The Emigrants Of Ahadarra. William Carleton

of bein' the laughin'-stock of the same Hunt, it's betune the stilts of a plough you ought to be, or out in the fields keepin' the men to their business.”

      “I paid three guineas earnest money, at all events,” said the son; “but 'it matters not,' as the preacher says—

      “'When I was at home I was merry and frisky,

       My dad kept a pig and my mother sold whiskey'—

      Beg pardon, mother, no allusion—my word and honor none—to you I mean—

      “'My uncle was rich, but would never be aisy

       Till I was enlisted by Corporal Casey.'

      Fine times in the army, Mr. Burke, with every prospect of a speedy promotion. Mother, my stomach craves its matutinal supply—I'm in excellent condition for breakfast.”

      “It's ready. Jemmy, you'll—Misther Burke, I mane—you'll pay for Misther Hycy's mare.”

      “If I do—you'll live to see it, that's all. Give the boy his breakwhist.”

      “Thank you, worthy father—much obliged for your generosity—

      “'Oh, love is the soul of a nate Irishman

       He loves all that's lovely, loves all that he can,

       With his sprig of—'

      Ah, Peety Dhu, how are you, my worthy peripatetic? Why, this daughter of yours is getting quite a Hebe on our hands. Mrs. Burke, breakfast—breakfast, madam, as you love Hycy, the accomplished.” So saying, Hycy the accomplished proceeded to the parlor we have described, followed by his maternal relative, as he often called his mother.

      “Well, upon my word and honor, mother,” said the aforesaid Hycy, who knew and played upon his mother's weak points, “it is a sad thing to see such a woman as you are, married to a man who has neither the spirit nor feelings of a gentleman—my word and honor it is.”

      “I feel that, Hycy, but there's no help for spilt milk; we must only make the best of a bad bargain. Are you coming to your breakfast,” she shouted, calling to honest Jemmy, who still sat on the hob ruminating with a kind of placid vexation over his son's extravagance—“your tay's filled out!”

      “There let it,” he replied, “I'll have none of your plash to-day; I tuck my skinful of good stiff stirabout that's worth a shipload of it. Drink it yourselves—I'm no gintleman.”

      “Arrah, when did you find that out, Misther Burke?” she shouted back again.

      “To his friends and acquaintances it is anything but a recent disco very,” added Hycy; and each complimented the observation of the other with a hearty laugh, during which the object of it went out to the fields to join the men.

      “I'm afraid it's no go, mother,” proceeded the son, when breakfast was finished—“he won't stand it. Ah, if both my parents were of the same geometrical proportion, there would be little difficulty in this business; but upon my honor and reputation, my dear mother, I think between you and me that my father's a gross abstraction—a most substantial and ponderous apparition.”

      “An' didn't I know that an' say that too all along?” replied his mother, catching as much of the high English from him as she could manage: “however, lave the enumeration of the mare to me. It'll go hard or I'll get it out of him.”

      “It is done,” he replied; “your stratagetic powers are great, my dear mother, consequently it is left in your hands.”

      Hycy, whilst in the kitchen, cast his eye several times upon the handsome young daughter of Peety Dhu, a circumstance to which we owe the instance of benevolent patronage now about to be recorded.

      “Mother,” he proceeds, “I think it would be a charity to rescue that interesting little girl of Peety Dhu's from a life of mendicancy.”

      “From a what?” she asked, staring at him.

      “Why,” he replied, now really anxious to make himself understood—“from the disgraceful line of life he's bringin' her up to. You should take her in and provide for her.”

      “When I do, Hycy,” replied his mother, bridling, “it won't be a beggar's daughter nor a niece of Philip Hogan's—sorrow bit.”

      “As for her being a niece of Hogan's, you know it is by his mother's side; but wouldn't it be a feather in her cap to get under the protection of a highly respectable woman, though? The patronage of a person like you, Mrs. Burke, would be the making of her—my word and honor it would.”

      “Hem!—ahem!—do you think so, Hycy?”

      “Tut, mother—that indeed!—can there be a doubt about it?”

      “Well then, in that case, I think she may stay—that is, if the father will consent to it.”

      “Thank you, mother, for that example of protection and benevolence. I feel that all my virtues certainly proceed from your side of the house and are derived from yourself—there can be no doubt of that.”

      “Indeed I think so myself, Hycy, for where else would you get them? You have the M'Swiggin nose; an' it can't be from any one else you take your high notions. All you show of the gentleman, Hycy, it's not hard to name them you have it from, I believe.”

      “Spoken like a Sybil. Mother, within the whole range of my female acquaintances I don't know a woman that has in her so much of the gentleman as yourself—my word and honor, mother.”

      “Behave, Hycy—behave now,” she replied, simpering; “however truth's truth, at any rate.”

      We need scarcely say that the poor mendicant was delighted at the notion of having his daughter placed in the family of so warm and independent a man as Jemmy Burke. Yet the poor little fellow did not separate from the girl without a strong manifestation of the affection he bore her. She was his only child—the humble but solitary flower that blossomed for him upon the desert of life.

      “I lave her wid you,” he said, addressing Mrs. Burke with tears in his eyes, “as the only treasure an' happiness I have in this world. She is the poor man's lamb, as I have hard read out of Scripture wanst; an' in lavin' her undher your care, I lave all my little hopes in this world wid her. I trust, ma'am, you'll guard her an' look afther her as if she was one of your own.”

      This unlucky allusion might have broken up the whole contemplated arrangement, had not Hycy stepped in to avert from Peety the offended pride of the patroness.

      “I hope, Peety,” he said, “that you are fully sensible of the honor Mrs. Burke does you and your daughter by taking the girl under her protection and patronage?”

      “I am, God knows.”

      “And of the advantage it is to get her near so respectable a woman—so highly respectable a woman?”

      “I am, in troth.”

      “And that it may be the making of your daughter's fortune?”

      “It may, indeed, Masther Hycy.”

      “And that there's no other woman of high respectability in the parish capable of elevating her to the true principles of double and simple proportion?”

      “No, in throth, sir, I don't think there is.”

      “Nor that can teach her the newest theories in dogmatic theology and metaphysics, together with the whole system of Algebraic Equations if the girl should require them?”

      “Divil another woman in the barony can match her at them by all accounts,” replied Peety, catching the earnest enthusiasm of Hycy's manner.

      “That will do, Peety; you see yourself, mother,” he added, taking her aside and speaking in a low voice, “that the little fellow knows right well the advantages of having her under your care and protection; and it's very much to his credit, and speaks very highly