He never saw Tomás again. That night the boy returned from whatever hiding place he had been in and took with him all the silver from the sideboard, as well as the box containing the Sunday’s church door collection. The Canon dithered for a while about calling in the Guards and finally could not bring himself to do so. None of the loot was recovered, nor was the boy ever seen again. Some said he had come to a bad end and that it was the price of him, but Father Conroy was sure he would return someday. A clever young blackguard, he would say, half in admiration. Gave himself a start in life, and sent the bill to us. It was hard for Father Conroy not to admit some satisfaction at the loss of possessions, anyone’s possessions, but, most of all, those so cherished by the Canon. In some way, he felt his own promotion had to be paid for and that the price of it would have to be high.

Yes indeed, he thought, but even that was not enough. I never paid the price. I don’t deserve my place in the world. But who does? Cullen, O’Hara, the Canon? What have they done? Survived to the age of fifty-odd? Lost teeth or hair, or both, but kept – what? What lives in me, gives me continuity? The Holy Spirit, of course, my body its temple – so the catechism says – but suppose there is nothing there and that I am driven by my need to sleep, to eat – not driven, carried, rather, by the accumulation of what I have done, by the momentum of my habits...

They were looking at him, several faces turned to him to await his reply.

“What?” he asked.

Pheasants, they were talking about, having moved on logically from hares and coursing. What kind of a season had it been in Kilbride?

“Oh, good,” he said, “quite good toward the end.”

And they looked at him a little uneasily as he let the subject fall so lifelessly from his hands.

The conversation moved on to a controversy in the papers about the teaching of Irish in the schools. One of the young men asked what would happen if infants were left on their own, with no adults to bring them up; what language would they speak? The subject was tossed around with the kind of scholastic playfulness useful on such occasions.

“What would you say, Tom?” asked Father O’Hara.

“What?” Father Conroy found the faces once again turned upon him.

“The Canon here says that if they were left to their own devices, the little beggars would speak Irish, the language of their forebears – though whether it would be Old Irish, Middle Irish, or modern Civil Service Irish, he won’t say. Probably all kinds would come bursting out of their consciousness, like Brussels sprouts. What language would you say they’d do their squalling in?”