"It's I am to get the absolution, if I can, this time; it's the old story. Captain, 'a thrifle of rint that's owing, nothing more.'"
"Well, it's all one to me: good night to you all," and Captain Ussher rode away home to Mohill.
Father Cullen reseated himself by the fire, and again assumed his gaze at the hot turf, just as he was before Ussher came in, and looked hopelessly immovable. Thady shifted about uneasily in his chair, then got up and walked round the room, and then sat down again; but the curate wouldn't move. At last Father John ended the affair by saying,
"Any more punch, Cullen?"
"Thank you, no, Sir."
"Then just go home, there's a good fellow."
Cullen rose up, not the least offended—nothing would offend him—took his hat, and did as he was bid. At last Thady and Father John were left alone.
"Now, my boy," said the priest, as he put on more turf, "we'll be alone for half an hour, or it is odd. Well, you spoke to Feemy?"
"I did spake to her, Father John; but I'd better have left it alone; for when I began she only snubbed me, and she told me she'd manage her own business; but oh Father John, I fear it will be a bad business! She told me she loved him, and that he had gone so far as asking her to marry him, and all that; but as far as I could learn, it was only just talk, that. But I could say nothing to her, for she got the better of me, and then flew out of the room, saying, it did not matter what I said."
And then Macdermot told the priest exactly what had passed; how headstrong Feemy was, how infatuated she was with her lover, and how regardless of what any one could say to her on the subject; "and now, Father John, what on 'arth shall I do at all, for the heart's broken in me, with all the throubles that's on me."