“I see,” said she, “that you have your own blankets.”

“I have, acushla.  Cheerna, but this is darlin’ bread!  Arra was this baked upon a griddle or against the muddhia arran?"*.

* The muddhia arran was a forked branch, cut from a tree, and shaped exactly like a letter A—­with a small stick behind to support it.  A piece of hoop iron was nailed to it at the bottom, on which the cake rested—­not horizontally, but opposite the fire.  When one side was done the other was turned, and thus it was baked.

“A griddle!  Why, then, is it the likes o’ me would have a griddle? that indeed!  No; but, any how, sure a griddle only scalds the bread; but you’ll find that this is not too much done; bekaise you know the ould proverb, ‘a raw dad makes a fat lad.’”

“Troth,” replied Fergus, “it’s good bread, and fills the boast** of a man’s body; but now that I’ve made a good supper, I’ll throw myself on the straw, for I feel as if my eyelids had a millstone apiece upon them.  I never shtrip at night, but just throws my blanket over me, an’ sleeps like a top.  Glory be to God!  Oh, then, there’s nothing like the health ma’am:  may God spare it to us!  Amin, this night!”

** Boast—­a figurative term, taken from a braggadocio or boaster; it applies to any thing that is hollow or deceitful:  for instance, when some potatoes that grow unusually large are cut in two, an empty space is found in the centra, and that potato is termed boast, or empty.

He accordingly threw himself on the shakedown, and in a short time, as was evident by his snoring, fell into a profound sleep.

This was an experiment, though a hazardous one, as we have said; but so far it was successful.  In the course of half an hour the Red Rapparee came in, dressed in his uniform.  On looking about him he exclaimed, with an oath,

“Who the hell is here?”

“Why,” replied Mary Mahon, “a poor ould man that axed for charity an’ lodgin’ for the night.”

“And why did you give it to him?”

“Bekaise my charity to him may take away some of my sins.”

“Some of your devils!” replied the savage, “and I think you have enough of them about you.  Didn’t you know I was to come here to-night, as I do almost every night, for an hour or two?”

“You was drinkin’,” she replied, “and you’re drunk.”

“I am drunk, and I will be drunk as often as I can.  It’s a good man’s case.  Why did you give a lodgin’ to this ould vagabone?”

“I tould you the raison,” she replied; “but you needn’t care about him, for there’s not a word of English in his cheek.”

“Faith, but he may have something in his purse, for all that.  Is he ould?”

“A poor ould man.”