“Why,” said the mother, “what a norration yez rise about thratin’ the boy as every one like him ought to be thrated.  Wait till ye see him a parish priest, and then yell be comin’ round him to get your daughters to keep house for him, and your sons edicated and made priests of; but now that the child takes a ginteel relish for beef and mutton, and wants to be respected, ye are mane an’ low spirited enough to grumble about it.”

“No mother,” said his youngest sister, bursting into tears, “I’d beg it for him, sooner nor he should want; but I can’t bear to be callin’ my brother Dinny—­sir—­like a stranger.  It looks as if I didn’t love him, or as if he was forgettin’ us, or carin’ less about us nor he used to do.”

This, in fact, was the root and ground of the opposition which Denis’s plan received at the hands of his relations; it repressed the cordial and affectionate intercourse which had hitherto subsisted between them; but the pride of life, and, what is more, the pride of an office which ought always to be associated with humility, had got into his heart; the vanity of learning, too, thin and shallow though it was, inflated him; and the effect of both was a gradual induration of feeling—­an habitual sense of his own importance, and a notion of supreme contempt for all who were more ignorant than himself.

After the first impression of pain and mortification had passed away from the minds of his brothers and sisters, it was, however, unanimously admitted that he was right; and ere long, no other feeling than one of good-humor, mingled with drollery, could be perceived among them.  They were clearly convinced, that he claimed no more from strangers than was due to him; but they certainly were not prepared to hear that he had brought the exactions of personal respect so completely and unexpectedly home to themselves as he had done.  The thing, too, along with being unreasonable, was awkward and embarrassing in the extreme; for there is a kind of feeling among brothers and sisters, which, though it cannot be described, is very trying to their delicacy and shamefacedness under circumstances of a similar nature.  In humble life you will see a married woman who cannot call her husband after his Christian name; or a husband, who, from some extraordinary restraint, cannot address his wife, except in that distant manner which the principle I allude to dictates, and habit confirms.

Denis, however, had overcome this modesty, and felt not a whit too shamefaced to arrogate to his own learning and character the most unhesitating manifestation of their deference and respect, and they soon scrupled not to pay it.

The night of that evening was pretty far advanced, when a neighbor’s son, named Condy Callaghan, came to inform the family, that Denis, when crossing the bog on his way home, had rode into a swamp, from which he found much difficulty in extricating himself, but added, “the mare is sunk to the saddle-skirts, and cannot get out widout men and ropes,” In a short time a sufficient number of the neighbors were summoned together, and proceeded to the animal’s relief.  Denny’s importance, as well as his black dress, was miserably tarnished; he stood, however, with as dignified an air as possible, and, in a bombastic style, proceeded to direct the men as to the best manner of relieving her.