie’s your hand, man!’ He seized Blake’s hand and wrung it heartily. ‘By the piper that played before Moses, ye’re the Reverend Mr. Blake still!--and by that same token Moya Macartney is Lady Kilpatrick, and Desmond Macartney is Desmond Consel-tine, his lordship’s son and heir!’