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 120 until they should find some opportunity of doing something better. They made it up then between themselves that the priest should let on that it was his brother's daughter he had, who was come on a visit to him from another county, and that he should tell everybody that she was dumb, and do his best to keep everyone away from her. They told the young girl what it was they intended to do, and she showed by her eyes that she was obliged to them.

Guleesh went home then, and when his people asked him where he was, he said that he was asleep at the foot of the ditch, and passed the night there.

There was great wonderment on the neighbours when the honest priest showed them the Pope's bull, and got his old place again, and everyone was rejoiced, for, indeed, there was no fault at all in that honest man, except that now and again he would have too much liking for a drop of the bottle; but no one could say that he ever saw him in a way that he could not utter "here's to your health," as well as ever a man in the kingdom. But if they wondered to see the priest back again in his old place, much more did they wonder at the girl who came so suddenly to his house without anyone knowing where she was from, or what business she had there. Some of the people said that everything was not as it ought to be, and others that it was not possible that the Pope gave back his place to the priest after taking it from him before, on account of the complaints about his drinking. And there were more of them, too, who said that Guleesh na Guss Dhu was not like the same man that was in it before, and that it was a great story (i.e., a thing to wonder at) how he was drawing every day to the priest's house, and that the priest had a wish and a respect for him, a thing they could not clear up at all.