"Well, looking at it in its worst aspect," I replied, "insolvency is not dishonorable--" "It is the very acme of dishonor in a priest," he said. Then I saw the inutility of reason in such a case. We dined together that evening; and just as the Angelus bell rang, we heard the hootings and derisive shouts of the villagers after the new hands that had been taken on at the factory. In a few minutes these poor girls came to the door to explain that they could not return to work. It was the last straw. For a moment his anger flamed up in a torrent of rage against these miscreants whom he had saved from poverty. Then it died down in meek submission to what he considered the higher decree. "Never mind, girls," he said; "tell Kate Ginivan to close the room and bring me the key." That was all, except that a certain listener treasured up all this ingratitude in his heart; and the following Sunday at both Masses, the walls of Kilronan chapel echoed to a torrent of vituperation, an avalanche of anger, sarcasm, and reproach, that made the faces of the congregation redden with shame and whiten with fear, and made the ladies of the fringes and the cuffs wish to call unto the hills to cover them and the mountains to hide them. * * * * * Nothing on earth can convince the villagers that the shipwreck was an accident and not premeditated. "They saw us coming, and made for us. Sure we had a right to expect it. They wanted to make us drunk at the fishing-fleet; but the cap'n wouldn't lave 'em." "You don't mean to say they dreaded your poor boat?" "Dreaded? They don't want Irishmen anywhere. Sure, 't was only last year, whin they wanted to start a steamer between Galway and Newfoundland--the shortest run to America--the captain was bribed on his first trip, and tho' there isn't nothing but ninety fathoms of blue say-wather betune Arran and Salthill, he wint out of his way to find a rock, three miles out av his coorse, and--he found it. The Liverpool min settled Galway." "And didn't the cap'n cry: 'Port! d--n you, port!' and they turned her nose right on us." "But they were kind when they picked you up?" "So far as talking gibberish and pouring whiskey into us, they were; but whin they landed us, one dirty frog-eater sang out:-- "It's addiyou, not O revwar!" * * * * * Just a week after these events, that is, the Wednesday after my great sermon, which is now a respectable landmark, or datemark, at Kilronan, I got the first letter from Bittra. Here it is, brief and pitiful:-- Hotel Bristol, Paris, Sunday.