“Ah, is it possible?” said the son, with a sneer. “Are you sure of that, now?”
“Nor no spendthrift, Hycy.”
“No,” said the wife, “you never had the spirit; you were ever and always a molshy.” (* A womanly, contemptible fellow)
“An' yet molshy as I was,” he replied, “you wor glad to catch me. But Hycy, my good boy, I didn't cost my father at the rate of from a hundre'-an'-fifty to two-hundre'-a-year, an' get myself laughed at and snubbed by my superiors, for forcin' myself into their company.”
“Can't you let the boy ait his dinner in peace, at any rate?” said his mother. “Upon my credit I wouldn't be surprised if you drove him away from us altogether.”
“I only want to drive him into common sense, and the respectful feeling he ought to show to both you an' me, Rosha,” said Burke; “if he expects to have either luck or grace, or the blessing of God upon him, he'll change his coorses, an' not keep breakin' my heart as he's doin'.”
“Will you pay for the mare I bought, father?” asked Hycy, very seriously. “I have already told you, that I paid three guineas earnest; I hope you will regard your name and family so far as to prevent me from breaking my word—besides leading the world to suppose that you are a poor man.”
“Regard my name and family!” returned the father, with a look of bitterness and sorrow; “who is bringin' them into disgrace, Hycy?”
“In the meantime,” replied the son, “I have asked a plain question, Mr. Burke, and I expect a plain answer; will you pay for the mare?”
“An' supposin' I don't?”
“Why, then, Mr. Burke, if you don't you won't, that's all.”
“I must stop some time,” replied his father, “an' that is now. I wont pay for her.”
“Well then, sir, I shall feel obliged, as your respectable wife has just said, if you will allow me to eat, and if possible, live in peace.”
“I'm speakin' only for your—”
“That will do now—hush—silence if you please.”
“Hycy dear,” said the mother; “why would you ax him another question about it? Drop the thing altogether.”
“I will, mother, but I pity you; in the meantime, I thank you, ma'am, of your advice.”
“Hycy,” she continued, with a view of changing the conversation; “did you hear that Tom M'Bride's dead?”
“No ma'am, but I expected it; when did he die?”
Before his father could reply, a fumbling was heard at the hall-door; and, the next moment, Hogan, thrust in his huge head and shoulders began to examine the lock by attempting to turn the key in it.
“Hogan, what are you about?” asked Hycy.
“I beg your pardon,” replied the ruffian; “I only wished to know if the lock wanted mendin'—that was all, Misther Hycy.”
“Begone, sirra,” said the other; “how dare you have the presumption to take such a liberty? you impudent scoundrel! Mother, you had better pay them,” he added; “give the vagabonds anything they ask, to get rid of them.”
Having dined, her worthy son mixed a tumbler of punch, and while drinking it, he amused himself, as was his custom, by singing snatches of various songs, and drumming with his fingers upon the table; whilst every now and then he could hear the tones of his mother's voice in high altercation with Hogan and his brothers. This, however, after a time, ceased, and she returned to the parlor a good deal chafed by the dispute.
“There's one thing I wonder at,” she observed, “that of all men in the neighborhood, Gerald Cavanagh would allow sich vagabonds as they an Kate Hogan is, to put in his kiln. Troth, Hycy,” she added, speaking to him in a warning and significant tone of voice, “if there wasn't something low an' mane in him, he wouldn't do it.”
“'Tis when the cup is smiling before us.
And we pledge unto our hearts—'
“Your health, mother. Mr. Burke, here's to you! Why I dare say you are right, Mrs. Burke. The Cavanagh family is but an upstart one at best; it wants antiquity, ma'am—a mere affair of yesterday, so what after all could you expect from it?”
Honest Jemmy looked at him and then groaned. “An upstart family!—that'll do—oh, murdher—well, 'tis respectable at all events; however, as to havin' the Hogans about them—they wor always about them; it was the same in their father's time. I remember ould Laghlin Hogan, an' his whole clanjamfrey, men an' women, young an' old, wor near six months out o' the year about ould Gerald Cavanagh's—the present man's father; and another thing you may build upon—that whoever ud chance to speak a hard word against one o' the Cavanagh family, before Philip Hogan or any of his brothers, would stand a strong chance of a shirtful o' sore bones. Besides, we all know how Philip's father saved Mrs. Cavanagh's life about nine or ten months after her marriage. At any rate, whatever bad qualities the vagabonds have, want of gratitude isn't among them.”
“'———That are true, boys, true,
The sky of this life opens o'er us,
And heaven—'
M'Bride, ma'am, will be a severe loss to his family.”
“Throth he will, and a sarious loss—for among ourselves, there was none o' them like him.”
“'Gives a glance of its blue—'
“I think I ought to go to the wake to-night. I know it's a bit of a descent on my part, but still it is scarcely more than is due to a decent neighbor. Yes, I shall go; it is determined on.”
“'I ga'ed a waefu' gate yestreen,
A gate I fear I'll dearly rue;
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue.'
“Mine are brown, Mrs. Burke—the eyes you wot of; but alas! the family is an upstart one, and that is strongly against the Protestant interest in the case. Heigho!”
Jemmy Burke, having finished his after-dinner pipe and his daily tumbler both together, went out to his men; and Hycy, with whom he had left the drinking materials, after having taken a tumbler or two, put on a strong pair of boots, and changed the rest of his dress for a coarser 'suit, bade his mother a polite good-bye, and informed her, that as he intended to be present at M'Bride's wake he would most probably not return until near morning.
CHAPTER IV.—A Poteen Still-House at Midnight—Its Inmates.
About three miles in a south-western direction from Burke's residence, the country was bounded by a range of high hills and mountains of a very rugged and wild, but picturesque description. Although a portion of the same landscape, yet nothing could be more strikingly distinct in character than the position of the brown wild hills, as contrasted with that of the mountains from which they abutted. The latter ran in long and lofty ranges that were marked by a majestic and sublime simplicity, whilst the hills were of all shapes and sizes, and seemed as if cast about at random. As a matter of course the glens and valleys that divided them ran in every possible direction, sometimes crossing and intersecting each other at right angles, and sometimes running parallel, or twisting away in opposite directions. In one of those glens that lay nearest the mountains, or rather indeed among them, was a spot which from its peculiar position would appear to have been designed from the very beginning as a perfect paradise for the illicit distiller. It was a kind of back chamber