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Updated: May 10, 2025
Then McFarquhar began to despair and to realize how desperate is the business of saving a man fairly on the way to destruction. But help came to us "a mysterious dispensation of Providence," McFarquhar called it. It happened on the Queen's birthday, when Grand Bend, in excess of loyal fervor, was doing its best to get speedily and utterly drunk.
"Why, in Heaven's name," I said afterwards to McFarquhar, "didn't he begin his prayer where he ended? Does he think the Almighty isn't posted in theology?" But McFarquhar would only reply: "Ay, it was grand? He has the gift!" The sermon was, as McFarquhar said, "terrible powerful."
"Man, it is terrible!" said McFarquhar to me as the minister disappeared down the slope; but he never thought of rejecting the burden of responsibility laid upon him. That he had helped Ould Michael down he would hardly acknowledge, but the minister's message bore in upon him heavily. "Where is Abel, thy brother?" he kept saying to himself.
"Indeed, I cannot say," said McFarquhar; "but it has never hurt him whatever." "Wait a bit. Do you think that perhaps if Michael had never got the good whisky from his good friends he might not now be where he is?" McFarquhar was silent. The minister rose to go. "Mr. The minister's last words rolled forth like words of doom.
After we had duly honored the toast, Ould Michael once more struck an impressive attitude and called out: "Gentlemen, Her Majesty's loyal forces " when McFarquhar reached for him and, taking the flask out of his hand, said, gravely: "It is a very good toast, but we will postpone the rest till a more suitable occasion." Ould Michael, however, was resolute.
His face and head were covered with a mass of shaggy hair brick-red mixed with grey and out of this mass of grizzled hair gleamed two small grey eyes, very bright and very keen. "Howly mither av Moses!" shouted Ould Michael rushing towards him; "'tis McFarquhar. My friend, Mr. McFarquhar," said Ould Michael, presenting me in his most ceremonious style and standing at attention.
"Michael," he said timidly, "you will need to be prayin' for yourself." "Shure an' don't I inthrate the Blessed Virgin to be doin' that same for me?" McFarquhar had learned to be very patient with his "Romish errors," so he only replied: "Ay, but you must take words upon your own lips," he said, earnestly. "An' how can I, then, for niver a word do I know?"
A man could make much more out of anything else. Poor Ould Michael bore it as long as he could and then, rising to his feet, cried out: "Howly mither av Moses! an' have ye no hea-art inside av ye at all, at all? 'Tis not the money; the money is dirt!" Here McFarquhar strongly dissented. Ould Michael heeded him not, but poured out his bitterness and grief.
"A lotion!" gasped McFarquhar; "and would you be using the good whisky to wash your feet with?" The minister smiled; but becoming immediately grave, he answered: "Mr. McFarquhar, how long have you been in the habit of taking whisky?" "Fifty years," said McFarquhar promptly. "And how many times have you given the bottle to your friend?"
With a roar the German was at him, and before a hand could be raised to prevent it, Ould Michael was struck to the floor and most brutally kicked. By this time McFarquhar had tossed back the crowd right and left and, stooping down, lifted Ould Michael and carried him out into the air, saying in a husky voice: "He is dead! He is dead!"
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