finger he'd let widin a yard ov the same
decoction.
But, my dear, here's the _Freeman's Journal_, and we'll see what's the
news afore we finish the residuary proceedings of their two Holinesses.
CHAPTER V.
THE REASON WHY FATHER TOM WAS NOT MADE A CARDINAL.
_Hurroo_, my darlings!--didn't I tell you it 'ud never do? Success to
bould John Tuam and the ould siminary ov Firdramore! Oh, more power to
your Grace every day you rise, 'tis you that has broken their Boord into
shivers undher your feet! Sure, and isn't it a proud day for Ireland,
this blessed feast ov the chair ov Saint Pether? Isn't Carlisle and
Whateley smashed to pieces, and their whole college of swaddling
teachers knocked into smidhereens. John Tuam, your sowl, has tuck his
pasthoral staff in his hand and beathen them out o' Connaught as fast as
ever Pathrick druve the sarpints into Clew Bay. Poor ould Mat Kavanagh,
if he was alive this day, 'tis he would be the happy man. "My curse upon
their g'ographies and Bibles," he used to say; "where's the use ov
perplexing the poor childher wid what we don't undherstand ourselves?"
no use at all, in troth, and so I said from the first myself. Well,
thank God and his Grace, we'll have no more thrigonomethry nor scripther
in Connaught. We'll hould our lodges every Saturday night, as we used to
do, wid our chairman behind the masther's desk, and we'll hear our mass
every Sunday morning wid the blessed priest standing afore the same. I
wisht to goodness I hadn't parted wid my Seven Champions ov Christendom
and Freney the Robber; they're books that'll be in great requist in
Leithrim as soon as the pasthoral gets wind. Glory be to God! I've done
wid their lecthirs--they may all go and be d----d wid their consumption
and production. I'm off to Tallymactaggart before daylight in the
morning, where I'll thry whether a sod or two o' turf can't consume a
cartload ov heresy, and whether a weekly meeting ov the lodge can't
produce a new thayory ov rints. But afore I take my lave ov you, I may
as well finish my story about poor Father Tom that I hear is coming up
to whale the heretics in Adam and Eve during the Lint.
The Pope--and indeed it ill becomes a good Catholic to say anything agin
him--no more would I, only that his Riv'rence was in it--but you see the
fact ov it is, that the Pope was as envious as ever he could be, at
seeing himself sacked right and left by Father Tom, and bate out o' the
face, the way he was, o
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