he girl."

"But do none of you ever want to walk out with a young girl?" I said.

"We're like other people, sir. We would like it well enough, but it
isn't the custom of the country, and if we did it we would be talked
about."

I began to like my young carman, and his answer to my question pleased
me as much as any answer he had yet given me, and I told him that
Father Madden objected to the looms because they entailed meetings,
etc., and if he were not present the boys would talk on subjects they
should not talk about.

"Now, do you think it is right for a priest to prevent men from meeting
to discuss their business?" I said, turning to the driver, determined
to force him into an expression of opinion.

"It isn't because he thinks the men would talk about things they should
not talk about that he is against an organization. Didn't he tell your
honour that things would have to take their course. That is why he will
do nothing, because he knows well enough that everyone in the parish
will have to leave it, that every house will have to fall. Only the
chapel will remain standing, and the day will come when Father Tom will
say Mass to the blind woman and to no one else. Did you see the blind
woman to-day at Mass, sir, in the right-hand corner, with the shawl
over her head?"

"Yes," I said, "I saw her. If any one is a saint, that woman seems to
be one."

"Yes, sir, she is a very pious woman, and her piety is so well known
that she is the only one who dared to brave Father Madden; she was the
only one who dared to take Julia Cahill to live with her. It was Julia
who put the curse on the parish."

"A curse! But you are joking."

"No, your honour, there was no joke in it. I was only telling you what
must come. She put her curse on the village twenty years ago, and every
year a roof has fallen in and a family has gone away."

"And you believe that all this happens on account of Julia's curse?"

"To be sure I do," he said. He flicked his horse pensively with the
whip, and my disbelief seemed to disincline him for further
conversation.

"But," I said, "who is Julia Cahill, and how did she get the power to
lay a curse upon the village? Was she a young woman or an old one?"

"A young one, sir."

"How did she get the power?"

"Didn't she go every night into the mountains? She was seen one night
over yonder, and the mountains are ten miles off, and whom would she
have gone to see except the fairies? And who could