KEEGAN. Yes you can. Now out with it; or I'll put this stick into
your hand an make you hit me with it.

PATSY [throwing himself on his knees in an ecstasy of adoration].
Sure it's your blessin I want, Fadher Keegan. I'll have no luck
widhout it.

KEEGAN [shocked]. Get up out o that, man. Don't kneel to me: I'm
not a saint.

PATSY [with intense conviction]. Oh in throth yar, sir. [The
grasshopper chirps. Patsy, terrified, clutches at Keegan's hands]
Don't set it on me, Fadher: I'll do anythin you bid me.

KEEGAN [pulling him up]. You bosthoon, you! Don't you see that it
only whistled to tell me Miss Reilly's comin? There! Look at her
and pull yourself together for shame. Off widja to the road:
you'll be late for the car if you don't make haste [bustling him
down the hill]. I can see the dust of it in the gap already.

PATSY. The Lord save us! [He goes down the hill towards the road
like a haunted man].

Nora Reilly comes down the hill. A slight weak woman in a pretty
muslin print gown [her best], she is a figure commonplace enough
to Irish eyes; but on the inhabitants of fatter-fed, crowded,
hustling and bustling modern countries she makes a very
different impression. The absence of any symptoms of coarseness
or hardness or appetite in her, her comparative delicacy of