This gave Thady the very unwelcome intelligence that Father Cullen meant to dine at the cottage.
"And now the pony's lamed undher me, I had to walk all the way to Loch Sheen, in the dirt and gutther."
Thady's mind was full of one object, and he could not interest himself about the curate's misfortunes in the lameness of his pony and the dirt of his walk.
"And bad manners to them Commissioners and people they sent over bothering and altering the people! Couldn't we have our own parishes as we like, and fix them ourselves, but they must be sending English people to give us English parishes, altering the meerings just to be doing something? You know, Thady, the far end of Loch Sheen up there?"
"Yes, Father Cullen, I know where Loch Sheen is."
"Well, that used to be Cashcarrigan parish; and Father Comyns—that's the parish priest in Cash—don't live not two miles all out from there; and the widow Byrne's is six miles from where I live out yonder, if it's a step, and yet they must go and put Loch Sheen into this parish."
Father Cullen's misfortunes still did not come home to Macdermot; he sat looking at the fire.
"There's that poor ould woman, too, up there, left to starve by herself, the crature, now they've gone and put her two sons into gaol. I wonder what the counthry 'll be the better for all them boys being crammed into gaol. I wish they'd kept that Ussher down in the north when he was there; he's fitter for that place than County Leitrim, any how."
"What's that about Captain Ussher, Father Cullen?"
"Shure didn't you hear he put three more of the boys into gaol Tuesday evening, and one of them off Drumleesh?"