The flowered cottage on the road to Tinnick stood in the midst of trees,
on a knoll some few feet above the roadway, and Father Oliver, when he
was a boy, often walked out by himself from Tinnick to see the
hollyhocks and the sunflowers; they overtopped the palings, the
sunflowers looking like saucy country girls and the hollyhocks like
grand ladies, delicate and refined, in pink muslin dresses. He used to
stand by the gate looking into the garden, delighted by its luxuriance,
for there were clumps of sweet pea and beds of red carnations and roses
everywhere, and he always remembered the violets and pansies he saw
before he went away to Maynooth. He never remembered seeing the garden
in bloom again. He was seven years at Maynooth, and when he came home
for his vacations it was too late or too early in the season. He was
interested in other things; and during his curacy at Kilronan he rarely
went to Tinnick, and when he did, he took the other road, so that he
might see Father Peter.

He was practically certain that the last time he saw the garden in bloom
was just before he went to Maynooth. However this might be, it was
certain he would never see it in bloom again. Mary had left the cottage
a ruin, and it was sad to think of the clean thick thatch and the
whitewashed walls covered with creeper and China roses, for now the
thatch was black and mouldy; and of all the flowers only a few stocks
survived; the rose-trees were gone--the rabbits had eaten them. Weeds
overtopped the currant and gooseberry bushes; here and there was a trace
of box edging. 'But soon,' he said, 'all traces will be gone, the roof
will fall in, and the garden will become part of the waste.' His eyes
roved over the country into which he was going--almost a waste; a meagre
black soil, with here and there a thorn-bush and a peasant's cabin.
Father Oliver knew every potato field and every wood, and he waited for