“It’ll be a change for the old man to know what his clergy is thinking.”

“We’ll see, Father, we’ll see.” And James stumped out and down the path to where his chauffeur was waiting with the official car.

*

“Don’t take me for granted,” he had told James. But it was he himself who had taken everything for granted, not least the common humanity of his own flesh and blood. He had not expected to find the beast in the name of Conroy.

He was hearing confessions in the chapel a few nights after Madge’s bucket of milk had been spilled. Footsteps came hurrying up the aisle, and someone knocked on the door of the confessional. “Father!”

He closed the door on the penitent and drew back the curtain. A young man was in the aisle leaning breathlessly against the door, cap pulled down over his eyes. When Father Conroy pointed angrily toward the cap, he pulled it off quickly, revealing an unruly mop of red hair.

“You’re wantin’ in Glendine, Father,” he gasped, “as soon as you can.”

Father Conroy came out of the box, folded his stole, and turned to hang it on the hook. “Who are you?”

The young man was moving off a few impatient steps. “Ah, you wouldn’t know me. I’m stopping with the uncle. I’m from away over beyond.” And he gestured toward the east.

Father Conroy nodded. He was used to young men on the run, staying with their uncles. “Where are we going? ‘Who is it?”

“Hassett, Father, Denny Hassett, the last house up the glen.” Hassett was said to be one of the leaders of the laborers on strike. No doubt, he figured high in James’s list of those involved in the Madge incident. “I’ll get my bike.”

“’Tis outside, Father. I sent a young lad up to your house for it.”

Such hustling made Father Conroy suspicious. Was it a trap? Priests were being dragged into things now, the strike, the civil war down south. Suppose they wanted him as a hostage?

The bicycle was at the gate, a boy waiting in the dark to push it into his hands. The young man was already mounted and moving on ahead. Although Father Conroy was fit and well used to cycling, it was all he could do to catch up as the road wound upward. “What happened?” he called.

“I was abroad in the field, when I seen the trap going up to the house and the men in her. I made no delay, Father. I ran straight down to Fogarty’s below on the road and got on the bike. Oh, please God, we’ll be in time.”