“‘Musha, Dinis,’ says myself, ‘what’s all this for?’

“‘Why,’ says he, ‘it’s all for the good of the church an’ the faithful.  I’m now Archbishop of the county,’ says he; ’the Protestants are all banished, an’ we are in their place.’

“The sorra one o’ myself all this time but thought he was a priest still; so says I, ‘Dinny, you’re a wantin’ to anoint Paddy Diarmud, who’s given over, an’ if you don’t I make haste, you won’t overtake him?’

“‘He must wait then till mornin’,’ says Dinny; ’or if he chooses to die against my will, an’ the will o’ the church, let him take the quensequences.  Were wealthy now.’

“I was so much frightened at the kind of voice that he spoke to me in, that I awoke; an’ sure enough, the first thing I heard was the fizzin’ o’ bacon on the pan.  I wondered! who could be up so early, an’ puttin’ my head through the door, there was Dinny busy at it, wid an ould knife in one hand, an’ an iron skiver in the other imitatin’ a fork.

“‘What are you doin’ so early, Dinny?’ says I.

“‘I’m practisin’,’ says he.

“‘What for?’ says I.

“‘Oh, I’m practisin’,’ says he, back again, ‘go to bed; I’m practisin’ for the church, an’ the Station that’s to be in Pether Rafferty’s to-day.’

“Now, Dinny, between you an’ me, that dhrame didn’t come for nothin’.  So give the gorsoon his way, an’ if he chooses to be a gintleman, why let him; he’ll be the more honor to thim that reared him.”

“Thrue for you, indeed,—­Mave; he always had a high spirit ever since he was intinded for the robes, and would have his own way and will in whatever he took into his head, right or wrong, as cleverly as if he had the authority for it.”

“An’ so he ought, seein’ he wasn’t to be slavin’ at the spade, like the rest o’ the family.  The ways o’ them that have great larnin’ as he has, isn’t like other people’s ways—­they must be humored, and have their own will, otherwise what ’ud they be betther than their neighbors?”

The other arrangements laid down by Denis, touching his determination not to be addressed so familiarly by his brothers and sisters, were next discussed in this conversation, and, of course, the same prejudice in his favor was manifested by his indulgent parents.  The whole code of his injunctions was subsequently disclosed to the family in all its extent and rigor.  Some of them heard it with surprise, and other with that kind of dogged indignation evinced by those who are in some degree prepared for the nature of the communication about to be laid before them.  Altogether, the circumstances in which it placed them were peculiar and embarrassing.  The Irish peasant can seldom bear to have the tenderness of domestic affection tampered with, whether from pride, caprice, or any other motive not related to his prejudices.  In this instance the strongest feelings of the O’Shaughnessys were brunted, as it were, in hostile array against each other; and although the moral force on each side was nearly equal, still the painful revulsion produced by Denis’s pride, as undervaluing their affection, and substituting the cold forms of artificial life for the warmth of honest hearts like theirs, was, in the first burst of natural fervor, strongly, and somewhat indignantly expressed.