ely; if
not, I'll just be off with myself.'

'Moran, you'll be better when you've had something to eat. It will pass
from you. I will give you a glass of beer.'

'A glass of beer! Ah, if I could tell you the truth! We've all our
troubles, Gogarty--trouble that none knows but God. I haven't been
watching you--I've been too tormented about myself to think much of
anyone else--but now and then I've caught sight of a thought passing
across your mind. We all suffer, you like another, and when the ache
becomes too great to be borne we drink. Whisky is the remedy; there's
none better. We drink and forget, and that is the great thing. There are
times, Gogarty, when one doesn't want to think, when one's afraid,
aren't there?--when one wants to forget that one's alive. You've had
that feeling, Gogarty. We all have it. And now I must be off. I must
forget everything. I want to drink and to feel the miles passing under
my feet.'

And on that he got up from the fire.

'Come, Moran, I won't hear you speak like that.'

'Let me go. It's no use; I'm done for;' and Father Oliver saw his eyes
light up.

'I'll not keep you against your will, but I'll go a piece of the road
with you.'

'I'd sooner you didn't come, Gogarty.'

Without answering, Father Oliver caught up his hat and followed Father
Moran out of the house. They walked without speaking, and when they got
to the gate Father Oliver began to wonder which way his unhappy curate
would choose for escape. 'Now why does he take the southern road?' And a
moment after he guessed that Moran was making for Michael Garvey's
public-house, 'and after drinking there,' he said to himself, 'he'll go
on to Tinnick.' After a couple of miles, however, Moran turned into a
by-road leading through the mountains, and they walked on without saying
a word.

And they walked mile after mile through the worn mountain road.

'You've come far enough, Gogarty; go back. Regan's public-house is
outside of your parish.'

'If it's outside my parish, it's only the other side of the boundary;
and you said, Moran, that you wouldn't touch whisky till to-morrow
morning.'

The priests walked on again, and Father Oliver fell to thinking now what
might be the end of this adventure. He could see there was no hope of
persuading Father Moran from the bottle of whisky.

'What time do you be making it, Gogarty?'

'It isn't ten o'clock yet.'

'Then I'll walk up and down till the stroke of twelve ... I'll keep