On hearing Mave Sullivan’s name mentioned, she started, and looked at her keenly, and for a considerable time; after which she asked for a drink of water, which she got in the kitchen, where she sat, as it seemed to rest a little.

Nelly, in the meantime, put her hand in a red, three-cornered pocket that hung by her side, and pulling out a piece of writing, presented it to the meal man.  That worthy gentleman, on casting his eye over it, read as follows: 

“Dear Skinadre:  Give Daniel M’Gowan, otherwise the Black Prophet, any quantity of meal necessary for his own family, which please charge, (and you know why,) to your friend,

“Dick o’ the Grange, Jun.”

Skinadre’s face, on perusing this document, was that of a man who felt himself pulled in different directions by something at once mortifying and pleasant.  He smiled at first, then bit his lips, winked one eye, then another; looked at the prophet’s wife with complacency, but immediately checked himself, and began to look keen and peevish.  This, however, appeared to be an error on the other side; and the consequence was, that, after some comical alterations, his countenance settled down into its usual expression.

“Troth,” said he, “that same Dick o’ the Grange, as he calls himself, is a quare young gintleman; as much male as you want—­a quare, mad—­your family’s small, I think?”

“But sharp an’ active,” she replied, with a hard smile, as of one who cared not for the mirth she made, “as far as we go.”

“Ay,” said he, abruptly, “divil a much—­God pardon me for swearin’—­ever they wor for good that had a large appetite.  It’s a bad sign of either man or woman.  There never was a villain hanged yet that didn’t ait more to his last breakfast than ever he did at a meal in his life before.  How-an-ever, one may as well have a friend; so I suppose, we must give you a thrifle.”

When her portion was weighed out, she and Mave Sullivan left this scene of extortion together, followed by the strange woman, who seemed, as it were, to watch their motions, or at least to feel some particular interest in them.

He had again resumed his place at the scales, and was about to proceed in his exactions, when the door opened, and a powerful young man, tall, big boned and broad shouldered, entered the room, leading or rather dragging with him the poor young-woman and her child, who had just left the place in such bitterness and affliction.  He was singularly handsome, and of such resolute and manly bearing, that it was impossible not to mark him as a person calculated to impress one with a strong anxiety to know who and what he might be.  On this occasion his cheek was blanched and his eye emitted a turbid fire, which could scarcely be determined as that of indignation or illness.

“Is it thrue,” he asked, “that you’ve dared to refuse to this—­this—­unfor—­is it thrue that you’ve dared to refuse this girl and her starvin’ father and mother the meal she wanted?  Is this thrue, you hard-hearted ould scoundrel?—­bekaise if it is, by the blessed sky above us, I’ll pull the wind-pipe out of you, you infernal miser!”