’Patsy Kivel has gone after her, and he’ll catch up on her, surely, and she with six ditches forninst her.’

’If he doesn’t itself, maybe the minister isn’t there, and then she’ll be bet.’

‘All I’m hopin’ is that the poor child won’t come to any harm between them; but isn’t she a fearful terrible woman, and may the curse of the Son of God be on her for stealin’ away a poor child the like of that!’

‘I’d cut the livers out of the likes of them.’

‘Now will you mind what you’re sayin’, and the priest listenin’ to you?’

’Your reverence, will the child be always a Protestant?  Hasn’t the holy water of the Church more power in it than the water they have?  Don’t they only throw it at the child?’

‘Now, Mrs. Egan—­’

’Ah, your reverence, you’re going to say that I shouldn’t have given the child to her, and I wouldn’t if I hadn’t trod on a stone and fallen against the wall, and got afeard the child might be hurt.’

‘Well, well,’ said Father Oliver, ‘you see there’s no child—­’

‘But you’ll be waitin’ a minute for the sake of the poor child, your reverence?  Patsy will be comin’ back in a minute.’

On that Mrs. Egan went to the chapel door and stood there, so that she might catch the first glimpse of him as he came across the fields.  And it was about ten minutes after, when the priest and his parishioners were talking of other things, that Mrs. Egan began to wave her arm, crying out that somebody should hurry.

‘Will you make haste, and his reverence waitin’ here this half-hour to baptize the innocent child!  He’ll be here in less than a minute now, your reverence.  Will you have patience, and the poor child will be safe?’

The child was snatched from Patsy, and so violently that the infant began to cry, and Mrs. Egan didn’t know if it was a hurt it had received, for the panting Patsy was unable to answer her.

‘The child’s all right,’ he blurted out at last.  ’She said I might take it and welcome, now it was a Protestant.’

’Ah, sure, you great thickhead of a boy! weren’t you quick enough for her?’

‘Now, what are you talkin’ about?  Hadn’t she half a mile start of me, and the minister at the door just as I was gettin’ over the last bit of a wall!’

‘And didn’t you go in after them?’

‘What would I be doin’, going into a Protestant church?’

Patsy’s sense of his responsibility was discussed violently until Father Oliver said: 

’Now, I can’t be waiting any longer.  Do you want me to baptize the child or not?’

‘It would be safer, wouldn’t it?’ said Mrs. Egan.

‘It would,’ said Father Oliver; ’the parson mightn’t have said the words while he was pouring the water.’

And, going towards the font with the child, Father Oliver took a cup of water, but, having regard for the child’s cries, he was a little sparing with it.