Where is the money to come from? All the money in Kilmore goes
into drink," he added bitterly, "into blue trousers. No, I won't
marry you for two pounds. I won't marry you for less than five. I
will marry you for nothing or I will marry you for five pounds,"
he added, and Ned looked round the wedding guests; he knew that
none had five shillings in his pocket, and he did not dare to take
the priest at his word and let him marry him for nothing.

Father Maguire felt that his temper had got the better of him, but
it was too late to go back on what he said. Marry them for two
pounds with the architect's letter in the pocket of his cassock!
And if he were to accept two pounds, who would pay five to be
married? If he did not stand out for his dues the marriage fee
would be reduced from five pounds to one pound ... And if he
accepted Ned's two pounds his authority would be weakened; he
would not be able to get them to subscribe to have the church made
safe. On the whole he thought he had done right, and his servant
was of the same opinion.

"They'd have the cassock off your back, your reverence, if they
could get it."

"And the architect writing to me that the walls can't be made safe
under two hundred pounds, and the whole lot of them not earning
less than thirty shillings a week, and they can't pay the priest
five pounds for marrying them."

In the course of the day he went to Dublin to see the architect;
and next morning it occurred to him that he might have to go to
America to get the money to build a new church, and as he sat