to be civil, “Nay, lad, it’s like this.  You’ve getten to choose which way it’s goin’ to be.  I’ll ha’ nobody across ma doorstep as goes a-drinkin’, an’ borrows my lass’s money to spend i’ their drink.  Ho’d tha tongue, ’Liza,” sez he, when she wanted to put in a word ’at I were welcome to th’ brass, and she were none afraid that I wouldn’t pay it back.  Then the Reverend cuts in, seein’ as Jesse were losin’ his temper, an’ they fair beat me among them.  But it were ‘Liza, as looked an’ said naught, as did more than either o’ their tongues, an’ soa I concluded to get converted.’

‘Fwhat?’ shouted Mulvaney.  Then, checking himself, he said softly, ’Let be!  Let be!  Sure the Blessed Virgin is the mother of all religion an’ most women; an’ there’s a dale av piety in a girl if the men would only let ut stay there.  I’d ha’ been converted myself under the circumstances.’

‘Nay, but,’ pursued Learoyd with a blush, ‘I meaned it.’

Ortheris laughed as loudly as he dared, having regard to his business at the time.

’Ay, Ortheris, you may laugh, but you didn’t know yon preacher Barraclough—­a little white-faced chap, wi’ a voice as ’ud wile a bird off an a bush, and a way o’ layin’ hold of folks as made them think they’d never had a live man for a friend before.  You never saw him, an’—­ an’—­you never seed ’Liza Roantree—­never seed ’Liza Roantree....  Happen it was as much ‘Liza as th’ preacher and her father, but anyways they all meaned it, an’ I was fair shamed o’ mysen, an’ so I become what they call a changed character.  And when I think on, it’s hard to believe as yon chap going to prayer-meetin’s, chapel, and class-meetin’s were me.  But I never had naught to say for mysen, though there was a deal o’ shoutin’, and old Sammy Strother, as were almost clemmed to death and doubled up with the rheumatics, would sing out, “Joyful!  Joyful!” and ’at it were better to go up to heaven in a coal-basket than down to hell i’ a coach an’ six.  And he would put his poor old claw on my shoulder, sayin’, “Doesn’t tha feel it, tha great lump?  Doesn’t tha feel it?” An’ sometimes I thought I did, and then again I thought I didn’t, an’ how was that?’

‘The iverlastin’ nature av mankind,’ said Mulvaney.  ‘An’, furthermore, I misdoubt you were built for the Primitive Methodians.  They’re a new corps anyways.  I hold by the Ould Church, for she’s the mother of them all—­ay, an’ the father, too.  I like her bekaze she’s most remarkable regimental in her fittings.  I may die in Honolulu, Nova Zambra, or Cape Cayenne, but wherever I die, me bein’ fwhat I am, an’ a priest handy, I go under the same orders an’ the same words an’ the same unction as tho’ the Pope himself come down from the roof av St. Peter’s to see me off.  There’s neither high nor low, nor broad nor deep, nor betwixt nor between wid her, an’ that’s what I like.  But mark you, she’s no manner av Church for a wake man, bekaze she takes the body and the soul av him, onless he has his proper work to do.  I remember when my father died that was three months comin’ to his grave; begad he’d ha’ sold the shebeen above our heads for ten minutes’ quittance of purgathory.  An’ he did all he could.  That’s why I say ut takes a strong man to deal with the Ould Church, an’ for that reason you’ll find so many women go there.  An’ that same’s a conundrum.’