The man glanced toward the house, as if he were afraid of being watched. He slid his hand into his case and fumbled out a small pamphlet. “I have something here I’d like to ask you to...” But he held the pamphlet limply, as if he did not really expect Father Conroy to take it from him.

Father Conroy looked up and down the road to make sure there was no one coming. He didn’t want any unauthorized versions of the scene circulating in the parish. “Well, come on, man, show us it,” he said, and almost reluctantly the man handed it over.

It was them, all right – on the cover, the dark tower outlined against a sunburst. Father Conroy thumbed through it, his impatience growing as he read, “...today, after nineteen centuries of selecting, there is yet a small remnant of the 144,000 on earth... The call for the heavenly inheritance is now closing, but the Bible makes plain that Jehovah is now separating to his side of favor a great crowd of sheeplike ones...” Oh, Lord, he thought, suddenly weary of the encounter, I’m not in form for this sort of thing.

The man was watching him. “As you see” – he gave an apologetic little gesture – “it’s the good news I bring you.”

Father Conroy looked at him as he stood there, smiling his broken smile. There wasn’t a single door in the parish that would not be shut in his face. He would be lucky if nothing worse happened to him. In some parish up the country, they had assaulted a Witness, broken a couple of ribs, bashed in his teeth, then had him charged in the district court with causing a breach of the peace.

“Look, do you want a bite to eat, or don’t you?” he asked, impatient to get the man off the road, out of view.

“I haven’t time. I must get the bus to Donore and then go back to Castlemore later tonight.”

“Well, I haven’t time either,” Father Conroy said, and handed back the pamphlet.

The man made no attempt to take it back. He looked along the road on which the bus would come. “You’ve never thought, then,” he hesitated, “about the future.”

“What future?”

“Your future, your children’s...”

“I’ve no children. Here, take this, will you? I don’t want it.” But the man still did not seem to have heard him. “The time may be very short, for the last days are at hand.” A Bible had appeared suddenly, as if out of the air, and he was shifting the dog-eared pages, hurrying through the small print. “And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars...”

“I know. Luke. Men withering away for fear.”