Not a cow nor sheep was to be seen, nor even a bird; all was silent and
still.

'There's few would like to pass their lives down there, then!' said my
companion, as if speaking to himself.

'I suppose the priest, like a soldier, has no choice in these matters.'

'Sometimes he has, though. Father Doogan might have had the pick of the
county, they say; but he chose this little quiet spot here. He's a friar
of some ordher abroad, and when he came over, two or three years ago, he
could only spake a little Irish, and, I believe, less English; but there
wasn't his equal for other tongues in all Europe. They wanted him to
stop and be the head of a college somewhere in Spain, but he wouldn't.
"There was work to do in Ireland," he said, and there he'd go, and to
the wildest and laste civilised bit of it besides; and ye see that he
was not far ont in his choice when he took Murrah.'

'Is he much liked here by the people?'

'They'd worship him, if he'd let them, that's what it is; for if he has
more larnin' and knowledge in his head than ever a bishop in Ireland,
there's not a child in the barony his equal for simplicity. He that
knows the names of the stars, and what they do be doing, and where the
world's going, and what's comin' afther her, hasn't a thought for the
wickedness of this life, no more than a sucking infant! He could tell
you every crop to put in your ground from this to the day of judgment,
and I don't think he'd know which end of the spade goes into the
ground.'

While we were thus talking, we reached the door, which, as well as the
windows, was closely barred and fastened. The great padlock, however,
on the former, with characteristic acuteness, was looked without being
hasped, so that, in a few seconds, my old guide had undone all the
fastenings, and we found ourselves under shelter.

A roomy kitchen, with a few cooking utensils, formed the entrance hall;
and as a small supply of turf stood in one corner, my companion at once
proceeded to make a fire, congratulating me as he went on with the fact
of our being housed, for a long-threatening thunderstorm had already
burst, and the rain was now swooping along in torrents.

While he was thus busied, I took a ramble through the little cabin,
curious to see something of the 'interior' of one whose life had already
interested me. There were but two small chambers, one at either side of
the kitchen. The first I entered was a bedroom, the only furniture being
a