“Father,” said he, rising and placing the old man in the arm-chair, which for the last half century had been his accustomed seat, “father, we will go together—­we will all be wid you.  You’ll not be among strangers—­you’ll have your own about you still.”

“But what’s takin’ you all away?”

“Neglect and injustice, an’ the evil tongues of them that ought to know us betther.  The landlord didn’t turn out to be what he ought to be.  May God forgive him!  But at any rate I’m sure he has been misled.”

“Ould Chevydale,” said his father, “never was a bad landlord, an’ he’d not become a bad one now.  That’s not it.”

“But the ould man’s dead, father, an’ its his son we’re spakin’ of.”

“And the son of ould Chevydale must have something good about him.  The heart was always right wid his father, and every one knows there’s a great deal in true blood.  Sooner or later it’ll tell for itself—­but what is this?  There was something troublin’ me this minute.  Oh! ay, you’re goin’ away, then, to America; but, mark my words:—­I won’t go.  You may, but I’ll stay here.  I won’t lave the green fields of Carriglass for any one.  It’s not much I’ll be among them now, an’ it isn’t worth your while to take me from them.  Here’s where I was born—­here’s where the limbs that’s now stiff an’ feeble was wanst young and active—­here’s where the hair that’s white as snow was fair an’ curlin’ like goold—­here’s where I was young—­here’s where I grew ould—­among these dark hills and green fields—­here you all know is where I was born; and, in spite o’ you all, here’s where I’ll die.”

The old man was much moved by all these recollections; for, as he proceeded, the tears fell fast from his aged eyes, and his voice became tremulous and full of ’sorrow.

“Wasn’t it here, too,” he proceeded, “that Peggy Slevin, she that was famed far an’ near for her beauty, and that the sweet song was made upon—­’Peggy Na Laveen’—–­ay—­ay, you may think yourselves fine an’ handsome; but, where was there sich a couple as grandfather and Peggy Na Laveen was then?”

As he uttered these words, his features that had been impressed by grief, were lit up by a smile of that simple and harmless vanity which often attends us to the very grave; after which he proceeded:—­

“There, on the side of that hill is the roofless house where she was born; an’ there’s not a field or hill about the place that her feet didn’t make holy to me.  I remember her well.  I see her, an’ I think I hear her voice on the top of Lisbane, ringin’ sweetly across the valley of the Mountain Wather, as I often did.  An’ is it to take me away now from all this?  Oh! no, childre’, the white-haired grandfather couldn’t go.  He couldn’t lave the ould places—­the ould places.  If he did, he’d die—­he’d die.  Oh, don’t, for God’s sake, Tom, as you love me!”

There was a spirit of helpless entreaty in these last words that touched his son, and indeed all who heard him, to the quick.