"But have you refused to marry anyone because they couldn't pay you your dues?" "Listen, the church is falling." "My dear Tom, you should not have refused to marry them," he said, as soon as his soul-stricken curate had laid the matter before him. "Nothing can justify my action in refusing to marry them," said Father Tom, "nothing. Uncle John, I know that you can extenuate, that you are kind, but I do not see it is possible to look at it from any other side." "My dear Tom, you are not sure they remained together; the only knowledge you have of the circumstances you obtained from that old woman, Biddy M'Hale, who cannot tell a story properly. An old gossip, who manufactures stories out of the slightest materials ... but who sells excellent eggs; her eggs are always fresh. I had two this morning." "Uncle John, I did not come here to be laughed at." "I am not laughing at you, my dear Tom; but really you know very little about this matter." "I know well enough that they remained together last night. I examined the old woman carefully, and she had just met Kate Kavanagh on the road. There can be no doubt about it," he said. "But," said Father John, "they intended to be married; the intention was there." "Yes, but the intention is no use. We are not living in a country where the edicts of the Council of Trent have not been promulgated." "That's true," said Father John. "But how can I help you? What am I to do?" "Are you feeling well enough for a walk this morning? Could you come up to Kilmore?" "But it is two miles--I really--" "The walk will do you good. If you do this for me, Uncle John--" "My dear Tom, I am, as you say, not feeling very well this morning, but--" He looked at his nephew, and seeing that he was suffering, he said:-- "I know what these scruples of conscience are; they are worse than physical suffering." But before he decided to go with his nephew to seek the sinners out, he could not help reading him a little lecture. "I don't feel as sure as you do that a sin has been committed, but admitting that a sin has been committed, I think you ought to admit that you set your face against the pleasure of these poor people too resolutely." "Pleasure," said Father Tom. "Drinking and dancing, hugging and kissing each other about the lanes." "You said dancing--now, I can see no harm in it." "There is no harm in dancing, but it leads to harm. If they only went back with their parents after the dance, but they linger in the lanes." "It was raining the other night, and I felt sorry, and I said, 'Well, the boys and girls will have to stop at home to-night, there will be no courting to-night.' If you do not let them walk about the lanes and make their own marriages, they marry for money. These walks at eventide represent all the aspiration that may come into their lives. After they get married, the work of the world grinds all the poetry out of them."