“‘Why I’ve no rason to complain, thank God, and you,’ says the other; ‘how is yourself?’

“‘Well, thank you, Art:  how is the family?’

“’Faix, all stout except my father, that has got a touch of the toothache.  When did you hear from the Slevins?’

“‘Sally was down on Thursday last, and they’re all well, your soul.’

“‘Where’s Sally now?’

“’She’s just gone down to the big house for a pitcher of buttermilk; our cow won’t calve these three weeks to come, and she gets a sup of kitchen for the childher till then; won’t you take a sate, Art? but you had better have a care of yourself, for that stool wants a leg.’

“’I didn’t care she was within, for I brought a sup of my own stuff in my pocket,’ said Art.

“‘Here, Hurrish’ (he was called Horatio after one of the Square’s sons), ’fly down to the Square’s, and see what’s keeping your mother; the divil’s no match for her at staying out with herself wanst she’s from under the roof.’

“‘Let Dick go,’ says the little fellow, ’he’s betther able to go nor I am; he has got a coat on him.’

“‘Go yourself, when I bid you,’ says the father.

“‘Let him go,’ says Hurrish, ’you have no right to bid me to go, when he has a coat upon him:  you promised to ax one for me from Masther Francis, and you didn’t do it; so the divil a toe I’ll budge to-day,’ says he, getting betune the father and the door.

“‘Well, wait,’ says Larry, ’faix, only the strange man’s to the fore, and I don’t like to raise a hubbub, I’d pay you for making me such an answer.  Dick, agra, will you run down, like a good bouchal, to the big house, and tell your mother to come home, that there’s a strange man here wants her?’

“‘Twas Hurrish you bid,’ says Dick—­’and make him:  that’s the way he always thrates you—­does nothing that you bid him.’

“‘But you know, Dick,’ says the father, ’that he hasn’t a stitch to his back, and the crathur doesn’t like to go out in the cowld, and he so naked.’

“‘Well, you bid him go,’ says Dick, ’an let him; the sorrayard I’ll go—­the shinburnt spalpeen, that’s always the way with him; whatever he’s bid to do, he throws it on me, bekase, indeed, he has no coat; but he’ll folly Masther Thomas or Masther Francis through sleet and snow up the mountains when they’re fowling or tracing; he doesn’t care about a coat then.’

“‘Hurrish, you must go down for your mother when I bid you,’ says the weak man, turning again to the other boy.

“I’ll not,’ says the little fellow; ‘send Dick.’

“Larry said no more, but, laying down the child he had in his hands, upon the flure, makes at him; the lad, however, had the door of him, and was off beyant his reach like a shot.  He then turned into the house, and meeting Dick, felled him with a blow of his fist at the dresser.  ‘Tundher-an-ages, Larry,’ says Art, ’what has come over you at all at all? to knock down the gorsoon with such a blow! couldn’t you take a rod or a switch to him?—­Dher manhim, (* By my soul!) man, but I bleeve you’ve killed him outright,’ says he, lifting the boy, and striving to bring him to life.  Just at this minit Sally came in.