“Well, Margaret Murray,” said he, “I believe you are now nearly as badly off as you can be; your husband’s past hope, and you are as low as a human bein’ ever was.  I’m now satisfied; you refused to marry me—­you made a May-game of me—­a laughin’ stock of me, and your father tould my father that I had legs like reapin’ hooks!  Now, from the day you refused to marry me, I swore I’d never die till I’d have my revinge, and I have it; who has the laugh now, Margaret Murray?”

“You say,” she replied calmly, “that I am as low as a human bein’ can be, but that’s false, Toal Finnigan, for I thank God I have committed no crime, and my name is pure and good, which is more than any one can say for you; begone from my place.”

“I will,” he replied, “but before I go jist let me tell you, that I have the satisfaction to know that, if I’m not much mistaken, it was I that was the principal means of leavin’ you as you are, and your respectable husband as he is; so my blessin’ be wid you, an that’s more than your father left you.  Raipin’ hooks, indeed!”

The little vile Brownie then disappeared.

Margaret, the moment he was gone, immediately turned round, and going to her knees, leaned, with her half-cold infant still in her arms, against a creaking chair, and prayed with as much earnestness as a distracted heart permitted her.  The little ones, at her desire, also knelt, and in a few minutes afterwards, when her drunken husband came home, he found his miserable family, grouped as they were in their misery, worshipping God in their own simple and touching manner.  His entrance disturbed them, for Margaret knew she must go through the usual ordeal to which his nightly return was certain to expose her.

“I want something to ait,” said he.

“Art, dear,” she replied—­and this was the worst word she ever uttered against him—­“Art, dear, I have nothing for you till by an’ by; but I will then.”

“Have you any money?”

“Money, Art! oh, where would I get it?  If I had money I wouldn’t be without something’ for you to eat, or the childre here that tasted nothin’ since airly this mornin’.”

“Ah, you’re a cursed useless wife,” he replied, “you brought nothin’ but bad luck to me an’ them; but how could you bring anything else, when you didn’t get your father’s blessin’.”

“But, Art, don’t you remember,” she said meekly in reply, “you surely can’t forget for whose sake I lost it.”

“Well, he’s fizzin’ now, the hard-hearted ould scoundrel, for keepin’ it from you; he forgot who you wor married to, the extortin’ ould vagabone—­to one of the great Fermanagh Maguires, an’ he’ not fit to wipe their shoes.  The curse o’ heaven upon you an’ him, wherever he is!  It was an unlucky day to me I ever seen the face of one of you—­here, Atty, I’ve some money; some strange fellow at the inn below stood to me for the price of a naggin, an’ that blasted Barney Scaddhan wouldn’t let me in, bekase, he said, I was a disgrace to his house, the scoundrel.”