“You couldn’t now.” exclaimed the simple-hearted priest; “why, then, I forgive you the pigs, you great, good-natured bosthoon.”

The stranger now thought that he might claim some notice from his reverence.

“I fear, sir,” said he—­

“And whisper, Mat,” proceeded the priest—­paying not the slightest attention to him, “did you bring the creel of turf to poor Barney Farrell and his family, as I desired you?”

“I did, your reverence, and put a good heap on it for the creatures.”

“Well, I forgive you the pigs!” exclaimed the benevolent priest, satisfied that his pious injunctions had been duly observed, and extending a portion of his good feeling to the instrument; “and as for the appetite I spoke of, sure, you good-natured giant you, haven’t you health, exercise, and a most destructive set of grinders? and, indeed, the wonder would be if you didn’t make the sorrow’s havoc at a square of bacon; so for heaping the creel I forgive you the digestion and the pigs both.”

“Will you permit me.” interposed the stranger, a third time.

“But listen again,” proceeded his reverence, “did you bring the bread and broth to the poor Caseys, the creatures?”

“No, sir,” replied Mat, licking his lips, as the stranger thought, “it was Kitty Kavanagh brought that; you know you never trust me wid the vittles—­ever since—­”

“Yes, I ought to have remembered that notorious fact.  There’s where your weakness is strongest, but, indeed, it is only one of them; for he that would trust you with the carriage of a bottle of whiskey might be said to commit a great oversight of judgment.  With regard to the victuals, I once put my trust in God, and dispatched you, after a full meal, with some small relief to a poor family, in the shape of corned beef and greens, and you know the sequel, that’s enough.  Be off now, and get the rings made as I desired you.”

He then turned to the stranger, whom he scanned closely; and we need hardly assure our reader that the other, in his turn, marked the worthy priest’s bearing, manner, and conversation with more than usual curiosity.  The harmless passion in which he found him—­his simple but touching benevolence, added to the genuine benignity with which he relaxed his anger against Mat Euly, the gigantic servant, because he told him that he had put a heap upon the creel of turf which he brought to poor Barney Farrell and his family, not omitting the tears he represented himself to have shed from Christian sympathy with Widow Magowran, both of which acts were inventions of the purest water, resorted to in order to soften the kind-hearted priest; all this, we say, added to what he had heard from Birney, deeply interested the stranger in the character of Father Peter.  Nor was he less struck by his appearance.  Father MacMahon was a round, tight, rosy-faced little man, with laughing eyes, full of good nature, and a countenance which altogether might