CHAPTER VI.
THE PRIEST'S SUPPER--FATHER MALACHI AND THE COADJUTOR -- MAJOR JONES AND THE ABBE At the conclusion of our last chapter we left our quondam antagonist, Mr.Beamish, stretched at full length upon a bed practising homeopathy by administering hot punch to her fever, while we followed our chaperon, Doctor Finucane, into the presence of the Reverend Father Brennan.
The company into which we now, without any ceremony on our parts, introduced ourselves, consisted of from five and twenty to thirty persons, seated around a large oak table, plentifully provided with materials for drinking, and cups, goblets, and glasses of every shape and form.

The moment we entered, the doctor stepped forward, and, touching Father Malachi on the shoulder,--for so I rightly guessed him to be, -- presented himself to his relative, by whom he was welcomed with every demonstration of joy.

While their recognitions were exchanged, and while the doctor explained the reasons of our visit, I was enabled, undisturbed and unnoticed, to take a brief survey of the party.
Father Malachi Brennan, P.P.of Carrigaholt, was what I had often pictured to myself as the beau ideal of his caste; his figure was short, fleshy, and enormously muscular, and displayed proportions which wanted but height to constitute a perfect Hercules; his legs so thick in the calf, so taper in the ancle, looked like nothing I know, except perhaps, the metal balustrades of Carlisle--bridge; his face was large and rosy, and the general expression, a mixture of unbounded good humour and inexhaustible drollery, to which the restless activity of his black and arched eye--brows greatly contributed; and his mouth, were it not for a character of sensuality and voluptuousness about the nether lip, had been actually handsome; his head was bald, except a narrow circle close above the ears, which was marked by a ring of curly dark hair, sadly insufficient however, to conceal a development behind, that, if there be truth in phrenology, bodes but little happiness to the disciples of Miss Martineau.
Add to these external signs a voice rich, fluent, and racy, with the mellow "doric" of his country, and you have some faint resemblance of one "every inch a priest." The very antipodes to the 'bonhomie' of this figure, confronted him as croupier at the foot of the table.

This, as I afterwards learned, was no less a person than Mister Donovan, the coadjutor or "curate;" he was a tall, spare, ungainly looking man of about five and thirty, with a pale, ascetic countenance, the only readable expression of which vibrated between low suspicion and intense vulgarity: over his low, projecting forehead hung down a mass of straight red hair; indeed--for nature is not a politician--it almost approached an orange hue.

This was cut close to the head all around, and displayed in their full proportions a pair of enormous ears, which stood out in "relief," like turrets from a watch-tower, and with pretty much the same object; his skin was of that peculiar colour and texture, to which, not all "the water in great Neptune's ocean" could impart a look of cleanliness, while his very voice, hard, harsh, and inflexible, was unprepossessing and unpleasant.