“Ah, sure, you should know yourself, Father. I wouldn’t like to be telling you.”

“The uncle, is it?”

Ned inclined his head in a gesture which only the most practiced eye would have taken as a nod. As if he hadn’t answered the question, he continued, “They do say there’s a big company from Castlemore got it; they’re to open up the old quarries and bring in the machines. Sure, two men will mend a mile of road.”

‘I’ll speak to him.”

“Ye might as well, Father.” Much good will it do, the tone implied. As if outraged by his resignation, Ned’s pipe began to billow out smoke, and coughing, clutching at his chest, Ned burst out, “He might as well have us all shipped off to England, while he’s at it. But we won’t take it from him, Father, I tell you that straight.”

“I said I’m going to speak to him,” Father Conroy said, and his tone implied that the attack on his uncle James had gone far enough.

“Ay, Father,” Ned said, the smoke quite gone now. He sighed as he changed the subject, “And what about this pony?”

“Never mind about that. I’ll fix it, too. Anyway,” he burst out ambiguously, “aren’t ye entitled to it – what’s the council for, only to get roads done and to pay for doing them?” He looked up as the ganger passed, and meeting the man’s suspicious stare, he began to rise to his feet. “Well, I can see I’m in the way here.”

“Do your best, Father, to get that pony into good hands!”

“Leave it to me. Leave it all to me.”

But he wasn’t so sure of himself, when he walked in the gate of the drive and stopped at sight of his house. There were too many things all at once. Where was he to start? He looked at the house. He could never go in when he was restless – it maddened him to be cooped up. Sometimes he would set off on a walk through the parish, so fast that it took a succession of items of interest, a new hay machine, a pheasant darting from the stubble, a prime bullock posing in a field, to slow his train of thoughts. Then he would stop, go into some house at random, and slouch down in a chimney corner with a cup of strong tea. Occasionally he kept going so fast that he overshot the parish boundary, and before he knew where he was, he was knocking on the door of Father O’Hara’s or Father Cullen’s house to give them the job of driving him home. Once he had ended up with his sister, Kate, up in Coolnahorna; he had to walk home again, all ten miles of mountain road, when Mikie’s car wouldn’t start.