I told him we hoped to establish new looms in the country, and that Father O'Hara had promised to help us. "Father O'Hara is a great man," he said. "Well, don't you think that with the revival of industries the people might be induced to stay at home?" "Sorra stay," said he. I could see that he was not so convinced about the depopulation of Father O'Hara's parish as he was about Father Madden's, and I tried to induce him to speak his mind. "Well, your honour, there's many that think there's a curse on the parish." "A curse! And who put the curse on the parish?" "Isn't that the bell ringing for Mass, your honour?" And listening I could head a doleful pealing in the grey sky. "Does Father Madden know of this curse?" "Indeed he does; none better." "And does he believe in it?" "There's many who will tell you that he has been saying Masses for the last ten years, that the curse may be taken off the parish." We could now hear the bell tolling quite distinctly, and the driver pointed with his whip, and I could see the cross above the fir-trees. "And there," he said, "is Bridget Coyne," and I saw a blind woman being led along the road. At the moment I supposed he had pointed the woman out because she was blind, though this did not seem a sufficient reason for the note of wonder in his voice; but we were within a few yards of the chapel and there was no time to ask him who Bridget Coyne was. I had to speak to him about finding stabling for the horse. That, he said, was not necessary, he would let the horse graze in the chapel-yard while he himself knelt by the door, so that he could hear Mass and keep an eye on his horse. "I shall want you half an hour after Mass is over." Half an hour, I thought, would suffice to explain the general scope of our movement to Father Madden. I had found that the best way was to explain to each priest in turn the general scope of the movement, and then to pay a second visit a few weeks later. The priest would have considered the ideas that I had put into his head, he would have had time to assimilate them in the interval, and I could generally tell in the second visit if I should find in him a friend, an enemy, or an indifferent. There was something extraordinary in the appearance of Father Madden's church, a few peasants crouched here and there, and among them I saw the blind woman that the driver had pointed out on the road. She did not move during Mass; she knelt or crouched with her shawl drawn over her head, and it was not until the acolyte rang the communion bell that she dared to lift herself up. That day she was the only communicant, and the acolyte did not turn the altar cloth over the rails, he gave her a little bit of the cloth to hold, and, holding it firmly in her fingers, she lifted up her blind face, and when the priest placed the Host on her tongue she sank back overcome.