"Fellow!" exclaimed the father, "mercy upon us that I should be so spoken
to at the gate of my own house! Scoundrel!" cried Cuddy, raising his
voice, "do you not see my garb--my holy garb?--"

"Aye, fellow," replied he of the keys, "the garb of laziness and filthy
debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you not,
idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and that the
abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to Master Robert
Collan, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of England, and paragon of
all beauty, whom God preserve!"

"Queen of England," said Cuddy; "there never was a sovereign queen of
England; this is but a piece with the rest. I saw how it was going with
the stars last night--the world's turned upside down. But surely this is
Innisfallen island, and I am the Father Cuddy who yesterday morning went
over to the abbey of Irelagh respecting the tun of wine. Do you know me
now?"

"Know you! how should I know you?" said the keeper of the abbey; "yet true
it is, that I have heard my grandmother, whose mother remembered the man,
often speak of the fat Father Cuddy of Innisfallen, who made a profane and
godless ballad in praise of fried eggs, of which he and his vile crew knew
more than they did of the word of God, and who, being drunk, it was said,
tumbled into the lake one night and was drowned; but that must have been a
hundred, aye, more than a hundred years since."

"'Twas I who composed that song, in praise of Margery's fried eggs, which
is no profane and godless ballad. No other Father Cuddy than myself ever
belonged to Innisfallen," earnestly exclaimed the holy man. "A hundred
years! What was your great grandmother's name?"