"Why did ye not take in the docthor?" asked Martha.
"We had no money in the house," said my mother.
"An' did ye not sell half a dozen sheep at the fair the day afore yesterday?" asked Bride. "I'm sure that ye got a good penny for them same sheep."
"We did that," said my mother; "but the money is for the landlord's rent and the priest's tax."
At that time the new parish priest, the little man with the pot-belly and the shiny false teeth, was building a grand new house. Farley McKeown had given five hundred pounds towards the cost of building, which up to now amounted to one thousand five hundred pounds. So the people said, but they were not quite sure. The cost of building was not their business, that was the priest's; all the people had to do was to pay their tax, which amounted to five pounds on every family in the parish. They were allowed five years in which to pay it. On two occasions my father was a month late in paying the money and the priest put a curse on him each time. So my father said. I have only a very faint recollection of these things which took place when I was quite a little boy.
"God be good to us! but five pounds is a heavy tax for even a priest to put on poor people," said Bride.
"It's not for us to say anything against a priest, no matter what he does," said my father, crossing himself.
"I don't care what ye say, Michael Flynn," said the old woman; "five pounds is a big tax to pay. The priest is spending three hundred gold sovereigns in making a lava-thury (lavatory). Three hundred sovereigns! that's a waste of money."
"Lava-thury?" said my mother. "And what would that be at all?"
"It's myself that does not know," answered Bride. "But old Oiney Dinchy thinks that it is a place for keeping holy water."