"I have been a hard man," he said, "but the events of this morning have quite upset me. I didn't know that my child was so worshipped by the people, and it has touched me deeply. You know, brought up in the school where I graduated, I have never been able to shake off a feeling of contempt for these poor, uneducated serfs; and their little cunning ways and want of manliness have always disgusted me. I am beginning to see that I have been wrong. And then I have been a bad Catholic. Ormsby, lately an unbeliever, has shown me this, not by his words, for he is a thorough gentleman, but by his quiet example. You know I did not care one brass pin whether he was Turk, Jew, or atheist, so long as he married Bittra. Now I see that the Church is right, and that her espousal would have been incomplete if she had not married a Catholic, and a true one. All this has disturbed me, and I intend to turn over a new leaf. I am running into years; and although I have, probably, thirty years of life before me, I must brush up as if the end were near. I am awfully sorry I was not at the rails with Bittra and Ormsby this morning; but we shall all be together at Holy Communion the Sunday after they return from the Continent. By Jove! there goes the Angelus; and twelve is the hour to start the boat!" He took off his hat, and we said the _Angelus_ in silence together. I noticed the silver gathering over his ears, and the black hair was visibly thinning on the top. I watched him keenly for those few seconds. I did not know that those musical strains of the midday Angelus were his death-knell--the ringing up of the great stage-manager, Death, for his _volté subito_--his leap through the ring to eternity. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 6: In many places in Ireland the priest places the broad ends of the stole on the heads of the newly married couple.] CHAPTER XXVII THE "STAR OF THE SEA" There was a vast crowd assembled down where the extemporized pier jutted into the creek, and where the new fishing-boat, perfect in all her equipments, lolled and rolled on the heaving of the tide. Her high mast made an arc of a circle in the warm June air, as the soft, round wavelets lifted her; and many was the comment made on her by those whose eyes had never rested but on the tarred canvas of the coracle. "She has a list to port!" said an old mariner, critically. "Where's yer eyes, Jur?" cried another. "Don't ye see she lanes to stabbord?" "I'll bet dhrinks all round she's level as the althar," said a third. "'Twill take six min to navigate her," cried an old salt, who had been around the world. "'T is aisy to get 'em for the big wages the priest is offering." "How much?" cried a mariner from Moydore. "Fifteen shillings a week, an' a share in the profits." "Here's the capt'n and the priests. Now, boys, for a cheer."