serious consequences. I had
been reading about volcanoes, so was filled with ambition to construct
one. I unearthed a large powder-horn, belonging to my father, which
must have contained nearly a pound of gunpowder. This I poured into a
tin, which I punctured at the side. Into the puncture I inserted a fuse
of rolled brown paper which had been soaked in a solution of saltpeter.
The tin was placed on the floor in the middle of the tool-house; around
it we banked damp clay in the form of a truncated cone, leaving a
hollow for the crater. The latter we filled with dry sand and fragments
of brick. We lit the fuse, and, as might have been expected, a
frightful explosion resulted. The windows were blown completely out of
the tool-house. Jimmy and I were flung against the wall and nearly
blinded. Several fragments of brick had to be dug out of our respective
faces.

Father Healy, celebrated as a wit, occasionally visited our house. His
church at Little Bray was noted for the excellence of its choir. The
following story, was told of this priest: He was one night dining with
an Anglican clergyman, with whom he was on intimate terms. Just
previously two Roman Catholic priests, one in England and the other in
Ireland, had joined the Anglican communion. This double event, which
came up as a topic of conversation at the dinner-table, was, naturally
enough, the occasion of some satisfaction to the host. Various views as
to the psychology of conversion or, according to one's point of view,
perversion, were mooted. Various possible motives, spiritual and
temporal, underlying such a change, were discussed. Eventually the host
asked Father Healy for his opinion.

"Faith!" replied the latter, "I don't think there's any mystery about
the thing at all."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, when one of our men goes over to you, it's always due to one of
two causes."

"What are they?"

"Punch or Judy," replied Father Healy laconically.

Although Glencullen Chapel was the nearest to Springfield, the house
was in the parish of Enniskerry. Here a certain Father O'Dwyer was the
incumbent. Father O'Dwyer was a very irascible man of powerful
physique; he was as much feared by the godly as by the ungodly.

He kept a big whip in the vestry, with which to chastise evil-doers; of
this I had ocular demonstration.

One Sunday, when High Mass was being celebrated by another priest, a
stranger, I was sitting in the carriage, which stood waiting for the