“And so you call my son a leprechaun, and he has legs like raipin’ hooks!”

“Ha, ha, ha!  Come in, man alive; never mind little Toal.”

“Like raipin’ hooks!  I’ll tell you what, Jemmy, I say now in sincerity, that there is every prospect of a plentiful sayson; and that there may, I pray God this day; meadows an’ all—­O above all, the meadows, for I’m not in the hay business myself.”

“So,” said Murray, laughing, “you would cut off your nose to vex your face.”

“I would any day, even if should suffer myself by it; and now good-bye, Jemmy Murray, to the dioual I pitch the whole thing!  Rapin’ hooks!” And as he spoke, off went the furious little extortioner, irretrievably offended.

The subject of Margaret’s marriage, however, was on that precise period one on which her father and friends had felt and expressed much concern.  Many proposals had been made for her hand during Art’s apprenticeship; but each and all not only without success, but without either hope or encouragement.  Her family were surprised and grieved at this, and the more so, because they could not divine the cause of it.  Upon the subject of her attachment to Maguire, she not only preserved an inviolable silence herself, but exacted a solemn promise from her lover that he should not disclose it to any human being.  Her motive, she said, for keeping their affection and engagement to each other secret, was to avoid being harassed at home by her friends and family, who, being once aware of the relation in which she stood towards Art, would naturally give her little peace.  She knew very well that her relations would not consent to such a union, and, in point of mere prudence and forethought, her conduct was right, for she certainly avoided much intemperate remonstrance, as afterwards proved to be the case when she mentioned it.  Her father on this occasion having amused them at home by relating the tift which had taken place between Cooney Finnigan and himself, which was received with abundant mirth by them all, especially by Margaret, seriously introduced the subject of her marriage, and of a recent proposal which had been made to her.

“You are the only unmarried girl we have left now,” he said, “and surely you ought neither to be too proud nor too saucy to refuse such a match as Mark Hanratty—­a young man in as thrivin’ a business as there is in all Ballykeerin; hasn’t he a good shop, good business, and a good back of friends in the country that will stand to him, an’ only see how he has thruv these last couple o’ years.  What’s come over you at all? or do you ever intend to marry? you have refused every one for so far widout either rhyme or raison.  Why, Peggy, what father’s timper could stand this work?”

“Ha, ha, ha! like raipin’ hooks, father—­an’ so the little red rogue couldn’t bear that? well, at all events, the comparison’s a good one—­sorra better; ha, ha, ha—­reapin’ hooks!”

“Is that the answer you have for me?”