re are in you to-day. Faith! I'm of opinion that my thoughts were
greater than yours, for I was all for fighting here in Ireland, for the
Poor Old Woman herself, and it's out to some foreign war you'd be
going to fight for people that's not friends of yours by so much as one
heart's drop. Still, the feeling in you is the same as the feeling that
was in me, not a doubt of it. But, indeed, so far as I'm concerned, it's
over and gone. I haven't spoken to a mortal soul about such things these
thirty years, and I wouldn't be doing it now only just to show you that
I'm the last man in Ireland that would laugh at you for what you've told
me.'

'I'm glad I told you what's in my heart,' said Hyacinth; 'I'd like to
think I had your blessing with me when I go.'

'Well, you won't get it,' said Father Moran, 'so I tell you straight.
I'll give you no blessing when you're going away out of the country,
just when there's need of every man in it. I tell you this--and you'll
remember that I know what I'm talking about--it's not men that 'll fight
who will help Ireland to-day, but men that will work.'

'Work!' said Hyacinth--'work! What work is there for a man like me to do
in Ireland?'

'Don't I offer you the chance of buying Thady Durkan's boat? Isn't there
work enough for any man in her?'

'But that's not the sort of work I ought to be doing. What good would
it be to anyone but myself? What good would it be to Ireland if I caught
boatloads of mackerel?'

'Don't be making light of the mackerel, now. He's a good fish if you get
him fresh, and split him down and fry him with a lump of butter in the
pan. There's worse fish than the mackerel, as you'll discover if you go
to South Africa, and find yourself living on a bit of some ancient tough
beast of an ostrich, or whatever it may happen to be that they eat out
there.'

In his exalted mood Hyacinth felt insulted at the praise of the mackerel
and the laughter in the priest's eyes when he suggested a dinner off
ostrich. He held out his hand, and said good-bye.

'Wait, now--wait,' said the priest; 'don't be in such a tearing hurry.
I'll talk as serious as you like, and not hurt your feelings, if you'll
stay for a minute or two. Listen, now. Isn't the language dying on the
people's lips? They're talking the English, more and more of them every
day; and don't you know as well as I do that when they lose their Irish
they'll lose half the good that's in them? What sort will the next
gen