“There’s my hand, Mike,” said Frank, “that I forget an’ forgive all that’s past; and in regard to Peggy Gartland, why, as she’s so dark agin me, I lave her to you for good."*

“Well! see what it is to have the good intintions!—­to be makin’ pace an’ friendship atween inimies!  That’s all I think about, an’ nothin’ gives me greater pleas—­Saints o’ glory!—­what’s this!—­Oh wurrah!—­that thief of a—­wurrah dheelish!—­that touch o’ configuration’s comin’ back agin!—­O, thin, but it’s hard to get it undher!—­Oh!”—­

“I’m sarry for it, Darby,” replied he who held the now empty bottle; “for the whiskey’s out.”

“Throth, an’ I’m sarry myself, for nothin’ else does me good; an’ Father Hoolaghan says nothin’ can keep it down, barrin’ the sup o’ whiskey.  It’s best burnt, wid a little bit o’ butther an it; but I can’t get that always, it overtakes me so suddenly, glory be to God!”

“Well,” said M’Kenna, “as Mike an’ myself was the manes of bringin’ us together, why, if he joins me, we’ll have another bottle.”

“Throth, an’ its fair an’ dacent, an’ he must do it; by the same a token, that I’ll not lave the house till it’s dhrunk, for there’s no thrustin’ yez together, you’re so hot-headed an’ ready to rise the hand,” said Darby.

M’Kenna and Mike, having been reconciled, appeared in a short time warmer friends than ever.  While the last bottle went round, those who had before been on the point of engaging in personal conflict, now laughed at their own foibles, and expressed the kindness and good-will which they felt for each other at heart.

“Now,” said the mendicant, “go all of you to mass, an’ as soon as you can, to confission, for it’s not good to have the broken oath an’ the sin of it over one.  Confiss it, an’ have your conscience light:  sure it’s a happiness that you can have the guilt taken off o’ yez, childher.”

“Thrue for you, Darby,” they replied; “an’ we’ll be thinkin’ of your advice.”

“Ay, do, childher; an’ there’s Father Hoolaghan comin’ down the road, so, in the name o’ Goodness, we haven’t a minnit to lose.”

They all left the shebeen-house as he spoke except Frank and himself, who remained until they had gone out of hearing.

“Darby,” said he, “I want you to come up to our house in the mornin’, an’ bring along wid you the things that you Stamp the crass upon the skin wid:  I’m goin’ to get the crucifix put upon me.  But on the paril o’ your life, don’t brathe a word of it to mortual.”

“God enable you, avick! it’s a good intintion.  I will indeed be up wid you—­airly too, wid a blessin’.  It is that, indeed—­a good intintion, sure enough.”

The parish chapel was about one hundred perches from the shebeen-house in which the “boys” had assembled; the latter were proceeding there in a body when Frank overtook them.

“Mike,” said he aside to Reillaghan, “we’ll have time enough—­walk back a bit; I’ll tell you what I’m thinkin’; you never seen in your life a finer day for thracin; what ’ud you say if we give the boys the slip, never heed mass, an’ set off to the mountains?”