With Empty Hands

"I love many things in men," said Father Murray one day as he and Mark watched the waves dashing against the bluff. "I love generosity and strength, truthfulness and mercy; but, most of all, I love cleanness. The world is losing it, and the world will die from the loss. The chief aid to my faith is the clean hearts I see in my poor."

"Uncle Mac again?" ventured Mark.

"Uncle Mac, and Uncles Mac--many of them. They have a heritage of cleanness. It is the best thing they brought to this new world, and we were the losers when they left us."

"We? But you are English, are you not?" asked Mark courteously.

"Ah! So you caught me then, did you? Yes, I am English, or rather British. But don't question me about that; I am real Yankee now. Even my tongue has lost its ancestral rights."

Mark was persistent. "Perhaps you, too, have a little of the 'blessed drop' that makes the Uncle Macs what they are? I really think, Father, that you have it."

"Not even a little of the 'blessed drop.' I am really not English, though born in England. Both father and mother were Scotch. So I am kin to the 'blessed drop.'"

"And you drifted here--"

"Not exactly 'drifted,' Mark. I came because I wanted to come. I came for opportunity. I was ambitious, and then there was another reason--but that is at present forbidden ground. Here is your constable friend again."