"Sometimes he has, though. Father Doogan might have had the pick of the county, they say; but he chose this little quiet spot here. He's a friar of some ordher abroad, and when he came over, two or three years ago, he could only spake a little Irish, and, I believe, less English; but there wasn't his equal, for other tongues, in all Europe. They wanted him to stop and be the head of a college somewhere in Spain, but he wouldn't. 'There was work to do in Ireland,' he said, and there he'd go, and to the wildest and laste civilized bit of it besides; and ye see that he was not far out in his choice when he took Murrah." "Is he much liked here by the people?" "They'd worship him, if he'd let them, that's what it is; for if he has more larnin' and knowledge in his head than ever a bishop in Ireland, there's not a child in the barony his equal for simplicity. He that knows the names of the stars, and what they do be doing, and where the world's going, and what's comin' afther her, hasn't a thought for the wickedness of this life, no more than a sucking infant! He could tell you every crop to put in your ground from this to the day of judgment, and I don't think he'd know which end of the spade goes into the ground." While we were thus talking, we reached the door, which, as well as the windows, was closely barred and fastened. The great padlock, however, on the former, with characteristic acuteness, was locked without being hasped, so that, in a few seconds, my old guide had undone all the fastenings, and we found ourselves under shelter. A roomy kitchen, with a few cooking utensils, formed the entrance hall; and as a small supply of turf stood in one corner, my companion at once proceeded to make a fire, congratulating me as he went on with the fact of our being housed, for a long-threatening thunder storm had already burst, and the rain was swooping along in torrents.