he, 'Mrs. Twomey,' says he, 'I'll have another rag
on another bush soon,' says he. 'Sir,' says I to him, 'that much would
not surpass your honour!' But faith, they're tellin' me now Burke'll
have him bet out, and I'm sorry to me heart for it."

John Brien looked from one side of the road to the other, and ahead,
between his donkey's ears. The mist was close round the cart as the
walls of a room; the only sound was the thin wind singing in the
telegraph wires.

"Mrs. Twomey," murmured John Brien, "the Clergy is agin him!"

"Oh, great and merciful Lord God!" said Mrs. Twomey. She said it
without either irreverence or reverence. She merely wished to express
to John Brien her comprehension of the importance of his statement.

Larry had flung himself into electioneering as an alternative to
drink. That was how he put it to himself. He took rooms at Hallinan's
Hotel, in Cluhir, in order to be on top of the railway station, and
the situation generally, and he had, moreover, a standing invitation
to No. 6, The Mall, for any meal, at any hour of the day or night,
that he found suitable. The district to be canvassed was a wide one,
and day after day Larry and the faithful Barty went forth to interview
"People of importance"; darkly-cautious publicans, with wives lurking
at hand to make sure that "Himself" should do nothing rash;
uninterested farmers, who "had their land bought," and were left cold
by the differences 'twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee; and visits to
"The Clergy" of all denominations, productive of much artificially
friendly converse and no very definite promises.

Of Larry's own Communion, Father Tim Sweeny alone announced himself,
unhesitatingly, as being of Larry's camp. Father Tim's hostility had
not been proof against Larry's charms, more especially since these
were combined with a substantial proof of the young candidate's
interest in the decoration of the new chapel; and, at the gate of that
chapel, (the site of which he did not forget that he owed to Larry) he
attended one of Larry's meetings, and shook his bovine head at his
flock, and bellowed ferocious commendation of the young man, who, he
thundered, had not failed in his duty by the Church and the people.
There was a downright, fighting quality in Father Sweeny that was
large and stimulating. Larry felt that he had, at least, his own
parish firmly at his back, and wished that he had a few more such as
Father Tim to stand by him.

The Rev. Matthew