The priest suddenly spied the beansho staring at him, and he noticed that there was a look of unfeigned contempt in her eyes. He observed the bundle in her shawl, and suddenly recollected that it was the woman’s child--the talk of the parish barely six months before. The priest looked at the woman fixedly for a moment, then knowing that all the party was watching him intently, he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross on his forehead. This was as much as to say, “God save me from this woman, for there is nothing good in her.” Old Maire a Crick crossed herself in imitation of the soggarth and cast a look of withering contempt at the beansho. Norah Ryan also raised her hand, but suddenly it was borne to her that the action of Maire a Crick was very unseemly, and she refrained from making the sign of the cross. Of course the priest was right in what he had done, she knew; the people were forbidden to see anything wrong in the ways of the soggarth.
Suddenly the old man turned away. He walked off a short distance, his head sunk on his breast and his hands clasped behind his back, the rosary dangling from his fingers. Perhaps he was deep in thought, or maybe he was saying a prayer for the beansho; the poor woman, buried beneath her weight of sin and sorrow, had no doubt filled him with compassion. What would he, the father of the flock, not do to make lighter the woman’s burden? All at once he paused, turned round and faced the women who were staring after him.
“Norah Ryan!” he called, and his voice was pregnant with priestly gravity. “If yer father doesn’t send me the pound before the end of the next month he’ll have no luck in this world and no happiness in the next. Tell him that I, meself, the parish priest, said these very words.”
Having thus spoken, the good man went on his way, telling his beads; perhaps counting by their aid the number of sovereigns required for the construction of his mansion.
“That will make some people sit up if they don’t sink into their brogues,” said Maire a Crick, glancing in turn at Norah Ryan and the beansho. “Mother of Jesus, to have the priest talking to one like that! Who ever heard the likes of it?”
“Do you know how much the priest is goin’ to spend on a lav-ha-thury for his new house?” asked the beansho drily.