I knew,
but flat--the extremity of plainness. I could not analyze that Island
brogue. It sounded like a mixture of Irish and Scotch, unpleasant only
because unsoftened. But you could scarcely call it brogue. It struck
me as a sort of protest against affectation; as the Islander's way of
explaining, without putting it in the sense of the words, that he does
not want to be taken at a false valuation. The Island brogue is a
notice that the user of it meets you man to man. So it reflected Mac,
and it reflected his people, unspoiled, unvarnished, true as steel,
full of rigid honesty; but undemonstrative, with the wells of
affection hidden, yet full to the top, of pure, bright, limpid water.

The "front room" had a hand-woven carpet on the floor, made of a
material called "drugget." A few old prints, in glaring colors, were
on the walls. There was a Sacred Heart and an odd-looking picture of
the dead Christ resting in a tomb, with an altar above and candles all
around it. It was a strange religious conceit. On another wall was a
coffin plate, surrounded with waxed flowers and framed, with a little
photograph of a young man in the center of the flowers. The chairs
were plain enough, but covered with a coarse hand-made lace. It was
not Mac's kind of a room, at all. It made me shudder and wonder how
the scholar who loved his old book-lined college den and knew the old
masters, could even live near to it.

Mac came in very soon, leading an old lady, who walked with a cane.
She was bent and wrinkled with age. I could see that she was blind.
She had a strange-looking old shawl, the like of which I had only a
vague recollection of seeing as a boy, about her shoulders; and on her
head was a black cap with white ruching around her face.

"My mother, Bruce," he said, very simply.

As I took the old lady's hand, he said to her: "This is my old friend,
Professor Bruce, mother. He has come all the way from New York to see
me. I'll leave you together while I go to see sister. Sister has been
bedridden for years, Bruce."

The old lady was too much embarrassed to speak. Mac smiled at me as he
led her to a chair and said: "Bruce does not look like a professor,
mother. He just looks like me."

I could see all the Island respect for learning in the poor old lady's
deference. Mac left us, and his mother asked if I would not have some
tea. I refused the tea, giving as excuse that it was so close to the
hour of the evening meal.

"So, you