The thought of Father Moran, elderly, rotund, kindly; of Father Moran with sugar-stick in his pocket for the school-children and a quaint jest on his lips for their mothers; of Father Moran in his ruffled silk hat and shabby black coat and baggy trousers--of this Father Moran mounted and armed, facing the British infantry in South Africa, was wholly grotesque.

He laughed aloud.
'It's yourself that has the bad manners to be laughing now,' said the priest.

'But small blame to you if it was out to the Boers I was thinking of going.

The gray goose out there on the road might laugh--and she's the solemnest mortal I know--at the notion of me charging along with maybe a pike in my hand, and the few gray hairs that's left on the sides of my head blowing about in the breeze I'd make as I went prancing to and fro.

But that's not what I meant when I said that once upon a time I was something of your way of thinking.