'I'm only a poor, ignorant man, but I can tell you that myself if
you don't know it, with all your travels. Saint Peter was the first
Pope, and he was crucified with his head down, and since that time
there have been Popes upon the throne of Rome.'
Then he began telling me about himself.
'I was twice a married man,' he said. 'My first wife died at her
second child, and then I reared it up till it was as tall as
myself--a girl it was--and she went off and got married and left me.
After that I was married a second time to an aged woman, and she
lived with me ten year; and then she died herself. There is nothing
I can make now but tea, and tea is killing me; and I'm living alone,
in a little hut beyond, where four baronies, four parishes, and four
townlands meet.'
By this time we had reached the village inn, where I was lodging for
the night; so I stood him a drink, and he went on to his cottage
along a narrow pathway through the bogs.