Mrs. Egan’s daughter had married a soldier, a Protestant, some two years ago, a man called Rean.  Father Oliver always found him a straightforward fellow, who, although he would not give up his own religion, never tried to interfere with his wife’s; he always said that if Mary liked she could bring up her children Catholics.  But hitherto they were not blessed with children, and Mary was jeered at more than once, the people saying that her barrenness was a punishment sent by God.  At last a child was given them, and all would have gone well if Rean’s mother had not come to Garranard for her daughter-in-law’s confinement.  Being a black Protestant, she wouldn’t hear of the child being brought up a Catholic or even baptized in a Catholic Church.  The child was now a week old and Rean was fairly distracted, for neither his own mother nor his mother-in-law would give way; each was trying to outdo the other.  Mrs. Rean watched Mrs. Egan, and Mrs. Egan watched Mrs. Rean, and the poor mother lay all day with the baby at her breast, listening to the two of them quarrelling.

’She’s gone behind the hedge for a minute, your reverence, so I whipped the child out of me daughter’s bed; and if your reverence would only hurry up we could have the poor cratur baptized in the Holy Faith.  Only there’s no time to be lost; she do be watchin’ every stir, your reverence.’

‘Very well, Mrs. Egan:  I’ll be waiting for you up at the chapel.’

‘A strange rusticity of mind,’ he said to himself as he wended his way along the village street, and at the chapel gate a smile gathered about his lips, for he couldn’t help thinking how Mrs. Rean the elder would rage when the child was brought back to her a Catholic.  So this was going to be his last priestly act, the baptism of the child, the saving of the child to the Holy Faith.  He told Mike to get the things ready, and turned into the sacristy to put on his surplice.

The familiar presses gave out a pleasant odour, and the vestments which he might never wear again interested him, and he stood seemingly lost in thought.  ‘But I mustn’t keep the child waiting,’ he said, waking up suddenly; and coming out of the sacristy, he found twenty villagers collected round the font, come up from the cottages to see the child baptized in the holy religion.

‘Where’s the child, Mrs. Egan?’

The group began talking suddenly, trying to make plain to him what had happened.

‘Now, if you all talk together, I shall never understand.’

‘Will you leave off pushing me?’ said one.

‘Wasn’t it I that saw Patsy?  Will your reverence listen to me?’ said Mrs. Egan.  ’It was just as I was telling your reverence, if they’d be letting me alone.  Your reverence had only just turned in the chapel gate when Mrs. Rean ran from behind the hedge, and, getting in front of me who was going to the chapel with the baby in me arms, she said:  “Now I’ll be damned if I’ll have that child christened a Catholic!” and didn’t she snatch the child and run away, taking a short-cut across the fields to the minister’s.’