Larry [interrupting him with overbearing contempt].  Put the tithes on you again!  Did the tithes ever come off you?  Was your land any dearer when you paid the tithe to the parson than it was when you paid the same money to Nick Lestrange as rent, and he handed it over to the Church Sustentation Fund?  Will you always be duped by Acts of Parliament that change nothing but the necktie of the man that picks your pocket?  I’ll tell you what I’d do with you, Mat Haffigan:  I’d make you pay tithes to your own Church.  I want the Catholic Church established in Ireland:  that’s what I want.  Do you think that I, brought up to regard myself as the son of a great and holy Church, can bear to see her begging her bread from the ignorance and superstition of men like you?  I would have her as high above worldly want as I would have her above worldly pride or ambition.  Aye; and I would have Ireland compete with Rome itself for the chair of St Peter and the citadel of the Church; for Rome, in spite of all the blood of the martyrs, is pagan at heart to this day, while in Ireland the people is the Church and the Church the people.

Father Dempsey [startled, but not at all displeased].  Whisht, man!  You’re worse than mad Pether Keegan himself.

Broadbent [who has listened in the greatest astonishment].  You amaze me, Larry.  Who would have thought of your coming out like this! [Solemnly] But much as I appreciate your really brilliant eloquence, I implore you not to desert the great Liberal principle of Disestablishment.

Larry.  I am not a Liberal:  Heaven forbid!  A disestablished Church is the worst tyranny a nation can groan under.

Broadbent [making a wry face].  Don’t be paradoxical, Larry.  It really gives me a pain in my stomach.

Larry.  You’ll soon find out the truth of it here.  Look at Father Dempsey! he is disestablished:  he has nothing to hope or fear from the State; and the result is that he’s the most powerful man in Rosscullen.  The member for Rosscullen would shake in his shoes if Father Dempsey looked crooked at him. [Father Dempsey smiles, by no means averse to this acknowledgment of his authority].  Look at yourself! you would defy the established Archbishop of Canterbury ten times a day; but catch you daring to say a word that would shock a Nonconformist! not you.  The Conservative party today is the only one that’s not priestridden—­excuse the expression, Father [Father Dempsey nods tolerantly]—­cause it’s the only one that has established its Church and can prevent a clergyman becoming a bishop if he’s not a Statesman as well as a Churchman.

He stops.  They stare at him dumbfounded, and leave it to the priest to answer him.

Father Dempsey [judicially].  Young man:  you’ll not be the member for Rosscullen; but there’s more in your head than the comb will take out.

Larry.  I’m sorry to disappoint you, father; but I told you it would be no use.  And now I think the candidate had better retire and leave you to discuss his successor. [He takes a newspaper from the table and goes away through the shrubbery amid dead silence, all turning to watch him until he passes out of sight round the corner of the house].