“Of course he wouldn’t,” Father Conroy said impatiently, “but the question is...” He stopped at that secretive gesture from Ned. The other men were drawing near, one by one. “Mornin’, Father,” they said, as they squatted down and reached for their billy cans. From their lunch bags they produced small bottles of milk with which they colored the tea. Then they held up the cans between their cold hands, pursing their lips over the steam. The pale sun shone on the smoke of the boiling tar, so that they seemed enclosed in a transparent blue tent.

Father Conroy knew them all and sat back to amuse them. “A fine morning in early spring, sitting by the roadside, drinking tea in the council’s time. No wonder the country’s broke.”

“Whose time are you drinking in, Father?” asked a young fellow. He winked at the others, as if asking them to back him up, now that he had taken on the challenge.

“God’s own time, but He knows what I’m at. Which is more than your ganger knows about ye.”

“Ah, sure, we’ve a long, hard day ahead of us,” laughed the young man.

“Ye have,” said Father Conroy, and he took a long, caustic blow at his tea.

“We can’t start, anyway, till the ganger gets back. He’s gone up the road to get orders from the engineer.”

“I’d need no orders, then. Sure, I’d have that stretch of road tarred and graveled before I’d sit down to my breakfast.”

“You would not, Father,” they declared, nudging each other.

“Wouldn’t I, then?” He leaped to his feet, as they half-hoped he would, and picked up a shovel. He spat on his hands and held it out before him, like a hurler waiting for the ball. “Spill out the tar there, some of ye, and I’ll show ye how to work.”

“Sit down, Father,” said Ned, who had been sipping away, unsmiling, “Here’s the ganger back now.”

Father Conroy put down the shovel, as the ganger’s dusty old Anglia drew up. “Only me leg’s a bit stiff, I’d show ye all up. Where’s me tea?”

The ganger got out carefully, looking askance at Father Conroy, sitting with a billy can under the hedge. Father Conroy ignored him. So too did Ned, who fumbled out a pipe as the others rose hurriedly to begin work.

“We’ll be having a long rest soon enough, Father,” said Ned placidly, lighting the pipe, “when the council gives out the contract for the roads.”

“The contract?” said Father Conroy. Then, to cover up (for he never admitted ignorance), he said, “Who d’ye think is behind it?” Whatever the business was, it was bound to look dirty – and to have someone behind it.

Ned’s pipe was working easily; only the volume of smoke showed that he was hard-pressed.