Kilronan Abbey seemed to bid him remember the things that he could never
forget; and, touched by the beauty of the legended ruins, his doubts
return ed to him regarding the right of the present to lay hands on
these great wrecks of Ireland's past. He was no longer sure that he did
not side with the Archbishop, who was against the restoration--for
entirely insufficient reasons, it was true. 'Put a roof,' Father Oliver
said, 'on the abbey, and it will look like any other church, and
another link will be broken. "Which is the better--a great memory or
some trifling comfort?"' A few moments after the car turned the corner
and he caught sight of Father Moran, 'out for his morning's walk,' he
said; and he compared Moran's walk up and down the highroad with his own
rambles along the lake shores and through the pleasant woods of
Carnecun.

For seven years Father Oliver had walked up and down that road, for
there was nowhere else for him to walk; he walked that road till he
hated it, but he did not think that he had suffered from the loneliness
of the parish as much as Moran. He had been happier than Moran in
Bridget Clery's cottage--a great idea enabled him to forget every
discomfort; and 'we are never lonely as long as our idea is with us,' he
ejaculated. 'But Moran is a plain man, without ideas, enthusiasms, or
exaltations. He does riot care for reading, or for a flower garden, only
for drink. Drink gives him dreams, and man must dream,' he said.

He knew that his curate was pledged to cure himself, and believed he was
succeeding; but, all the same, it was terrible to think that the
temptation might overpower him at any moment, and that he might st agger
helpless through the village--a very shocking example to everybody.

The people were prone enough in that direction, and for a priest to give