"You know him as no living man,
Dannie," he said. "What do you think?"
Dannie's big hands slowly opened and closed. Then he fell to
polishing the nails of one hand on the palm of the other. At last
he answered, "If ye'd asked me that this time last year, I'd have
said `it's the drink,' at a jump. But times this summer, this
morning, for instance, when he hadna a drop in three weeks, and
dinna want ane, when he could have come wi' me to town, and
wouldna, and there were devils calling him from the ground, and
the trees, and the sky, out in the open cornfield, it looked
bad."
The priest's eyes were boring into Dannie's sick face. "How did
it look?" he asked briefly.
"It looked," said Dannie, and his voice dropped to a whisper, "it
looked like he might carry a damned ugly secret, that it would be
better fra him if ye, at least, knew."
"And the nature of that secret?"
Dannie shook his head. "Couldna give a guess at it! Known him all
his life. My only friend. Always been togither. Square a mon as
God ever made. There's na fault in him, if he'd let drink alone.
Got more faith in him than any ane I ever knew. I wouldna trust
mon on God's footstool, if I had to lose faith in Jimmy. Come to
think of it, that `secret' business is all old woman's scare.
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