Tears stood in
his eyes. He went with Telfer and Valmore out of the alley and into the
street, the two men walking in silence. The rain had ceased and a cold
wind blew.
The boy felt that he had been shriven. His mind, his heart, even his tired
body seemed strangely cleansed. He felt a new affection for Telfer and
Valmore. When Telfer began talking he listened eagerly, thinking that at
last he understood him and knew why men like Valmore, Wildman, Freedom
Smith, and Telfer loved each other and went on being friends year after
year in the face of difficulties and misunderstandings. He thought that he
had got hold of the idea of brotherhood that John Telfer talked of so
often and so eloquently. "Mike McCarthy is only a brother who has gone the
dark road," he thought and felt a glow of pride in the thought and in the
apt expression of it in his mind.
John Telfer, forgetting the boy, talked soberly to Valmore, the two men
stumbling along in the darkness intent upon their own thoughts.
"It is an odd thought," said Telfer and his voice seemed far away and
unnatural like the voice from the jail; "it is an odd thought that but for
a quirk in the brain this Mike McCarthy might himself have been a kind of
Christ with a pipe in his mouth.
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