“Well, Frank,” said he, “I never thought you war so soft, and me can pick my steps me same at night as in daylight!  Sure that’s the way I done them to-night, when one o’ Granua’s strings broke.  ‘Sweets o’ psin,’ says I; ‘a candle—­bring me a candle immediately.’  An’ down came Rody in all haste wid a candle.  ‘Six eggs to you, Rody,’ says myself, ‘an’ half-a-dozen o’ them rotten! but you’re a bright boy, to bring a candle to a blind man!’ and then he stood a bouloare to the whole house—­ha, ha, ha!”

Barny, who was not the man to rise first from the whiskey, commenced the relation of his choicest anecdotes; old Frank and the family, being now in a truly genial mood, entered into the spirit of his jests, so that between chat, songs, and whiskey, the hour had now advanced to four o’clock.  The fiddler was commencing another song, when the door opened, and Frank presented himself, nearly, but not altogether in a state of intoxication; his face was besmeared with blood; and his whole appearance that of a man under the influence of strong passion, such as would seem to be produced by disappointment and defeat.

“What!” said the father, “is it snowin’, Frank?  Your clothes are covered wid snow!”

“Lord, guard us!” exclaimed the mother, “is that blood upon your face, Frank?”

“It is snowin’, and it is blood that’s upon my face,” answered Frank, moodily—­“do you want to know more news?”

“Why, ay indeed,” replied his mother, “we want to hear how you came to be cut?”

“You won’t hear it, thin,” he replied.

The mother was silent, for she knew the terrible fits of passion to which he was subject.

The father groaned deeply, and exclaimed—­“Frank, Frank, God help you, an’ show you the sins you’re committin’, an’ the heart-scaldin’ you’re givin’ both your mother and me!  What fresh skrimmage had you that you’re in that state?”

“Spare yourself the throuble of inquirin’,” he replied:  “all I can say,” he continued, starting up into sudden fury—­“all I can say, an’ I say it—­I swear it—­where’s the prayer-book?” and he ran frantically to a shelf beside the dresser on which the prayer-book lay,—­“ay! by him that made me I’ll sware it—­by this sacred book, while I live, Mike Keillaghan, the husband of Peggy Gartland you’ll never be, if I should swing for it!  Now you all seen I kissed the book!” as he spoke, he tossed it back upon the shelf.

The mirth that had prevailed in the family was immediately hushed, and a dead silence ensued; Frank sat down, but instantly rose again, and flung the chair from him with such violence that it was crashed to pieces; he muttered oaths and curses, ground his teeth, and betrayed all the symptoms of jealousy, hatred, and disappointment.

“Frank, a bouchal,” said Barny, commencing to address him in a conciliatory tone—­“Frank, man alive——­”

“Hould your tongue, I say, you blind vagabone, or by the night above us, I’ll break your fiddle over your skull, if you dar to say another word.  What I swore I’ll do, an’ let no one crass me.”