“God save you kindly, Barney,” was the instant reply from all.

“Ah, Mrs. Davoren,” he proceeded, “ever the same; by this and by that, if there’s a woman living ignorant of one thing, and you are that woman.”

“Sorrow off you, Barney! well, what is it?”

“Idleness, achora.  Now, let me see if you have e’er a finger at all to show; for upon my honorable word they ought to be worn to the stumps long ago.  Well, and how are you all?  But sure I needn’t ax.  Faith, you’re crushin’ the blanter* anyhow, and that looks well.”

     * Blantur, a well-known description of oats.  It was so
     called from having been originally imported from Blantire in
     Scotland.

“We must live, Barney; ’tis a poor shift we’d make ’idout the praties and the broghan,” (meal porridge).

“What news from the big house?”

“News, is it?  Come, Corney, come, girls, bounce; news is it?  O, faitha’, thin it’s I that has the news that will make you all shake your feet to-night.”

“Blessed saints, Barney what is it?”

“Bounce, I say, and off wid ye to gather brusna (dried and rotten brambles) for a bonfire in the great town of Rathfillan.”

“A bonfire, Barney!  Arra, why, man alive?”

“Why?  Why, bekaise the masther’s stepson and the misthress’s own pet has come home to us to set the counthry into a state o’ conflagration wid his beauty.  There won’t be a whole cap in the barony before this day week.  They’re to have fiddlers, and pipers, and dancin’, and drinkin’ to no end; and the glory of it is that the masther, God bless him, is to pay for all.  Now!”

The younger of the two girls sprang to her feet with the elasticity and agility of a deer.

“O, beetha, Barney,” she exclaimed, “but that will be the fun!  And the misthress’s son is home?  Arra, what is he like, Barney?  Is he as handsome as Masther Charles?”

“I hope he’s as good,” said her mother.

“As good, Bridget?  No, but worth a shipload of him; he has a pair of eyes in his head, Granua,” (anglice, Grace,) addressing the younger, “that ’ud turn Glendhis (the dark glen) to noonday at midnight; divil a lie in it; and his hand’s never out of his pocket wid generosity.”

“O, mother,” said Grace, “won’t we all go?”

“Don’t ax your mother anything about it,” replied Barney, “bekaise mother, and father, and sister, and brother, daughter and son, is all to come.”

“Arra, Barney,” said Bridget Davoren, for such was her name, “is this gentleman like his ecald of a mother?”

“Hasn’t a feature of her purty face,” he replied, “and, to the back o’ that, is very much given to religion.  Troth, my own opinion is, he’ll be one of ourselves yet; for I can tell you a saicret about him.”

“A saicret, Barney,” said Grace; “maybe he’s married?”