“Oh, I know it—­I know it!  There was music in his voice, an’ grah and. kindness to every crathur on God’s earth; but to me—­to me—­oh, no one knew his love to me, but myself an’ God.  Oh, if I was dead, that I couldn’t feel this, or if my life could save his!  Why didn’t the villain,—­the black villain, wid God’s curse upon him—­why didn’t he shoot me, thin I could never be Mike’s wife, an’ his hand o’ murdher might be satisfied?  If he had, I wouldn’t feel as I do.  Ay! the warmest, an’ the best, an’ the dearest blood of my heart, I could shed for him.  That heart was his, an’ he had a right to it.  Our love wasn’t of yistherday:  afore the links of my hair came to my showldhers I loved him, an’ thought of him; an many a time he tould me that I was his first!  God knows he was my first, an’ he will be my last, let him live or die.”

“Well, but, Peggy achora,” said his sister, “maybe it’s sinful to be cryin’ this way, an’ he not dead.”

“God forgive me, if it’s a sin,” replied Peggy; “I’d not wish to do anything sinful or displasin’ to God; an’ I’ll sthrive to keep down my grief:  I will, as well as I can.”

She put her hands on her face, and by all effort of firmness, subdued the tone of her grief to a low, continuous murmur of sorrow.

“An’ along wid that,” said the sister, “maybe the noise is disturbin’ him.  Darby put us all out o’ the kitchen to have pace an’ quietness about him.”

“An’ ‘twas well thought o’ Darby,” she replied; “an’ may the blessin’ o’ God rest upon him for it!  A male’s mate or a nights lodgin’ he’ll never want under my father’s roof for that goodness to him.  I’ll be quiet.”

There was now a short pause, during which those in the room heard a smack, accompanied by the words, “Dheah.  Grashthias! throth I’m the betther o’ that sup, so I am.  Nothin’ keeps this thief of a configuration down but it.  Dheah Grashthias for that!  Oh, thin, this is the stuff!  It warms the body to the top o’ the nails!”

“Don’t spare it, Darby,” said old Reillaghan, “if it does you good.”

“Avourneen,” said Darby, “it’s only what gives me a little relief I ever take, jist by way of cure, for it’s the only thing does me good, when I am this-a-way.”

Several persons in the neighborhood were, in the mean time, flocking to Reillaghan’s house.  A worthy man, accompanied by his wife, entered as the pilgrim had concluded.  The woman, in accordance with the custom of the country, raised the Irish cry, in a loud melancholy wail, that might be heard at a great distance.

Darby, who prided himself on maintaining silence, could not preserve the consistency of his character upon this occasion, any more than on that of Mike’s recent symptoms of life.

“Your sowl to the divil, you faggot!” he exclaimed, “what do you mane?  The divil whip the tongue out o’ you! are you going to come here only to disturb the boy that’s not dead yet?  Get out o’ this, an’ be asy wid your skhreechin’, or by the crass that died for us, only you’re a woman, I’d tumble you wid a lick o’ my cant.  Keep asy, you vagrant, an’ the dacent boy not dead yet.  Hell bellows you, what do you mane?”