“Sorra a bit o' me.”
“I'll tell you, then. It's to keep up the Church; it's to feed the parsons that don't belong to the people,—that's what they put the taxes on tobacco and whiskey for. What, I 'd like to know, do you and I want with that place there with the steeple? What does the Rev. Daniel Dudgeon do for you or me? Grind us,—squeeze us,—maybe, come down on us when we 're trying to scrape a few shillings together, and carry it off for tithes.”
“Shure and he's a hard man! He's taking the herrins out of the net this year,—for every ten herrins he takes one.”
“And do they bear that?”
“Well, they do,” said he, mournfully; “they've no spirit down here; but over at Muggle-na-garry they put slugs in one last winter.”
“One what?”
“A parson, your honor; and it did him a dale o' good. He 's as meek as a child now about his dues, and they 've no trouble with him in life.”
“They'll do that with Dudgeon yet, maybe?” asked I.
“With the Lord's blessing, sir,” said he, piously.
Satisfied now that it was not a very hopeful task to obtain much information about Ireland from such a source, I drew my hat over my eyes and affected to doze for the remainder of the journey.