all. God forbid that I should laugh at you, and I meant it when
I said that there was the makings of a fine man in you. Laugh at you!
It's little you know me. Listen now, till I tell you something; but
don't you be repeating it. This must be between you and me, and go no
further. I was very much of your way of thinking myself once.'

Hyacinth gazed at him in astonishment. The thought of Father Moran,
elderly, rotund, kindly; of Father Moran with sugar-stick in his pocket
for the school-children and a quaint jest on his lips for their mothers;
of Father Moran in his ruffled silk hat and shabby black coat and baggy
trousers--of this Father Moran mounted and armed, facing the British
infantry in South Africa, was wholly grotesque. He laughed aloud.

'It's yourself that has the bad manners to be laughing now,' said
the priest. 'But small blame to you if it was out to the Boers I was
thinking of going. The gray goose out there on the road might laugh--and
she's the solemnest mortal I know--at the notion of me charging along
with maybe a pike in my hand, and the few gray hairs that's left on the
sides of my head blowing about in the breeze I'd make as I went prancing
to and fro. But that's not what I meant when I said that once upon a
time I was something of your way of thinking. And sure enough I was, but
it's a long time ago now.'

He sighed, and for a minute or two he said no more. Hyacinth began
to wonder what he meant, and whether the promised confidence would be
forthcoming at all. Then the priest went on:

'When I was a young man--and it's hard for you to think it, but I was a
fine young man; never a better lad at the hurling than I was, me that's
a doddering old soggarth now--when I was a boy, as I'm telling you,
there was a deal of going to and fro in the country and meetings at
night, and drillings too, and plenty of talk of a rising--no less.
Little good came of it that ever I saw, but I'm not blaming the men that
was in it. They were good men, Hyacinth Conneally--men that would have
given the souls out of their bodies for the sake of Ireland. They would,
sure, for they loved Ireland well. But I had my own share in the doings.
Of course, it was before ever there was a word of my being a priest.
That came after. Thanks be to God for His mercies'--the old man crossed
himself reverently--'He kept me from harm and the sin that might have
been laid on me. But in those days there were great thoughts in me, just
as the