"And you know, as well as I can tell you, that yourself would be the last man to take the whiskey off the table, as long as the lads that were with you chose to be drinking it; and I think when I sent them boys off to Carrick as comfortably asleep as if they were in bed, so that they wouldn't be too late at business this morning, I acted by them as I'd wish anybody to act by me if I had an accident; and if that an't being a good Christian, I don't know what is. So lave off preaching, Father John, and come round to the stables, till I show you the mare that'll win at Carrick; at least, it 'll be a very good nag that 'll take the shine out of her."
"I hope you'll win, Mr. McKeon, in spite of your villany in making those young fellows drunk. But I'll not look at the mare just at present; more by token I'm told she's not very civil to morning visitors."
"Arrah, nonsense, man! she's as quiet a mare as ever went over a fence, when she's well handled."
"But you see I can't handle her well; and as I want to see the good woman that owns you, if you please, I'll go into the house instead of into the stable."
"Well, every man to his choice; and I'll see Playful get her gallop. But I tell you what, Father John, if you don't mind what you're after with Mrs. McKeon, I'll treat you a deal worse than I did those two fellows I sent home to Carrick on a mattress."
So Mr. McKeon walked off to superintend the training of his mare; and the priest, in spite of the marital caution he had received, walked into the dining-room, where he knew that at that hour he should probably find the mother and daughters surrounded by their household cares.
When the usual greetings were over, and the two girls had asked all the particulars of Mary Brady's wedding, and Mrs. McKeon had got through her usual gossip, Father John warily began the subject respecting which he was so anxious to rouse his friend's soft sympathies.
Mrs. McKeon had gone so far herself as to ask him whether anything had been settled yet at Ballycloran, about Ussher, and whether he thought that the young man really intended to marry the girl.
The way this question was asked, was a great damper to Father John's hopes. If there had been any kindly feelings towards poor Feemy at the moment in her breast, she would have called her by her name, and not spoken of her as "the girl;" it showed that Mrs. McKeon was losing, or had lost, whatever good opinion she might ever have had of Feemy: and when Louey ill-naturedly added, "Oh laws!—not he—the man never thought of her," Father John felt sure that there was a slight feeling of triumph among the female McKeons at the idea of Feemy's losing the lover of whom, perhaps, she had been somewhat too proud.
Still, however, he did not despair; he knew that if they spoke with ill-nature, it arose from thoughtlessness—and that it was, at any rate with the mother, only necessary to point out to her the benefit she could confer, to arouse a kindly feeling within her.