'That doesn't matter. You see, if one didn't do what one felt like doing, one would have remorse of conscience for ever after.'
'I suppose so. It was very kind of you, Moran, to come all this way.'
'What is it but a step? Three miles—'
'And a half.'
Moved by a febrile impatience, which he could not control, Father Oliver got up from his chair.
'Now, Moran, isn't it strange? I wonder how it was that you should have come to tell me that you were going off to drink somewhere. You said you were going to lie up in a public-house and drink for days, and yet you didn't think of giving up the priesthood.'
'What are you saying, Gogarty? Don't you know well enough I'd have been suspended? Didn't I tell you that drink had taken that power over me that, if roaring hell were open, and I sitting on the brink of it and a table beside me with whisky on it, I should fill myself a glass?'
'And knowing you were going down to hell?'
'Yes, that night nothing would have stopped me. But, talking of hell, I heard a good story yesterday. Pat Carabine was telling his flock last Sunday of the tortures of the damned, and having said all he could about devils and pitchforks and caldrons, he came to a sudden pause—a blank look came into his face, and, looking round the church and seeing the sunlight streaming through the door, his thoughts went off at a tangent. "Now, boys," he said, "if this fine weather continues, I hope you'll be all out in the bog next Tuesday bringing home my turf."'
Father Oliver laughed, but his laughter did not satisfy Father Moran, and he told how on another occasion Father Pat had finished his sermon on hell by telling his parishioners that the devil was the landlord of hell. 'And I leave yourself to imagine the groaning that was heard in the church that morning, for weren't they all small tenants? But I'm afraid my visit has upset you, Gogarty.'