the head of them, said the same; but Joyce, who knew his countrymen,
paid no heed, but stood up in the gig, and, looking round him, said,
'Now, boys, which is it to be? The Mayo cock or the Galway cock?' No
sooner did he speak these words than they began to cheer him, and in
spite of all the priest could say they carried him into the field in
which he shot Browne of the Neale.

'A queer people, the queerest in the world,' Father Oliver thought, as
he pulled a thorn-bush out of the doorway and stood looking round. There
were some rough chimney-pieces high up in the grass-grown walls, but
beyond these really nothing to be seen, and he wandered out seeking
traces of terraces along the hillside.

On meeting a countryman out with his dogs he tried to inquire about the
state of the road.

'I wouldn't be saying, your reverence, that you mightn't get the car
through by keeping close to the wall; but Christy mustn't let the horse
out of a walk.'

The countryman said he would go a piece of the road with them, and tell
Christy the spots he'd have to look out for.

'But your work?'

'There's no work doing now to speak of, your reverence.'

The three of them together just managed to remove a fallen tree, which
seemed the most serious obstacle, and the countryman said once they were
over the top of the hill they would be all right; the road wasn't so bad