Nora.  But really and truly now, weren’t the people rather disappointing?  I should think the girls must have seemed rather coarse and dowdy after the foreign princesses and people?  But I suppose a priest wouldn’t notice that.

Keegan.  It’s a priest’s business to notice everything.  I won’t tell you all I noticed about women; but I’ll tell you this.  The more a man knows, and the farther he travels, the more likely he is to marry a country girl afterwards.

Nora [blushing with delight].  You’re joking, Mr Keegan:  I’m sure yar.

Keegan.  My way of joking is to tell the truth.  It’s the funniest joke in the world.

Nora [incredulous].  Galong with you!

Keegan [springing up actively].  Shall we go down to the road and meet the car? [She gives him her hand and he helps her up].  Patsy Farrell told me you were expecting young Doyle.

Nora [tossing her chin up at once].  Oh, I’m not expecting him particularly.  It’s a wonder he’s come back at all.  After staying away eighteen years he can harly expect us to be very anxious to see him, can he now?

Keegan.  Well, not anxious perhaps; but you will be curious to see how much he has changed in all these years.

Nora [with a sudden bitter flush].  I suppose that’s all that brings him back to look at us, just to see how much we’ve changed.  Well, he can wait and see me be candlelight:  I didn’t come out to meet him:  I’m going to walk to the Round Tower [going west across the hill].

Keegan.  You couldn’t do better this fine evening. [Gravely] I’ll tell him where you’ve gone. [She turns as if to forbid him; but the deep understanding in his eyes makes that impossible; and she only looks at him earnestly and goes.  He watches her disappear on the other side of the hill; then says] Aye, he’s come to torment you; and you’re driven already to torment him. [He shakes his head, and goes slowly away across the hill in the opposite direction, lost in thought].

By this time the car has arrived, and dropped three of its passengers on the high road at the foot of the hill.  It is a monster jaunting car, black and dilapidated, one of the last survivors of the public vehicles known to earlier generations as Beeyankiny cars, the Irish having laid violent tongues on the name of their projector, one Bianconi, an enterprising Italian.  The three passengers are the parish priest, Father Dempsey; Cornelius Doyle, Larry’s father; and Broadbent, all in overcoats and as stiff as only an Irish car could make them.

The priest, stout and fatherly, falls far short of that finest type of countryside pastor which represents the genius of priesthood; but he is equally far above the base type in which a strongminded and unscrupulous peasant uses the Church to extort money, power, and privilege.  He is a priest neither by vocation nor ambition, but because the life suits him.  He has boundless authority over his flock, and taxes them stiffly enough to be a rich man.  The old Protestant ascendency is now too broken to gall him.  On the whole, an easygoing, amiable, even modest man as long as his dues are paid and his authority and dignity fully admitted.