“Frank, if any one of her family was to abuse me till the dogs wouldn’t lick my blood, I’d only give them back good for evil afther that.  Oh, Frank, that goes to my heart!  To put a head-stone over my weeny goolden-haired darlin’, for the sake of the little thrifles I sarved thim in!  Well! may none belongin’ to her ever know poverty or hardship! but if they do, an’ that I have it——­How-an’-iver, no matther.  God bless thim!  God bless thim!  Wait till Kathleen hears it!”

“An’ the best of it was, Owen, that she never expected to see one of your faces.  But, Owen, you think too much about that child.  Let us talk about something else.  You’ve seen Tubber Derg wanst more?”

“I did; an’ I love it still, in spite of the state it’s in.”

“Ah! it’s different from what it was in your happy days.  I was spakin’ to Bridget about the farm, an’ she advises us to go, widout losin’ a minute, an’ take it if we can.”

“It’s near this place I’ll die, Frank.  I’d not rest in my grave if I wasn’t berrid among my own; so we’ll take the farm if possible.”

“Well, then, Bridget, hurry the breakfast, avourneen; an’ in the name o’ goodness, we’ll set out, an’ clinch the business this very day.”

Owen, as we said, was prompt in following up his determinations.  After breakfast they saw the agent and his father, for both lived together.  Old Rogerson had been intimately acquainted with the M’Carthys, and, as Frank had anticipated, used his influence with the agent in procuring for the son of his old friend and acquaintance the farm which he sought.

“Jack,” said the old gentleman, “you don’t probably know the history and character of the Tubber Derg M’Carthys so well as I do.  No man ever required the written bond of a M’Carthy; and it was said of them, and is said still, that the widow and orphan, the poor man or the stranger, never sought their assistance in vain.  I, myself, will go security, if necessary, for Owen M’Carthy.”

“Sir,” replied Owen, “I’m thankful to you; I’m grateful to you.  But I wouldn’t take the farm, or bid for it at all, unless I could bring forrid enough to stock it as I wish, an’ to lay in all that’s wantin’ to work it well.  It ’ud be useless for me to take it—­to struggle a year or two—­impoverish the land—­an’ thin run away out of it.  No, no; I have what’ll put me upon it wid dacency an’ comfort.”

“Then, since my father has taken such an interest in you, M’Carthy, you must have the farm.  We shall get leases prepared, and the business completed in a few days; for I go to Dublin on this day week.  Father, I now remember the character of this family; and I remember, too, the sympathy which was felt for one of them, who was harshly ejected about seventeen or eighteen years ago, out of the lands on which his forefathers had lived, I understand, for centuries.”

“I am that man, sir,” returned Owen.  “It’s too long a story to tell now; but it was only out o’ part of the lands, sir, that I was put.  What I held was but a poor patch compared to what the family held in my grandfather’s time.  A great part of it went out of our hands at his death.”