'A glass of beer! Ah, if I could tell you the truth! We've all our troubles, Gogarty—trouble that none knows but God. I haven't been watching you—I've been too tormented about myself to think much of anyone else—but now and then I've caught sight of a thought passing across your mind. We all suffer, you like another, and when the ache becomes too great to be borne we drink. Whisky is the remedy; there's none better. We drink and forget, and that is the great thing. There are times, Gogarty, when one doesn't want to think, when one's afraid, aren't there?—when one wants to forget that one's alive. You've had that feeling, Gogarty. We all have it. And now I must be off. I must forget everything. I want to drink and to feel the miles passing under my feet.'
And on that he got up from the fire.
'Come, Moran, I won't hear you speak like that.'
'Let me go. It's no use; I'm done for;' and Father Oliver saw his eyes light up.
'I'll not keep you against your will, but I'll go a piece of the road with you.'
'I'd sooner you didn't come, Gogarty.'
Without answering, Father Oliver caught up his hat and followed Father Moran out of the house. They walked without speaking, and when they got to the gate Father Oliver began to wonder which way his unhappy curate would choose for escape. 'Now why does he take the southern road?' And a moment after he guessed that Moran was making for Michael Garvey's public-house, 'and after drinking there,' he said to himself, 'he'll go on to Tinnick.' After a couple of miles, however, Moran turned into a by-road leading through the mountains, and they walked on without saying a word.
And they walked mile after mile through the worn mountain road.
'You've come far enough, Gogarty; go back. Regan's public-house is outside of your parish.'
'If it's outside my parish, it's only the other side of the boundary; and you said, Moran, that you wouldn't touch whisky till to-morrow morning.'