Paterson shook the dust of an ungrateful sect from off his feet, and joined the Wesleyans; he built them a tin church, and raised them into prominence. His position of patron gratified his lust for power, and for ten years now he had set the tone to the narrowest clique of the community.
All this time, however, he kept his business apart from his religion, and prospered greatly. His shop was the one place where he made no difference between a Catholic and a Protestant. But all his energies flowed in these two main streams—his business life and his religious life—and left no particle of the rich emotion, which was their source, for the unfortunate daughter, who was growing up with a heart starved by the lack of nourishment.
Lisnamore is a hotbed of gossip—that vice of small towns and small minds—and soon everybody in the place was discussing Maggie's affair with Johnny Daly. Old Paterson himself alone remained in ignorance of it; he inspired too healthy a respect in the breasts of his neighbors for any one to approach him on the subject.
The priest, Father O'Flaherty, was one of the first to hear of the grievous lapse of Johnny Daly into church-going, and immediately seized an opportunity of speaking to that unruly member of his flock.
'You're quite a stranger, Johnny,' he began, the first time he met him in the street; 'how is it I haven't seen yous at midday mass these last three or four Sundays?'
'I go to church,' said Johnny shortly.
'An' what call have yous to go to church, when you shud be at chapel like your forebears before you, John Daly?' inquired the priest sternly.
But Daly was at that restive stage of a young man's passion, which takes no account of authority, human or divine. He glowered at the priest darkly, and replied,—
'That's my business; an' I'll do as I like. Just you show me the man as'll cross me.'
Father O'Flaherty, alarmed at such unaccustomed violence, saw that this was a case for diplomacy, that the bonds could not be strained too tightly for fear that they might burst, and replied soothingly,—