I suppose there was a note of interrogation hidden away somewhere under my greeting, for I was told in different tones and degrees of enthusiasm:—
"Yerra, your reverence, he's a nate man."
"Yerra, we never saw his likes before."
"He spakes almost as plain and common as yourself."
"They say, your reverence, that he's the son of a jook."
Some old cronies, who retained a lingering gratitude for Father Laverty's snuff, diluted their enthusiasm a little.
"He is, indeed, a rale nice man. But God be with poor Father Tom wherever he is. Sure 't was he was kind to the poor."
There was a deputation of young men waiting at my house. I have been pestered from deputations and speeches since the Land League. A shaggy giant stepped forward and said:—
"We have preshumed, your reverence, to call upon you to ascertain whether you'd be agreeable to our what I may call unanimous intinsion of asking the new cojutor to be prisident of the Gaelic association of Kilronan, called the 'Holy Terrors.'"
I said I was agreeable to anything they wished: and Father Letheby became president of the "Holy Terrors."