Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/162

 CH. XI.] What has happened in the neighbouring town of is still more typical of the advance of the Catholics. There also stood a large thatched chapel with a clay floor: and the Catholics were just beginning to emerge from their state of servility when the Rev. Father Sheehy was appointed parish priest about the beginning of the last century. He was a tall man of splendid physique: when I was a boy I knew him in his old age, and even then you could not help admiring his imposing figure. At that time the lord of the soil was Captain Oliver, one of that Cromwellian family to whom was granted all the district belonging to their Catholic predecessors, Sir John Ponsonby and Sir, both of whom were impeached and disinherited,

On the Monday morning following the new priest's first Mass he strolled down to have a good view of the chapel and grounds, and was much astonished to find in the chapel yard a cartload of oats in sheaf, in charge of a man whom he recognized as having been at Mass on the day before. He called him over and questioned him, on which the man told him that the captain had sent him with the oats to have it threshed on the chapel floor, as he always did. The priest was amazed and indignant, and instantly ordered the man off the grounds, threatening him with personal chastisement, which—considering the priest's brawny figure and determined look—he perhaps feared more than bell book and candle. The exact words Father Sheehy used were, 'If ever I find you here again with a load of oats or a load of anything else, I'll break your back for you: and then I'll go up and break your master's back too!' The