got the money, but where would be the use when
there was no luck in it."

"And who were to act the play?"

"The girls and boys in the parish, and the prettiest girl in all the
parish was to play Good Deeds."

"So it was a miracle play," I said.

"Do you see that man there, sir? That's the priest coming out of James
Burke's cabin."

We should overtake Father MacTurnan in a minute or more. There was no
time to hear the story, and I was sorry not to have heard the story of
the playhouse from the car-driver. Father MacTurnan got up beside me,
and told me we were about a mile from his house and that he had dinner
for me. He was a tall, thin man, and his pale, wandering eyes reflected
the melancholy of the distant mountains.

"I hope," said the priest, "that you're not wet; we have had some
showers here."

"We were caught in a shower coming out of Rathowen, but nothing to
signify."

Our talk then turned on the consecration of the cathedral. I told him
everything I thought would interest him, but all the while I was
thinking what kind of house he lived in; I had only seen mud huts for
many a mile; presently he pointed with his umbrella, and I saw a
comfortable whitewashed cottage by the roadside. The idea of the
playhouse was ringing in my head, and I began to wonder why he did not
train a rose-bush against its wall, and a moment after I felt that it
was well that he did not--a rose-bush could only seem incongruous
facing that waste hill. We passed into the house, and seeing the
priest's study lined with books, I said, "Reading is his distraction,"
and I looked forward to a pleasant talk about books when we had
finished our business talk; "and he'll tell me about the playhouse," I
said. After dinner, when we had said all we had to say on the
possibilities of establishing local industries, the priest got up
suddenly,--I thought he was going to take a book from the shelves to
show me, but he had gone to fetch his knitting, and, without a word of
explanation, he began to knit. I saw that he was knitting stockings,
and from the rapidity that the needles went to and fro I guessed that
he knitted every evening. It may have been only my fancy, but it seemed
to me that the priest answered the questions I addressed to him about
his books perfunctorily; it even seemed to me that he wished to avoid
literary conversation. Yielding to his wish, or what I believed to be
his wish, I spoke of practical things, saying that the worst