your lan
to Patsy, yowl fool ye?

FATHER DEMPSEY. Aisy, Barney, aisy. [Sternly, to Mat] I told you,
Matthew Haffigan, that Corny Doyle was sayin nothin against you.
I'm sorry your priest's word is not good enough for you. I'll go,
sooner than stay to make you commit a sin against the Church.
Good morning, gentlemen. [He rises. They all rise, except
Broadbent].

DORAN [to Mat]. There! Sarve you dam well right, you cantankerous
oul noodle.

MATTHEW [appalled]. Don't say dhat, Fadher Dempsey. I never had a
thought agen you or the Holy Church. I know I'm a bit hasty when
I think about the lan. I ax your pardn for it.

FATHER DEMPSEY [resuming his seat with dignified reserve]. Very
well: I'll overlook it this time. [He sits down. The others sit
down, except Matthew. Father Dempsey, about to ask Corny to
proceed, remembers Matthew and turns to him, giving him just a
crumb of graciousness]. Sit down, Mat. [Matthew, crushed, sits
down in disgrace, and is silent, his eyes shifting piteously from
one speaker to another in an intensely mistrustful effort to
understand them]. Go on, Mr Doyle. We can make allowances. Go on.

CORNELIUS. Well, you see how it is, Larry. Round about here,
we've got the land at last; and we want no more Goverment
meddlin. We want a new class o man in parliament: one dhat knows
dhat the farmer's the real backbone o the country, n doesn't care
a snap of his fingers for the shoutn o the riff-raff in the
towns, or for the foolishness of the laborers.

DORAN. Aye; an dhat can afford to live in London and pay his own
way until Home Rule comes, instead o wantin subscriptions and the
like.

FATHER DEMPSEY. Yes: that's a good point, Barney. When too much
money goes to politics, it's the Church that has to starve for
it. A member of parliament ought to be a help to the Church
instead of a burden on it.

LARRY. Here's a chance for you, Tom. What do you say?

BROADBENT [deprecatory, but important and smiling]. Oh, I have no
claim whatever to the seat. Besides, I'm a Saxon.

DORAN. A hwat?

BROADBENT. A Saxon. An Englishman.

DORAN. An Englishman. Bedad I never heard it called dhat before.

MATTHEW [cunningly]. If I might make so bould, Fadher, I wouldn't
say but an English Prodestn mightn't have a more indepindent mind
about the lan, an be less afeerd to spake out about it, dhan an
Irish Catholic.

CORNELIUS. But sure Larry's as good as English: aren't you,
Larry?

LARRY. You may put me out