y lets an so
much, for she's afeard; but I know from her way, when she spakes about
her, that it's thruth, your Reverence."

"But didn't the _Lianhan Shee_," said one of them, "put a sharp-pointed
knife to her breast, wid a divilish intintion of makin' her give the
best of atin' an' dhrinkin' the house afforded?"

"She got the victuals, to a sartinty," replied Bartley, "and
'overlooked' my woman for her pains; for she's not the picture of
herself since."

Everyone now told some magnified and terrible circumstance, illustrating
the formidable power of the _Lianhan Shee_.

When they had finished, the sarcastic lip of the priest curled into an
expression of irony and contempt; his brow, which was naturally black
and heavy, darkened; and a keen, but rather a ferocious-looking, eye
shot forth a glance, which, while it intimated disdain for those to whom
it was directed, spoke also of a dark and troubled spirit in himself.
The man seemed to brook with scorn the degrading situation of a
religious quack, to which some uncontrollable destiny had doomed him.

"I shall see your wife to-morrow," said he to Bartley; "and after
hearing the plain account of what happened, I will consider what is best
to be done with this dark, perhaps unhappy, perhaps guilty character;
but whether dark, or unhappy, or guilty, I, for one, should not, and
will not, avoid her. Go, and bring me word to-morrow evening when I can
see her on the following day. Begone!"

When they withdrew, Father Philip paced his room for some time in
silence and anxiety.

"Ay," said he, "infatuated people! sunk in superstition and ignorance,
yet, perhaps, happier in your degradation than those who, in the pride
of knowledge, can only look back upon a life of crime and misery. What
is a sceptic? What is an infidel? Men who, when they will not submit to
moral restraint, harden themselves into scepticism and infidelity,
until, in the headlong career of guilt, that which was first adopted to
lull the outcry of conscience, is supported by the pretended pride of
principle. Principle in a sceptic! Hollow and devilish lie! Would _I_
have plunged into scepticism, had I not first violated the moral
sanctions of religion? Never. I became an infidel, because I first
became a villain! Writhing under a load of guilt, that which I wished
might be true, I soon forced myself to think true: and now"--he here
clenched his hands and groaned--"now--ay, now--and hereafter--oh, _that_
he