“Why what do you see wrong in my life?  Am I a drunkard? am I lazy? did ever I neglect my business? was I ever bad to you or to the childher? didn’t I always give yez yer fill to ate, and kept yez as well clad as yer neighbors that was richer?  Don’t I go to my knees, too, every night and morning?”

“That’s true enough, but what signifies it all?  When did ye cross a priest’s foot to go to your duty?  Not for the last five years, Phaddhy—­not since poor Torly (God be good to him) died of the mazles, and that’ll be five years, a fortnight before Christmas.”

“And what are you the betther of all yer confessions?  Did they ever mend yer temper, avourneen? no, indeed, Katty, but you’re ten times worse tempered coming back from the priest than before you go to him.”

“Oh!  Phaddhy!  Phaddhy!  God look down upon you this day, or any man that’s in yer hardened state—­I see there’s no use in spaking to you, for you’ll still be the ould cut.”

“Ay, will I; so you may as well give up talking about it Arrah, woman!” said.  Phaddhy, raising his voice, “who does it ever make betther—­show me a man now in all the neighborhood, that’s a pin-point the holier of it?  Isn’t there Jemmy Shields, that goes to his duty wanst a month, malivogues his wife and family this minute, and then claps them to a Rosary the next; but the ould boy’s a thrifle to him of a fast day, afther coming from the priest.  Betune ourselves, Katty, you’re not much behind him.”

Katty made no reply to him, but turned up her eyes, and crossed herself, at the wickedness of her unmanageable husband.  “Well, Briney,” said she, turning abruptly to the son, “don’t take patthern by that man, if you expect to do any good; let him be a warning to you to mind yer duty, and respect yer clargy—­and prepare yerself, now that I think of it, to go to Father Philemy or Father Con on Thursday:  but don’t be said or led by that man, for I’m sure I dunna how he intends to face the Man above when he laves this world—­and to keep from his duty, and to spake of his clargy as he does!”

There are few men without their weak sides.  Phaddhy, although the priests were never very much his favorites, was determined to give what he himself called a let-out on this occasion, simply to show his ill-natured neighbors that, notwithstanding their unfriendly remarks, he knew “what it was to be dacent,” as well as his betters; and Katty seconded him in his resolution, from her profound veneration for the clargy.  Every preparation was accordingly entered into, and every plan adopted that could possibly be twisted into a capability of contributing to the entertainment of Fathers Philemy and Con.