“Good morning, Dominick!” said the priest, as Dominick entered.

“Good morrow, kindly, Sir,” replied Dominick:  “I hope your Reverence is well, and in good health.”

“Troth I am, Dominick!  I hope there’s nothing wrong at home; how is the wife and children?”

“I humbly, thank your Reverence for axin’!  Troth there’s no rason for complainin’ in regard o’ the health; sarra one o’ them but’s bravely, consitherin’ all things:  I believe I’m the worst o’ them, myself, yer Reverence..  I’m gettin’ ould, you see, an’ stiff’, an’ wake; but that’s only in the coorse o’ nathur; a man can’t last always.  Wait till them that’s young an’ hearty now, harrows as much as I ploughed in my day, an’ they won’t have much to brag of.  Why, thin, but yer Reverence stands it bravely—­faix, wondherfully itself—­the Lord be praised! an’ it warms my own heart to see you look so well.”

“Thank you, Dominick.  Indeed, my health, God be thanked, is very good.  Ellish,” he added, calling to an old female servant—­“you’ll take a glass, Dominick, the day is cowldish—­Ellish, here take the kay, and get some spirits—­the poteen, Ellish—­to the right hand in the cupboard.  Indeed, my health is very good, Dominick.  Father Murray says he invies me my appetite, an’ I tell him he’s guilty of one of the Seven deadly sins.”

“Ha, ha, ha!—­Faix, an’ Invy is one o’ them sure enough; but a joke is a joke in the mane time.  A pleasant gintleman is the same Father Murray, but yer Reverence is too deep for him in the jokin’ line, for all that.  Ethen, Sir, but it’s you that gave ould Cokely the keen cut about his religion—­ha, ha, ha!  Myself laughed till I was sick for two days afther it—­the ould thief!”

“Eh?—­Did you hear that, Dominick?  Are you sure that’s the poteen, Ellish?  Ay, an’ the best of it all was, that his pathrun, Lord Foxhunter, was present.  Come, Dominick, try that—­it never seen wather.  But the best of it all was—­”

—­“‘Well, Father Kavanagh,’ said he, ’who put you into the church?  Now,’ said he, ’you’ll come over me wid your regular succession from St. Peter, but I won’t allow that.’

“‘Why, Mr. Cokely,’ says I, back to him, ‘I’ll giye up the succession;’ says I, ’and what is more, I’ll grant that you have been called by the Lord, and that I have not; but the Lord that called you,’ says I, ’was Lord Foxhunter.’  Man, you’d tie his Lordship wid a cobweb, he laughed so heartily.

“‘Bravo, Father Kavanagh,’ said he.  ‘Cokely, you’re bale,’ said he; ’and upon my honor you must both dine with me to-day, says he—­and capital claret he keeps.”

“Your health, Father Kavanagh, an’ God spare you to us!  Hah! wather!  Oh, the divil a taste itself did the same stuff see!  Why, thin, I think your Reverence an’ me’s about an age.  I bleeve.  I’m a thrifle oulder; but I don’t bear it so well as you do.  The family, you see, an’ the childhre, an’ the cares o’ the world, pull me down:  throth, the same family’s a throuble to me.  I wish I had them all settled safe, any way.”