“Could you not dry your shirt by the fire, John?  You will get cold wanting it.”

“Aha, by dad! it’s dhry enough now.  The divil has made tinder of it long afore this.”

“Why, what has happened to it?  I heard you washing all night.”

“Washing!  Faith, an’ I did scrub it till my hands were all ruined intirely, and thin I took the brush to it; but sorra a bit of the dirth could I get out of it.  The more I rubbed the blacker it got, until I had used up all the soap, and the perspiration was pouring off me like rain.  ‘You dirthy owld bit of a blackguard of a rag,’ says I, in an exthremity of rage, ’You’re not fit for the back of a dacent lad an’ a jintleman.  The divil may take ye to cover one of his imps;’ an’ wid that I sthirred up the fire, and sent it plump into the middle of the blaze.”

“And what will you do for a shirt?”

“Faith, do as many a betther man has done afore me, go widout.”

I looked up two old shirts of my husband’s, which John received with an ecstacy of delight.  He retired instantly to the stable, but soon returned, with as much of the linen breast of the garment displayed as his waistcoat would allow.  No peacock was ever prouder of his tail than the wild Irish lad was of the old shirt.

John had been treated very much like a spoiled child, and, like most spoiled children, he was rather fond of having his own way.  Moodie had set him to do something which was rather contrary to his own inclinations; he did not object to the task in words, for he was rarely saucy to his employers, but he left the following stave upon the table, written in pencil upon a scrap of paper torn from the back of an old letter:—­

  “A man alive, an ox may drive
    Unto a springing well;
  To make him drink, as he may think,
    No man can him compel.

“John Monaghan.”

THE EMIGRANT’S BRIDE

A Canadian ballad

  The waves that girt my native isle,
    The parting sunbeams tinged with red;
  And far to seaward, many a mile,
    A line of dazzling glory shed. 
  But, ah, upon that glowing track,
    No glance my aching eyeballs threw;
  As I my little bark steer’d back
    To bid my love a last adieu.

  Upon the shores of that lone bay,
    With folded arms the maiden stood;
  And watch’d the white sails wing their way
    Across the gently heaving flood. 
  The summer breeze her raven hair
    Swept lightly from her snowy brow;
  And there she stood, as pale and fair
    As the white foam that kiss’d my prow.

  My throbbing heart with grief swell’d high,
    A heavy tale was mine to tell;
  For once I shunn’d the beauteous eye,
    Whose glance on mine so fondly fell. 
  My hopeless message soon was sped,
    My father’s voice my suit denied;
  And I had promised not to wed,
    Against his wish, my island bride.