He stood to read the card in his hand.
―The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint Michael’s, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He’s writing a book about the Fitzgeralds he told me. He’s well up in history, faith.
The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.
―I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J. J. O’Molloy said.
Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air.
―God! he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of Kildare after he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? I’m bloody sorry I did it, says he, but I declare to God I thought the archbishop was inside. He mightn’t like it, though. What? God, I’ll tell him anyhow. That was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot members they were all of them, the Geraldines.
The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried:
―Woa, sonny!
He turned to J. J. O’Molloy and asked:
―Well, Jack. What is it? What’s the trouble? Wait a while. Hold hard.
With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an instant, sneezed loudly.
―Chow! he said. Blast you!
―The dust from those sacks, J. J. O’Molloy said politely.