“The fifth, sir?” said the other, rather confounded—­“I must begin agin, sir, and go on till I come to it.”

“Well,” said the priest, “never mind that; but tell us what the eighth means?”

Kelly stared at him a second time, but was not able to advance “First—­Sundays and holidays, mass thou shalt hear;” but before he had proceeded to the second, a person who stood at his elbow began to whisper to him the proper reply, and in the act of so doing received a lash of the whip across the ear for his pains.

“You blackguard, you!” exclaimed Father Philemy, “take that—­how dare you attempt to prompt any person that I’m examining?”

Those who stood around Kelly now fell back to a safe distance, and all was silence, terror, and trepidation once more.

“Come, Kelly, go on—­the eighth?”

Kelly was still silent.

“Why, you ninny you, didn’t you repeat it just now.  ’Eighth—­And to his church neglect not tithes to pay.’  Now that I have put the words in your mouth, what does it mean?”

Kelly having thus got the cue, replied, in the words of the Catechism, “To pay tides to the lawful pasterns of the church, sir.”

“Pasterns!—­oh, you ass you! Pasterns! you poor; base, contemptible, crawling reptile, as if we trampled you under our hooves—­oh, you scruff of the earth!  Stop, I say—­it’s pastors.”

“Pastures of the church.”

“And, tell me, do you fulfil that commandment?”

“I do, sir.”

“It’s a lie, sir,” replied the priest, brandishing the whip over his head, whilst Kelly instinctively threw up his guard to protect himself from the blow.  “It’s a lie, sir,” repeated his Eeverence; “you don’t fulfil it.  What is the church?”

“The church is the congregation of the faithful that purfiss the true faith, and are obadient to the Pope.”

“And who do you pay tithes to?”

“To the parson, sir.”

“And, you poor varmint you, is he obadient to the Pope?”

Kelly only smiled at the want of comprehension which prevented him from seeing the thing according to the view which his Reverence took of it.

“Well, now,” continued Father Philemy, “who are the lawful pastors of God’s church?”

“You are, sir:  and all our own priests.”

“And who ought you to pay your tithes to?”

“To you, sir, in coorse; sure I always knew that, your Rev’rence.”

“And what’s the reason, then, you don’t pay them to me, instead of the parson?”

This was a puzzler to Kelly, who only knew his own side of the question.  “You have me there, sir,” he replied, with a grin.

“Because,” said his Reverence, “the Protestants, for the present, have, the law of the land on their side, and power over you to compel the payment of tithes to themselves; but we have right, justice, and the law of God on ours; and, if every thing was in its proper place, it is not to the parsons, but to us, that you would pay them.”