'How is that?'
And the boy answered that since the Big House had been burnt the road hadn't been kept in repair.
'But,' said Father Oliver, 'the Big House was burnt seventy years ago.'
'Well, your reverence, you see, it was a good road then, but the last time I heard of a car going that way was last February.'
'And if a car got through in February, why can't we get through on the first of June?'
'Well, your reverence, there was the storm, and I do be hearing that the trees that fell across the road then haven't been removed yet.'
'I think we might try the road, for all that, for though if we have to walk the greater part of it, there will be a saving in the end.'
'That's true, your reverence, if we can get the car through; but if we can't we may have to come all the way back again.'
'Well, Christy, we'll have to risk that. Now, will you be turning the horse up the road? And I'll stop at the Big House—I've never been inside it. I'd like to see what it is like.'
Joycetown House was the last link between the present time and the past. In the beginning of the century a duellist lived there; the terror of the countryside he, for he was never known to miss his man. For the slightest offence, real or imaginary, he sent seconds demanding redress. No more than his ancestors, who had doubtless lived on the islands, in Castle Island and Castle Hag, could he live without fighting. But when he completed his round dozen, a priest said, 'If we don't put a stop to his fighting, there won't be a gentleman left in the country,' and wrote to him to that effect.