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How this should be done was the subject of conversation during the walk to the rectory. There they found Elsie just arrived. Mrs. McAravey had been much worse all Saturday, and Elsie could not get away in time for church. She had only come now because the dying woman had expressed a wish to see Mr. Smith. This news cast a shadow over the party. Elsie remained for luncheon, on Mr.
"We remain, Sir, your obedient Servants, "J. TURNWELL & Co. "Mr. J. McARAVEY, "Market Street, Ballymena, Ireland." It was enough to turn the head of an ambitious boy. Poor Jim, though generally cautious and reticent, could not contain himself, and, in strict confidence, revealed his coming splendour to one or two of his companions.
That both these little ones had been taken away by death was a misfortune, and tended to harden even more the somewhat disagreeable and rigid lines that marked the individuality of both Mr. and Mrs. McAravey. Not that the home thus early laid desolate was altogether unblessed by young faces. For many years the McAraveys had had charge of two little children, who called them father and mother.
It was soon reported that Jim McAravey had come in for a fortune of 50,000 pounds, and was the son of a lord. Even his employers seemed to treat him with new consideration, and, though annoyed that the affair had got so soon bruited about, he could not feel angry when he saw himself pointed at in the street, and half jokingly spoken of as "my lord" by his fellow-clerks.
In quiet country places there is seldom any manifestation of open hostility, and intermarriages and neighbourly feeling have done much to smooth away the edge of bitter memories, but at bottom there remains a radical difference of sentiment, as of creed, which constitutes an impassable, though for the most invisible, barrier. Michael McAravey was a good specimen of the old Ulster Roman Catholic.
"You may read a bit if ye like," responded McAravey, leaning back on the bed, quite satisfied now that the priest had been sent for; "only no controversy; it's not fit for a dyin' man or for any man, for the matter o' that." "No controversy!" said Hendrick, smiling; "well, will this suit you? 'Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness.
"I've not sent for him, and ye may be sure I 'll have none o' your Papish priests coomin' about the house, leastways whiles I 'm in it," interrupted Mrs. McAravey. "Then you 'd better get out of it," said the old man; "I never interfered with you and your Ranters and Covenanters, and I don't mean to be interfered with.
That "Auld Mike" permitted the children to attend the reader's class was a matter of surprise to many, and that Hendrick had been able to capture them added not a little to his reputation. McAravey had, however, been pleased with the frank, obliging address of the reader; and perhaps, too, there was some softer feeling in his hard, silent nature than folks gave him credit for.
McAravey grew rapidly aged, Elsie acquired the habit of calling her "gran;" while the feelings of tenderness and sympathy that had been first roused in her by the sight of that poor soiled dead face, with the hair and sea-weed dashed across it, were cherished and sanctified by the daily call made on them in consequence of the old woman's increasing infirmities.
Early in life McAravey had married a Presbyterian girl, and the almost inevitable estrangement that results from a "mixed marriage" had cast its shadow over the lives of the pair.
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