she, with a
smile: `what brings you here? Is it a journey that you're taking to buy
the true wood of the cross; or is it a purty girl that you wish to
confess, Father McGrath? or is it only that you're come for a drop of
poteen, and a little bit of chat with Mrs O'Rourke?'

"`Sure it's I who'd be glad to find the same true wood of the cross,
Mrs O'Rourke, but it's not grown, I suspect, at your town of
Ballycleuch; and it's no objection I'd have to confess a purty girl like
yourself, Mrs O'Rourke, who'll only tell me half her sins, and give me
no trouble; but it's the truth, that I'm here for nothing else but to
have a bit of chat with yourself, dainty dear, and taste your poteen,
just by way of keeping my mouth nate and clane.'

"So Mrs O'Rourke poured out the real stuff, which I drank to her
health; and then says I, putting down the bit of a glass, `So you've a
stranger come, I find, in your parts, Mrs O'Rourke.'

"`I've heard the same,' replied she. So you observe, Terence, I came to
the fact all at once by a guess.

"`I'm tould,' says I, `that he's a Scotchman, and spakes what nobody can
understand.'

"`Devil a bit,' says she; `he's an Englishman, and speaks plain enough.'

"`But what can a man mane, to come here and sit down all alone?' says I.

"`All alone, Father McGrath!' replied she: `is a man all alone when he's
got his wife and childer, and more coming, with the blessing of God?'

"`But those boys are not his own childer, I believe,' says I.

"`There again you're all in a mistake, Father McGrath,' rejoins she.
`The childer are all his own, and all girls to boot. It appears that
it's just as well that you come down, now and then, for information, to
our town of Ballycleuch.'

"`Very true, Mrs O'Rourke,' says I; `and who is it that knows
everything so well as yourself?' You observe, Terence, that I just said
everything contrary and _vice versa_, as they call it, to the contents
of your letter; for always recollect, my son, that if you would worm a
secret out of a woman, you'll do more by contradiction than you ever
will by coaxing--so I went on: `Anyhow, I think it's a burning shame,
Mrs O'Rourke, for a gentleman to bring over with him here from England
a parcel of lazy English servants, when there's so many nice boys and
girls here to attind upon them.'

"`Now there you're all wrong again, Father McGrath,' says she. `Devil a
soul has he brought from the other country, but has hired them all her