From Clara, next morning, I got the tale of Margaret Henan’s favourite brother; and from here and there, in the week that followed, I pieced together the tragedy of Margaret Henan.  Samuel Dundee had been the youngest of Margaret’s four brothers, and, as Clara told me, she had well-nigh worshipped him.  He was going to sea at the time, skipper of one of the sailing ships of the Bank Line, when he married Agnes Hewitt.  She was described as a slender wisp of a girl, delicately featured and with a nervous organization of the supersensitive order.  Theirs had been the first marriage in the “new” church, and after a two-weeks’ honeymoon Samuel had kissed his bride good-bye and sailed in command of the Loughbank, a big four-masted barque.

And it was because of the “new” church that the minister’s blunder occurred.  Nor was it the blunder of the minister alone, as one of the elders later explained; for it was equally the blunder of the whole Presbytery of Coughleen, which included fifteen churches on Island McGill and the mainland.  The old church, beyond repair, had been torn down and the new one built on the original foundation.  Looking upon the foundation-stones as similar to a ship’s keel, it never entered the minister’s nor the Presbytery’s head that the new church was legally any other than the old church.

“An’ three couples was married the first week un the new church,” Clara said.  “First of all, Samuel Dundee an’ Agnes Hewitt; the next day Albert Mahan an’ Minnie Duncan; an’ by the week-end Eddie Troy and Flo Mackintosh—­all sailor-men, an’ un sux weeks’ time the last of them back tull their ships an’ awa’, an’ no one o’ them dreamin’ of the wuckedness they’d been ot.”

The Imp of the Perverse must have chuckled at the situation.  All things favoured.  The marriages had taken place in the first week of May, and it was not till three months later that the minister, as required by law, made his quarterly report to the civil authorities in Dublin.  Promptly came back the announcement that his church had no legal existence, not being registered according to the law’s demands.  This was overcome by prompt registration; but the marriages were not to be so easily remedied.  The three sailor husbands were away, and their wives, in short, were not their wives.

“But the munuster was no for alarmin’ the bodies,” said Clara.  “He kept hus council an’ bided hus time, waitun’ for the lods tull be back from sea.  Oz luck would have ut, he was away across the island tull a christenun’ when Albert Mahan arrives home onexpected, hus shup just docked ot Dublin.  Ut’s nine o’clock ot night when the munuster, un hus sluppers an’ dressun’-gown, gets the news.  Up he jumps an’ calls for horse an’ saddle, an’ awa’ he goes like the wund for Albert Mahan’s.  Albert uz just goun’ tull bed an’ hoz one shoe off when the munuster arrives.

“‘Come wuth me, the pair o’ ye,’ says he, breathless-like.  ’What for, an’ me dead weary an’ goun’ tull bed?’ says Albert.  ’Yull be lawful married,’ says the munuster.  Albert looks black an’ says, ‘Now, munuster, ye wull be jokun’,’ but tull humself, oz I’ve heard hum tell mony a time, he uz wonderun’ thot the munuster should a-took tull whusky ot hus time o’ life.