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“But how do you know he is a pirate?” demanded Thompson, aggressively.

“How do we know?” said the little priest, returning to French. “Ah! there is no other explanation of the ninety-and-nine stories that come to us, from every port where ships arrive from the north coast of Cuba, of a commander of pirates there who is a marvel of courtesy and gentility”–[1]

[Footnote 1: See gazettes of the period.]

“And whose name is Lafitte,” said the obstinate attorney.

“And who, nevertheless, is not Lafitte,” insisted Pere Jerome.

“Daz troo, Jean,” said Doctor Varrillat. “We hall know daz troo.”

Pere Jerome leaned forward over the board and spoke, with an air of secrecy, in French.

“You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. You have heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of the ship himself drove them off.”

“An incredible story,” said Thompson.

“But not so incredible as the truth. I have it from a passenger. There was on the ship a young girl who was very beautiful. She came on deck, where the corsair stood, about to issue his orders, and, more beautiful than ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a small missal spread open, and her finger on the Apostles’ Creed, commanded him to read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stood gazing on her face, which did not quail; and then with a low bow, said: ‘Give me this book and I will do your bidding.’ She gave him the book and bade him leave the ship, and he left it unmolested.”

Pere Jerome looked from the physician to the attorney and back again, once or twice, with his dimpled smile.

“But he speaks English, they say,” said Jean Thompson.

“He has, no doubt, learned it since he left us,” said the priest.

“But this ship-master, too, says his men called him Lafitte.”

“Lafitte? No. Do you not see? It is your brother-in-law, Jean Thompson! It is your wife’s brother! Not Lafitte, but” (softly) “Lemaitre! Lemaitre! Capitaine Ursin Lemaitre!”

The two guests looked at each other with a growing drollery on either face, and presently broke into a laugh.

“Ah!” said the doctor, as the three rose up, “you juz kip dad cog-an’-bull fo’ yo’ negs summon.”

Pere Jerome’s eyes lighted up–

“I goin’ to do it!”

“I tell you,” said Evariste, turning upon him with sudden gravity, “iv dad is troo, I tell you w’ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyare nut’n fo’ doze creed; he fall in love!”

Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to Pere Jerome:

“But anny’ow you tell it in dad summon dad ‘e hyare fo’ dad creed.”

Pere Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter. The remarkable effects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently find him attributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find for some a more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was but one of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity and incredible eccentricity Pere Jerome had a regular correspondent.

CHAPTER V. THE CAP FITS.

About two months after the conversation just given, and therefore somewhere about the Christmas holidays of the year 1821, Pere Jerome delighted the congregation of his little chapel with the announcement that he had appointed to preach a sermon in French on the following sabbath–not there, but in the cathedral.

He was much beloved. Notwithstanding that among the clergy there were two or three who shook their heads and raised their eyebrows, and said he would be at least as orthodox if he did not make quite so much of the Bible and quite so little of the dogmas, yet “the common people heard him gladly.” When told, one day, of the unfavorable whispers, he smiled a little and answered his informant,–whom he knew to be one of the whisperers himself,–laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder:

“Father Murphy,”–or whatever the name was,–“your words comfort me.”