how much he had forgotten, how imperfect was his memory. It were better
to lose himself in the emotion of the memory of the music; it was in his
blood, and he could see her hands playing it, and the music was coloured
with the memory of her hair and her eyes. His teeth clenched a little as
if in pain, and then he feared the enchantment would soon pass away; but
the music preserved it longer than he had expected, and it might have
lasted still longer if he had not become aware that someone was standing
in the doorway.

The feeling suddenly came over him that he was not alone; it was borne
in upon him--he knew not how, neither by sight nor sound--through some
exceptional sense. And turning towards the sunlit doorway, he saw a poor
man standing there, not daring to disturb the priest, thinking, no
doubt, that he was engaged in prayer. The poor man was Pat Kearney. So
the priest was a little overcome, for that Pat Kearney should come to
him at such a time was portentous. 'It is strange, certainly,
coincidence after coincidence,' he said; and he stood looking at Pat as
if he didn't know him, till the poor man was frightened and began to
wonder, for no one had ever looked at him with such interest, not even
the neighbour whom he had asked to marry him three weeks ago. And this
Pat Kearney, who was a short, thick-set man, sinking into years, began
to wonder what new misfortune had tracked him down. His teeth were worn
and yellow as Indian meal, and his rough, ill-shaven cheeks and pale
eyes reminded the priest of the country in which Pat lived, and of the
four acres of land at the end of the boreen that Pat was digging these
many years.

He had come to ask Father Oliver if he would marry him for a pound, but,
as Father Oliver didn't answer him, he fell to thinking that it was his
clothes that the priest was admiring, 'for hadn't his reverence given
him the clothes himself? And if it weren't for the self-same clothes, he
wouldn't have the pound in his pocket to give the priest to marry him,'

'It was yourself, your reverence--'

'Yes, I remember very well.'

Pat had come to tell him that there was work to be had in Tinnick, but
that he didn't dare to show himself in Tinnick for lack of clothes, and
he stood humbly before the priest in a pair of corduroy trousers that
hardly covered his nakedness.

And it was as Father Oliver stood examining and pitying his
parishioner's poverty it had occurred to him that, if he were to