Sheela.
You're going astray Maurya; were you at mass last Sunday?
Maurya.
Indeed and I was not! I was doing a thing more profitable. It was taking care of my hens I was, to keep them from laying abroad, or I wouldn't have the price of a grain of tea or sneesheen throughout the week. That bolgán-béiceach Father Brian wouldn't give me a penny if it was to keep me from being hanged. He's only a miserable greedy sanntachán. I had a little sturk of a pig last Christmas and he asked me to sell it to give him a shilling on Christmas Day, and as I didn't do that, he called out my name the Sunday after, in the chapel. He's not satisfied with good food, and oats for his horse, and gold and silver in his pocket. As I said often, I don't see any trade as good as a priest's trade; see the fine working clothes they wear, and poor people earning it hard for them.
Sheela.
I wonder greatly at your talk. Your unbelief is great. I wonder that you speak so unmannerly about Father Brian, when if you were dying to-morrow, who would give you absolution but the same father?
Maurya.
Arrah! Sheela, hold your tongue. Father Brian wouldn't turn on his heel, either for you or for me, without pay, even if he knew that it would keep us out of hell.
Sheela.
The cross of Christ on us! I never thought that it was that sort of a woman you were. Did you ever go to confession?