“Jemmy, you owe three half-year’s, rent; an’ as for the harvest an’ what it’ll bring, only jist look at the day that’s in it.  It goes to my heart to refuse you, poor man; but Jemmy, you see you have brought this on yourself.  If you had been an attentive, industrious man, an’ minded your religion, you wouldn’t be as you are now.  Six you have at home, you say?”

“Ay, not to speak of the woman; an’ myself.  I know you won’t, refuse them, Darby, bekase if we’re hard pushed now, it’s, a’most every body’s case as well as mine.  Be what I may, you know I’m honest.”

“I don’t doubt your honesty, Jemmy; but Jemmy, if I sell my meal to a man that can pay and won’t, or if I sell my meal to a man that would pay and can’t, by which do I lose most?  There it is, Jemmy—­think o’ that now.  Six in family, you say?”

“Six in family, wid the woman an’ myself.”

“The sorra man livin’ feels more for you than I do, an’ I would let you have the meal if I could; but the truth is, I’m makin’ up my rent—­an’ Jemmy, I lost so much last year by my foolish good nature, an’ I gave away so much on trust, that now I’m brought to a hard pass myself.  Troth I’ll fret enough this night for havin’ to refuse you.  I know it was rash of me to make the promise I did; but still, God forbid that ever any man should be able to throw it in my face, an’ say that Darby Skinadre ever broke his promise.”

“What promise?”

“Why, never to sell a pound of meal on trust.”

“God help us, then!—­for what to do or where to go I don’t know.”

“It goes to my heart, Jemmy, to refuse you—­six in family, an’ the two of yourselves.  Troth it does, to my very heart itself; but stay, maybe we may manage it.  You have no money, you say?”

“No money now, but won’t be so long, plaise God.”

“Well, but haven’t you value of any kind?—­:  sure, God help them, they can’t starve, poor cratures—­the Lord pity them!” Here he wiped away a drop of villainous rheum which ran down his cheek, and he did it with such an appearance of sympathy, that almost any one would have imagined it was a tear of compassion for the distresses of the poor man’s family.

“Oh! no, they can’t starve.  Have you no valuables of any kind, Jemmy!—­ne’er a baste now, or anything that way?”

“Why, there’s a young heifer; but I’m strugglin’ to keep it to help me in the rent.  I was obliged to sell my pig long ago, for I had no way of feedin’ it.”

“Well, bring me the heifer, Jemmy, an’ I won’t let the crathurs starve.  We’ll see what can be done when it comes here.  An’ now, Jemmy, let me ax if you wint to hear mass on last Sunday?”

“Troth I didn’t like to go in this trim.  Peggy has a web of frieze half made this good while; it’ll be finished some time, I hope.”

“Ah!  Jemmy, Jemmy, it’s no wondher the world’s the way it is, for indeed there’s little thought of God or religion in it.  You passed last Sunday like a haythen, an’ now you see how you stand to-day for the same.”