ight be seen in the three priests who have
been already mentioned in our story. Father Giles was the parish
pastor of Headford, in which position he had been for nearly forty
years. He was a man seventy years of age, in full possession of all
his faculties, very zealous in the well-being of his people, prone to
teach them that if they would say their prayers, and do as they were
bid by their betters, they would, in the long run, and after various
phases of Catholic well or ill-being, go to heaven. But they would
also have enough to eat in this world; which seemed to be almost more
prominent in Father Giles's teaching than the happy bliss of heaven.
But the older Father Giles became the more he thought of the good
things of this world, on behalf of his people, and the less he liked
being troubled with the political desires of his curate. He had gone
so far as to forbid Father Brosnan to do this, or to do that on
various occasions, to make a political speech here, or to attend
a demonstration there;--in doing which, or in not doing it, the
curate sometimes obeyed, but sometimes disobeyed the priest, thereby
bringing Father Giles in his old age into infinite trouble.

But Father Malachi, in the neighbouring parish of Ballintubber, ran
a course somewhat intermediate between these two. He, at the present
moment, had no curate who interfered with his happiness. There was,
indeed, a curate of Ballintubber--so named; but he lived away,
not inhabiting the same house with Father Malachi, as is usual in
Ireland; having a chapel to himself, and seldom making his way into
our part of the country. Father Malachi was a strong-minded man, who
knew the world. He, too, had an inclination for Home Rule, and still
entertained a jealousy against the quasi-ascendency of a Protestant
bishop; but he had no sympathy whatever with Father Brosnan. Ireland
for the Irish might be very well, but he did not at all want to have
Ireland for the Americans. Father Giles and Father Malachi certainly
agreed on one thing--that Brosnan was a great trouble.

If the conversion of Florian Jones was to be attributed to any
clerical influence, Father Brosnan was entitled to claim the good or
the evil done; but in truth very few polemical arguments had been
used on the occasion. The boy's head had been filled with the idea
of doing something remarkable, and he had himself gone to the priest.
When a Protestant child does go to a priest on such a mission, what
can