“Well,” said he, “has there been another battle? have you been ding dust at it as usual?  What’s wrong, Sally? eh?  Did it go to blows wid you, for you looked raised?”

“You’re all out of it,” replied Nelly; “her blood’s up, now, an’ I’m not prepared for a sudden death.  She’s dangerous this minute, an’ I’ll take care of her.  Blessed man, look at her eyes.”

She repeated these words with that kind of low, dogged ridicule and scorn which so frequently accompany stupid and wanton brutality; and which are, besides, provoking, almost beyond endurance, when the mind is chafed by a consideration of an exciting nature.

Sarah flew like lightning to the old knife, which we have already mentioned, and, snatching it from the shelf of the dresser, on which it lay, exclaimed: 

“I have now no earthly thought, nor any hope of good in this world, to keep my hand from evil; an’ for all ever you made me suffer, take this—­”

Her father had not yet sat down, and it was, indeed, well that he had not—­for it required all his activity and strength united, to intercept the meditated blow, by seizing his daughter’s arm.’

“Sarah,” said he, “what is this? are you mad, you murdhering jade, to attempt the vagabond’s life? for she is a vagabond, and an ill-tongued vagabond.  Why do you provoke the girl by sich language, you double-distilled ould sthrap? you do nothin’ but growl an’ snarl, an’ curse, an’ pray—­ay, pray, from mornin’ to night, in sich a way, that the very devil himself could not bear you, or live wid you.  Begone out o’ this, or I’ll let her at you, an’ I’ll engage she’ll give you what’ll settle you.”

Nelly rose, and putting on her cloak went out.

“I’m goin’,” she replied, looking at, and addressing the Prophet; “an’ plaise God, before long I’ll have the best wish o’ my heart fulfilled, by seein’ you hanged; but, until then, may my curse, an’ the curse o’ God light on you and pursue you.  I know you have tould her everything, or she wouldn’t act towards me as she has done of late.”

Sarah stood like the Pythoness, in a kind of savage beauty, with the knife firmly grasped in her hand.

“I’m glad she’s gone,” she said; “but it’s not her, father, that I ought to raise my hand against.”

“Who then, Sarah?” he asked, with something like surprise.

“You asked me,” she proceeded, “to assist in a plan to have Mave Sullivan carried off by young Dick o’ the Grange—­I’m now ready for anything, and I’ll do it.  This world, father, has nothing good or happy in it for me—­now I’ll be aquil to it; if it gives me nothing good, it’ll get nothing out of me.  I’ll give it blow for blow; kindness, good fortune, if it was to happen—­but it can’t now—­would soften me; but I know, I feel that ill-treatment, crosses, disappointments, an’ want of all hope in this life, has made, an’ will make me a devil—­ay, an’ oh! what a different girl I might be this day!”