When Nell passed away from Lamh Laudher, who would fain have flattered himself that by turning back on the way, until she passed him, he had avoided meeting her, he once more sought the place of appointment, at the same slow pace as before.  On arriving behind the orchard, he found, as the progress of the evening told him, that he had anticipated the hour at which it had been agreed to meet.  He accordingly descended the Grassy Quarry, and sat on a mossy ledge of rock, over which the brow of a little precipice jutted in such a manner as to render those who sat beneath, visible only from a particular point.  Here he had scarcely seated himself when the tread of a foot was heard, and in a few minutes Nanse M’Collum stood beside him.

“Why, thin, bad cess to you, Lamh Laudher,” she exclaimed, “but it’s a purty chase I had afther you.”

“Afther me, Nanse? and what’s the commission, cush gastha (lightfoot)?”

“The sorra any thing, at all, at all, only to see if you war here.  Miss Ellen sent me to tell you that she’s afeard she can’t come this evenin’, unknownst to them.”

“An’ am I not to wait, Nanse?”

“Why, she says she—­will come, for all that, if she can; but she bid me take your stick from you, for a rason she has, that she’ll tell yourself when she sees you.”

“Take my stick!  Why Nanse, ma colleen baun, what can she want with my stick?  Is the darlin’ girl goin’ to bate any body?”

“Bad cess to the know I know, Lamh Laudher, barrin’ it be to lay on yourself for stalin’ her heart from her.  Why thin, the month’s mether o’ honey to you, soon an’ sudden, how did you come round her at all?”

“No matter about that, Nanse; but the family’s bitther against me?—­eh?”

“Oh, thin, in trogs, it’s ill their common to hate you as they do; but thin, you see, this faction-work will keep yees asundher for ever.  Now gi’ me your stick, an’ wait, any way, till you see whether she comes or not.”

“Is it by Ellen’s ordhers you take it, Nanse?”

“To be sure—­who else’s? but the divil a one o’ me knows what she means by it, any how—­only that I daren’t go back widout it.”

“Take it, Nanse; she knows I wouldn’t refuse her my heart’s blood, let alone a bit of a kippeen.”

“A bit of a kippeen!  Faix, this is a quare kippeen!  Why, it would fell a bullock.”

“When you see her, Nanse, tell her to make haste, an’ for God’s sake not to disappoint me.  I can’t rest well the day I don’t meet her.”

“Maybe other people’s as bad, for that matter; so good night, an’ the mether o’ honey to you, soon an’ sudden!  Faix, if any body stand in my way now, they’ll feel the weight of this, any how.”

After uttering the last words, she brandished the cudgel and disappeared.