In the doorway, a middle-aged farmer was filling tumblers and cups with whiskey and passing them around to several other respectable men of his class. As the priests stopped in surprise, Bat Cullen muttered, “My God!”, strode forward, and growled out some reprimand. The man’s face flushed with indignation. He slammed the cork deliberately into the bottle and turned away, followed by his shamefaced companions.

“You couldn’t be up to them,” said Bat, anxious that the other priests would not think that drinking in the vestry door was tolerated in his parish. “Last week I had a funeral, a young fellow killed by a tractor, and the poor father was so shaken that I let them have a few drinks here. And now they come along and set up a public bar in the place!”

“You wouldn’t mind if it was a young man,” one of the priests said in support, “somebody’s son.”

“Ay, that’s what I’m saying,” Father Cullen thanked his supporter. “Somebody’s son, instead of poor Maurice, who had nobody.”

What do you mean, nobody? Father Conroy wondered, what about Tomás?

But before he could get an answer to his questions, they were all being seated around the table and Bat was taking his place at the top beside the Canon. As the plates were passed around, Bat, as host, threw in the conversational ball – the shortage of hares for coursing – while the Canon, who was against blood sports, picked at his rashers and eggs with mild distaste.

You’d think, Father Conroy told himself, that Tomás would have come back from wherever he was for his father’s funeral. Of course, he was a blackguard, always was. The first time Father Conroy ever saw him, he was bent over a school desk, a cane poised over him and two stripes reddening across his bare backside. The cane was put away hastily at Father Conroy’s entrance (he had just come to the parish as senior curate, and the teacher was embarrassed at being caught so soon in the full flush of authority).

“What’s he done?” demanded Father Conroy.

The teacher held up a stub of a pencil and gestured to another boy in the first desk. “He took that little boy’s pencil.”

“Little boy?” Father Conroy surveyed the owner of the pencil, who began to whimper with embarrassment. “Sure, he’s twice as big as what’s-his-name there.”

“Tomás Connolly,” the teacher said. And his cane twitched out of its hiding place behind his back. “He stole that little boy’s pencil and took it home with him.”

“Why did you steal the pencil, Tomás?” asked Father Conroy.

Still lying across the desk, Tomás turned his face up to the priest; he hadn’t cried under the caning, but his lower lip was cut by his teeth.