brandy, and rising late in the morning.

Pity it was they couldn't marry--pity for the ladies of the island, I
mean, and the cause of morality; for what business had the
ecclesiastical old bachelors with such a set of trim little native
handmaidens? These damsels were their first converts; and devoted
ones they were.

The priests, as I have said before, were accounted necromancers: the
appearance of two of our three visitors might have justified the
conceit.

They were little, dried-up Frenchmen, in long, straight gowns of black
cloth, and unsightly three-cornered hats--so preposterously big that,
in putting them on, the reverend fathers seemed to extinguish
themselves.

Their companion was dressed differently. He wore a sort of yellow,
flannel morning gown, and a broad-brimmed Manilla hat. Large and
portly, he was also hale and fifty; with a complexion like an
autumnal leaf--handsome blue eyes--fine teeth, and a racy Milesian
brogue. In short, he was an Irishman; Father Murphy, by name; and, as
such, pretty well known, and very thoroughly disliked, throughout all
the Protestant missionary settlements in Polynesia. In early youth,
he had been sent to a religious seminary in France; and, taking
orders there, had but once or twice afterwards revisited his native
land.

Father Murphy marched up to us briskly; and the first words he uttered
were, to ask whether there were any of his countrymen among us.