had done. All Headford
knew that Mr. Jones's meadows had been flooded, and the priest must
have known that the present cause of trouble at Castle Morony,
was the injury thus done. Father Brosnan knew and approved of Pat
Carroll's enmity to the Jones family. But he was able to justify the
falsehood of his own heart, by stumbling over the degree of knowledge
necessary. There was a sense in which he did not know it. He need
not have sworn to it in a Court of Law. So he told himself, and so
justified his conscience. "You need not tell me," he went on to say
when the boy was proceeding to whisper the story, "I am not bound
to know what it is that Pat Carroll does, and what it is that your
father suffers. Do you go home, and keep your toe in your pump,
as they say, and come to me for confession a day or two before
Christmas. And if any of them say anything to you about your
religion, just sit quiet and bear it."

The boy was then dismissed, and went home to his father's home,
indifferent as to who might see him now, because he had come from the
priest's house. But the terror of that man in the mask still clung
to him; and mingled with that was the righteous fear, which still
struck cold to his heart, of the wicked injury which he was doing his
father. Boy though he was, he knew well what truth and loyalty, and
the bonds which should bind a family together, demanded from him. He
was miserable with a woe which he had not known how to explain to the
priest, as he thought of his terrible condition. At first Pat Carroll
and his friends had recommended themselves to him. He had, in truth,
only come on the scene of devastation down by the lough, by mere
accident. But he had before heard that Pat was an aggrieved man in
reference to his rent, and had taken it into his boyish heart to
sympathise with such sorrows. When Pat had got hold of him on the
spot, and had first exacted the promise of secrecy, Florian had given
it willingly. He had not expected to be questioned on the subject,
and had not attributed the importance to it which it had afterwards
assumed. He had since denied all knowledge of it, and was of course
burdened with a boy's fear of having to acknowledge the falsehood.
And now there had been added to it that awful scene in the cabin at
Headford, and on the top of that had come the priest's injunction.
"In such a case as this I cannot absolve you from your word." It was
so that the priest had addressed him, and there was