“‘It’s too gross,’ said the facetious Friar, in his loud, strong voice—­’it’s too gross, Docthor Finnerty, so let us spiritualize it, that it may be Christian atin, fit for pious men to digest,’ and then he came out with his thundering laugh—­oigh, oigh, oigh, oigh! but he had consequently the most of the pudding to himself, an’ indeed brought the better half of it home in his saddle-bags.”

“Faix, an’ he did,” said Mave, “an’ a fat goose that he coaxed Mary to kill for him unknownst to us all, in the coorse o’ the day.”

“How long is he dead, Docthor?” said Denis; “God rest him any way, he’s happy!”

“He died in the hot summer, now nine years about June last; and talking about him, reminds me of a trick he put on me about two years before his death.  He and I had not been on good terms for long enough before that time; but as the curate I had was then sickly, and as I wouldn’t be allowed two, I found that it might be convenient to call in the Friar occasionally, a regulation he did not at all relish, for he said he could make far more by questing and poaching about among the old women of the parish, with whom he was a great favorite, in consequence of the Latin hymns he used to sing for them, and the great cures he used to perform—­a species of devotion which neither I nor my curate had time to practise.  So, in order to renew my intimacy, I sent him a bag of oatmeal and a couple of flitches of bacon, both of which he readily accepted, and came down to me on the following day to borrow three guineas.  After attempting to evade him—­for, in fact, I had not the money to spare—­he at length succeeded in getting them from me, on the condition that he was to give my curate’s horse and mine a month’s grass, by way of compensation, for I knew that to expect payment from him was next to going for piety to a parson.

“‘I will,’ said he, ’give your horses the run of my best field’—­for he held a comfortable bit of ground; ‘but,’ he added, ’as you have been always cutting at me about my principle, I must insist, if it was only to convince you of my ginerosity, that you’ll lave the choosing of the month to myself.’

“As I really wanted an assistant at the time, in consequence of my curate’s illness, he had me bound, in some degree, to his own will.  I accordingly gave him the money; but from that till the day of his death, he never sent for our horses, except when there was a foot and a half of snow on the ground, at which time he was certain to despatch a messenger for him, ’with Father Hennessy’s compliments, and he requested Doctor Finnerty to send the horses to Father Hennessy’s field, to ate their month’s grass.’”

“But is it true, Docthor, that his face was shinin’ after his death?”

“True enough, and to my own knowledge, long before that event.”

“Dear me,” exclaimed Mave, “he was a holy man afther all!”

“Undoubtedly he was,” said the priest; “there are spots in the sun, Mrs. O’Shaugh-nessy—­we are not all immaculate.  There never was one sent into this world without less or more sin upon them.  Even the saints themselves had venial touches about them, but nothing to signify.”