Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/149

nisable kind. The singer’s step was neither very rapid nor, indeed, exceptionally secure; so the song grew louder and louder and the two soon overtook him.

He was a man elderly or rather of any age, with lean gray hair and a lean red face, but with that remarkable rustic physiognomy in which it seems that all the features stand out independently from the face; the rugged red nose going out like a limb; the bleared blue eyes standing out like signals.

He gave them greeting with the elaborate urbanity of the slightly intoxicated. MacIan, who was vibrating with one of his silent, violent decisions, opened the question without delay. He explained the philosophic position in words as short and simple as possible. But the singular old man with the lank red face seemed to think uncommonly little of the short words. He fixed with a fierce affection upon one or two of the long ones.

“Atheists!” he repeated with luxurious scorn. “Atheists! I know their sort, master. Atheists! Don’t talk to me about ’un. Atheists!”

The grounds of his disdain seemed a little dark and confused; but they were evidently