For the sense that I was a man awakening out of a dream, a long dream of seven lonesome years, grew stronger as he told of what traffic the world had lately seen, and he himself been witness to. And my old creeping terror of the judgment upon me that forbade that any man should speak with me, or that I should speak with any man, struggled hard with the necessity now before me to make a swift choice whether I should turn away and leave this man, who had sought the shelter of my house, or break through the curse that bound me. Choice of any kind I did not make with a conscious mind, but before I was yet aware I was talking with the priest, and he with me. The Priest: He said, I am the Catholic priest that your good Bishop sent for out of Ireland, as you have heard I doubt not? Myself: I answered No, that I had not heard. The Priest: He asked me, did I live alone in this house, and how long I had been here? Myself: I said, Yes, and that I had been seven years in this place come Christmas. The Priest: He asked, What, and do you never go up to the towns? Myself: I answered, No. The Priest: Then, said the priest, thinking long before he spoke, you have not heard of the great sickness that has broken out among your people. Myself: I told him I had heard nothing. The Priest: He said it was the sweating sickness, and that vast numbers had fallen to it and many had died. I think he said--I can not be sure--that after fruitless efforts of his own to combat the disease, the Bishop of the island had sent to Ireland a message for him, having heard that the Almighty had blessed his efforts in a like terrible scourge that broke out two years before over the bogs of Western Ireland. I listened with fear, and began to comprehend much that had of late been a puzzle to me. But before the priest had gone far his sickness overcame him afresh, and he fell in another long unconsciousness. While he lay thus, very silent or rambling afresh through the ways of the past, I know not what feelings possessed me, for my heart was in a great turmoil. But when he opened his eyes again, very peaceful in their quiet light, but with less than before of the power of life in them, he said he perceived that his errand had been fruitless, and that he had but come to my house to die. At that word I started to my feet with a cry, but he--thinking that my thoughts were of our poor people, who would lose a deliverer by his death--told me to have patience, for that God who had smitten him down would surely raise up in his stead a far mightier savior of my afflicted countrymen.