"Faith!" replied the latter, "I don't think there's any mystery about the thing at all."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, when one of our men goes over to you, it's always due to one of two causes."
"What are they?"
"Punch or Judy," replied Father Healy laconically.
Although Glencullen Chapel was the nearest to Springfield, the house was in the parish of Enniskerry. Here a certain Father O'Dwyer was the incumbent. Father O'Dwyer was a very irascible man of powerful physique; he was as much feared by the godly as by the ungodly.
He kept a big whip in the vestry, with which to chastise evil-doers; of this I had ocular demonstration.
One Sunday, when High Mass was being celebrated by another priest, a stranger, I was sitting in the carriage, which stood waiting for the conclusion of the ceremony, in the road outside. I had attended early Mass, and arranged to drive home with my people. A number of boys were playing marbles outside the church-yard wall, in a blind alley. The vestry door opened and Father O'Dwyer came out, clad in his soutane and carrying the well-known whip. He crouched and crept along the wall, out through the gate and to the entrance of the alley. The boys were so intent upon their game that they never noticed his approach until he was close upon them. Then they sprang up with wild yells, but the lash descended on them like a well-aimed flail; they rolled over and over in a writhing heap. After the heap had broken up and its shrieking units scattered, the irate priest calmly pocketed the marbles and, whip in hand, stalked back to the vestry.
Confession to Father O'Dwyer was an ordeal much dreaded by the younger members of our family. As we were his parishioners, he expected us to attend to our religious duties at his church, but we endeavored by every possible subterfuge to perform such at Glencullen, where the priest was more sympathetic.
My father used to tell a story of the confessional which always amused us. When a boy, he occasionally visited relations in Dublin who were exact in the matter of regular confession. It was, in fact, the rule of the household that not alone every member, but the stranger within its gates, should confess each Saturday night. As it is on Saturday night that most people confess, a number of penitents were usually sitting in church awaiting their respective turns. On one occasion my father was sitting near a cubicle into which a rather disreputable woman had just entered. He heard the muttering of the voices of the priest and the penitent alternately; once or twice the former emitted a long, low whistle, indicative of extreme surprise.