"Let my people alone, I tell ye!" cried the priest. "It's contented they've been until the likes of you came amongst us."
"Then they must have been easily satisfied," retorted O'Connell, "to judge by their poor little homes and their drab little lives."
"A hovel may be a palace if the Divine Word is in it," said the priest.
"Sure it's that kind of tachin' keeps Ireland the mockery of the whole world. The Divine Word should bring Light. It's only darkness I find in this village," argued O'Connell.
"I've given my life to spreadin' the Light!" said the priest.
A smile hovered on O'Connell's lips as he muttered:
"Faith, then, I'm thinkin' it must be a DARK-LANTERN yer usin', yer riverence."
"Is that the son of Michael O'Connell talkin'?"
Suddenly the smile left O'Connell's lips, the sneer died on his tongue, and with a flash of power that turned to white heat before he finished, he attacked the priest with:
"Yes, it is! It is the son of Michael O'Connell who died on the roadside and was buried by the charity of his neighbours. Michael O'Connell, born in the image of God, who lived eight-and-fifty years of torment and starvation and sickness and misery! Michael O'Connell, who was thrown out from a bed of fever, by order of his landlord, to die in sight of where he was born. It's his son is talkin', Father Cahill, and it's his son WILL talk while there's breath in his body to keep his tongue waggin'. It's a precious legacy of hatred Michael O'Connell left his son, and there's no priest, no government, no policeman or soldier will kape that son from spendin' his legacy."