"Wisha, how could we, and 't is so far back?"
"Some other time," said Jer, with a little pitying contempt.
"Ye may as well tell it now," said an old woman; "I hard the people shpake av him long ago; but sure we forget everything, even God sometimes."
"Well," said Jer, sitting on a long, level tombstone, "maybe ye don't know how the divil watches priests when they are on a sick-call. He does, thin. Fram the time they laves the house till they returns he is on their thrack, thrying to circumwent them, ontil he gets the poor sowl into his own dirty claws. Sometimes he makes the mare stumble and fall; sometimes he pulls down a big branch of a three, and hits the priest across the face; sometimes he hangs out a lanthern to lade him into a bog. All he wants is to keep him away, and WHAT he has wid him, and thin he gobbles up that poor sowl, as a fox would sling a chicken over his showlder, and takes him off to his din. Well, this night Father Mac was called out late. It was as dark as the caves down there by the say av a winter's night. As he wint along the road, he began praying softly to himself, for he knew the divil was watching him. All of a suddint he was taken out av his saddle and pitched head foremost in a brake of briars. When he recovered himself he looked around him and saw at a distance—"
"I thought it was dark, Jer," said a young mason, who knew that Jer was drawing the long bow.
"Av coorse it was, but couldn't ye see a light shining even on a dark night, my fine young man?" said Jer, in a temper.
"Oh, was it a light?" said the mason.
"Ye ought to think twice before intherrupting yer elders," said Jer. "Well, as I was saying, when he come to himself, he looked around, and he asked, in a loud wice, 'Is there anny wan there who could sarve Mass for a priest?' There was no answer. Thin he said a second time, 'For the love av God, is there anny wan there who could sarve Mass for a priest?'"
"Begor, I always thought that was the shtory about the priest that forgot to say the Masses for the dead, and kem out av of his grave on Christmas night," said an old woman.
"Thrue for ye, so it is," said another. "Many and many's the time we heard it."