"I did indeed, mother; a nice man!"
"Ah, a quare ould oddity! Wouldn't you think now that he'd have a little pride in himself and dress a bit better, and he such a very learned man?"
"Maybe that's just the reason why he's not proud. The saints were not proud, mother; then why should he be?"
She always gave a deaf ear to any word of this kind from John, for her ideal was Father O'Keeffe, with his patent leather top-boots, silver-mounted whip and silk hat, riding to hounds with the Cromwellian descendants of the district.... Here was where Father Considine stood out in sharp contrast, for he was in spiritual descent from those priests who had died with the people in the Penal Days. It was men like him who had carried down the grandeur of Faith and Idealism from generation to generation. One felt that life was a small thing to him beyond the chance it gave to make it beautiful. He had written a little book of poems in honor of Mary, the Mother of God, and to feel that it had brought some comfort to many a troubled one and to know that he had been the means of shaping young men's lives towards useful ends was all that this world meant to him.
John Brennan knew very well that if he became a priest it was in the steps of Father Considine he would follow rather than in those of Father O'Keeffe. This he felt must mean the frustration of half his mother's grand desire, but, inevitable, it must be so, for it was the way his meditative mind would lead him. Thus was he troubled again.
Father Considine had spoken to him of Father O'Keeffe:
"A touch of the farmer about that man don't you think? But maybe a worthy man for all that!"
Then he had looked long into the young man's eyes and said:
"Be humble, my son, be humble, so that great things may be done unto you!"
John had pondered these words as he cycled home that evening past the rich fields. He began to think how his friend Ulick would have put all his thoughts so clearly. How he would have spoken of the rank green grass now rising high over County Meath as a growth that had sprung from the graves of men's rotted souls; of all the hate and pride that had come out of their hunger for the luscious land; of how Faith and Love and Beauty had gone forever from this golden vale to the wild places of his country, where there was a letting-in of wind and sun and sea.... It was easy to connect Father O'Keeffe's pride with the land. Remembrance of the man's appearance was sufficient. It was not so easy in the case of his mother. But, of course, John had no knowledge of how she had set her heart upon Henry Shannon's lovely farm in the days gone by.