an, it
wasn't my fault, but that villain Flanagan's, for he knows I fairly
won the bottle--and would have distanced him, only that when I was far
before him, the vagabone, he galloped across me on the way, thinking to
thrip up the horse.'

"'You lying scoundrel,' says the priest, 'how dare you tell me a
falsity,' says he, 'to my face? how could he gallop acrass you if you
were far before him? Not a word more, or I'll leave you without a mouth
to your face, which will be a double share of provision and bacon saved
any way. And, Flanagan, you were as much to blame as he, and must be
chastised for your raggamuffianly conduct,' says he, 'and so must you
both, and all your party, particularly you and be, as the ringleaders.
Right well I know it's the grudge upon the lawsuit you had and not the
bottle, that occasioned it: but by St. Peter, to Loughderg both of you
must tramp for this.'

"'Ay, and by St. Pether, they both desarve it as well as a thief does
the gallows,' said a little blustering voice belonging to the tailor,
who came forward in a terrible passion, looking for all the world like
a drowned rat. 'Ho, by St. Pether, they do, the vagabones; for it was
myself that won the bottle, your Reverence; and by this and by that,'
says he, 'the bottle I'll have, or some of their crowns, will crack for
it: blood or whiskey I'll have, your Reverence, and I hope that you'll
assist me.

"'Why, Billy, are you here?' says Father Corrigan, smiling down upon
the figure the little fellow cut, with his long spurs and his big whip;
'what in the world tempted you to get on horseback, Billy?'

"'By the powers, I was miles before them,' says Billy; 'and after this
day, your Reverence, let no man say that I couldn't ride a steeplechase
across Crocknagooran.'

"'Why, Billy, how did you stick on at all, at all?' says his Reverence.

"'How do I know how I stuck on?' says Billy, 'nor whether I stuck on
at all or not; all I know is, that I was on horseback leaving the
Dumb-hill, and that I found them pulling me by the heels out of the well
in the corner of the garden--and that, your Reverence, when the first
was only topping the hill there below, as Lanty Magowran tells me who
was looking on.'

"'Well, Billy,' says Father Corrigan, 'you must get the bottle; and as
for you Dorans and Flanagans, I'll make examples of you for this day's
work--that you may reckon on. You are a disgrace to the parish, and,
what's more, a disgrace to your pri