He walked there, reading in the evening and heard the cries of the boys’ lines at their play, young cries in the quiet evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild.
Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An ivory bookmark told him the page.
Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come.
Father Conmee read in secret Pater and Ave and crossed his breast. Deus in adiutorium.
He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he came to Res in Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuotum veritas: in eternum omnia iudicia iustitiae tuae.
A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand.
The young man raised his hat abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.
Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his breviary.
Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis formidavit cor meum.
Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass furnishings. Chewing his