CHAPTER V
A LETTER TO ROME
One morning the priest’s housekeeper mentioned as she gathered up the breakfast things, that Mike Mulhare had refused to let his daughter Catherine marry James Murdoch until he had earned the price of a pig.
“This is bad news,” said the priest, and he laid down the newspaper.
“And he waited for her all the summer! Wasn’t it in February last that he came out of the poor-house? And the fine cabin he has built for her! He’ll be that lonesome, he’ll be going to America.”
“To America!” said the priest.
“Maybe it will be going back to the poor-house he’ll be, for he’ll never earn the price of his passage at the relief works.”
The priest looked at her for a moment as if he did not catch her meaning, and then a knock came at the door, and he said:—
“The inspector
