“Och, musha, lave the pot,” retorted Pat; “sure what good is the pot to us when we haven’t a bit to put in it?  Troth, now the ould sckamer beyant has Mike in prison, we may give up altogether.  Yourself an’ me will soon be undher the Daisy-quilt, never fear.  There they have me ould chair, now,” he added sardonically; “troth it looks well cocked up there.  Mind the china now, Jack McEvoy; herself here thinks there isn’t the like in the country,—­have ye all now, the two mugs an’ the three plates, an’ the cups an’ saucers, an’ the little taypot with the cracked spout?  Ah, don’t be forgettin’ the little jug though, the little weeny jug with a rose on it.  Sure, what are ye crying for, woman!  Isn’t it great grandeur for the little jug to be goin’ up to Monavoe?  Bedad, ould Peter’ll be apt to be puttin’ it undher a glass case on the chimley-piece!”

Their friends and neighbours gathering round gazed with puzzled looks at the old man as he sat enthroned on his heap of stones, his knotted trembling hands leaning on a blackthorn stick, his face flushed, and his eyes blazing under their shaggy white brows.  They could scarcely understand his stoicism; Mrs. Clancy’s lamentations were far more comprehensible to them.

“I won’t be in it long,” she wailed, “throublin’ anybody.  Sure, what matther if it’s in the poorhouse the two of us ends our days, now poor Mike has been sent to gaol on us!  Ah!  God bless us!  I could never hould up me head agin afther that.”

“God help ye!” commented a bystander.  “Don’t be frettin’ that a-way, ma’am; sure even if he’s in gaol itself, he’ll be out agin before ye know where yez are an’ maybe they wouldn’t keep him in it at all.”

“’Deed then they had a right to let him out at wanst,” groaned Mrs. Clancy from beneath her apron.  “The Lord knows he never done what they’re afther sayin’ he done.”

“Hothen, indeed, I wouldn’t make too sure of that,” put in Pat.  “Why wouldn’t he do it?  Bedad, he’ud have done well if he done twice as much.  No, but he had a right to have burnt the ould villain in his bed an’ got shut of him out-an’-out—­the on’y mistake the poor fellow made, was lettin’ him off so aisy.”

“Whisht, whisht! in the name of goodness!  God bless us! what is it ye’re sayin’ at all?  Sure, poor Mike’s as innocent as a lamb.”

“Heth, he’s the fine lamb!” retorted the father sarcastically.  “Well, I believe they have everything now, down to the little creepy.  Good luck to ye, Jack McEvoy; mind how ye go takin’ it up the road—­don’t be dhroppin’ any of it out o’ the cart.  Give me compliments to Mr. Rorke, and tell him I hope he’ll enjoy my iligant furnitur, an’ much good may it do him!”

Jack McEvoy, one of Peter’s men, climbed into the cart sheepishly enough and drove off.  Once more the neighbours pressed round the homeless old pair, quarrelling for the honour of harbouring them.

“It’s coming along wid me they are,” cried one, “aren’t yez now? sure of course they are.  Isn’t mine the biggest house anywhere in Donoughmor?”