“Thank you, kindly, Mrs. Donovan, an’ I’m obliged to you, Fardorougha, for the wather; but I’m not a bit weak; it’s only the heat o’ the day ails me—­for sure enough it’s broilin’ weather.”

“‘Deed it is,” replied Honora, “kill in’ weather to them that has to be out undher it.”

“If it’s good for nothin’ else, it’s good for, the hay—­makin’,” observed Fardorougha.

“I’m tould, Misther Donovan,” said Bartle, “that’ you want a sarvint man:  now, if you do, I want a place, an’ you see I’m comin’ to you to look for one.”

“Heaven above, Bartle!” exclaimed Honora, “what do you mean?  Is it one of Dan Flanagan’s sons goin’ to sarvice?”

“Not one, but all of them,” replied the other, coolly, “an’ his daughters, too, Mrs. Donovan; but it’s all the way o! the world.  If Mr. Donovan ’ll hire me I’ll thank him.”

“Don’t be Mistherin’ me, Bartle; Misther them that has means an’ substance,” returned Donovan.

“Oh, God forgive you, Fardorougha!” exclaimed his honest and humane wife.  “God forgive you!  Bartle, from my heart, from the core o’ my heart, I pity you, my poor boy.  An’ is it to this, Fardorougha, you’ve brought them—­Oh, Saviour o’ the world!”

She fixed her eyes upon the victim of her husband’s extortion, and in an instant they were filled with tears.

“What did I do,” said the latter, “but strive to recover my own?  How could I afford to lose forty pounds?  An’ I was tould for sartin that your father knew Grehan was goin’ to Ameriky when he got him to go security.  Whisht, Honora, you’re as foolish a woman as riz this day; haven’t you your sins to cry for?”

“God knows I have, Fardorougha, an’ more than my own to cry for.”

“I dare say you did hear as much,” said Bartle, quietly replying to the observation of Fardorougha respecting his father; “but you know it’s a folly to talk about spilt milk.  If you want a sarvint I’ll hire; for, as I said a while ago, I want a place, an’ except wid you I don’t know where to get one.”

“If you come to me,” observed the other, “you must go to your duty, an’ observe the fast days, but not the holydays.”

“Sarvints isn’t obliged to obsarve them,” replied Bartle.

“But I always put it in the bargain,” returned the other.

“As to that,” said Bartle, “I don’t much mind it.  Sure it’ll be for the good o’ my sowl, any way.  But what wages will you be givin’?”

“Thirty shillings every half year;—­that’s three pounds—­sixty shillings a year.  A great deal o’ money.  I’m sure I dunna where it’s to come from.”

“It’s very little for a year’s hard labor,” replied Bartle, “but little as it is, Fardorougha, owin’ to what has happened betwixt us, believe me, I’m right glad to take it.”

“Well, but Bartle, you know there’s fifteen shillins of the ould account still due, and you must allow it out o’ your wages; if you don’t, it’s no bargain.”