The car door slammed. Hardly Farrell, and certainly not a parishioner, no, none of them would dare to summon him out so impudently. Who could it be? Gabriel’s nailed boot was scraping at the floor, hinting willingness to rise and find out. Could it be Drewitt? He set his teeth and went on, “Adveniat regnum tuum, Fiat voluntas tua... Stay there, Gabriel!... in coelo et in terra...”

And slowly, with more ceremony than usual, he continued to the end of the Mass. He was listening, of course, for a knock at the door, but none came, no sound at all.

He descended at last, tantalized almost beyond endurance by the thought of Drewitt searching the parish lands for the pony, but yet having forced himself to fold away his vestments and say all his prayers. He opened the hall door with his most forbidding air and stalked out onto the top step. And then he laughed with relief to see Father O’Hara’s car.

Father O’Hara himself was not to be seen. The drive was empty. The land on either side, the whole countryside, looked spacious in the morning light, a clear, hard light reflected from white trees and hedgerows and frosty fields. The sun was rising, like a flat, cold orange above the hills. He began to walk eagerly down the drive.

Father O’Hara was leaning on a gate, looking out over the fields. His hair stood up in a white ruff on his big head. The fur collar of his golf jacket was turned up about his ears, so that he seemed like a burly old lion miraculously erect and smoking a pipe. Without looking at Father Conroy, he took a hand out of the pocket of his jacket and waved hello. He was contemplating his setter as it coursed over a distant field like a drop of red – no, not blood – some more quirky yet resolute liquid, like mercury.

“Hurry up, Tom,” he called. “The whole morning will be gone on us.”

“Where are we going, then?”

“We’re taking the day off.” He led the way back to the car and opened a door for Father Conroy. “Get in. Mind the lunch there in the basket. Elsie, as you see, has done us proud.” “Ancilla mea,” said Father Conroy suddenly, joyously mimicking Canon Fitzpatrick.

“Ancilla mea is right. Let anyone try taking her off of me.”

“Sí réalt eolais na maidne í,” hummed Father Conroy. “Agus drúcht an tráthnóna.”

“What’s that?” asked Father O’Hara, who was short on Irish.

“She’s the morning star/And the dew of the evening.”

“I’d nearly say you were right,” said Father O’Hara. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. At the shrill blast across the fields, the deep drop of red rolled to a stop and seemed to freeze into the picture which held cattle and snowy trees and long stretches of amber sunlight.