“The next Sunday we met at Althadhawan wood, and I’ll never forget what I felt when I was going to the green at St. Patrick’s Chair, where the boys and girls meet on Sunday; but there she was—­the bright eyes dancing:  with joy in her head to see me.  We spent the evening in the wood, till it was dusk—­I bating them all leaping, dancing, and throwing the stone; for, by my song, I thought I had the action of ten men in me; she looking on, and smiling like an angel, when I’d lave them miles behind me.  As it grew dusk, they all went home, except herself and me, and a few more who, maybe, had something of the same kind on hands.

“‘Well Mary,’ says I, ’acushla machree, it’s dark enough for us to go; and, in the name of God, let us be off.”

“The crathur looked into my face, and got pale—­for she was very young then:  ‘Shane,’ says she, and she thrimbled like an aspen lafe, ’I’m going to trust myself with—­you for ever—­for ever, Shane, avourueen,—­and her sweet voice broke into purty murmurs as she spoke; ’whether for happiness or sorrow God he only knows.  I can bear poverty and distress, sickness and want will’ you, but I can’t bear to think that you should ever forget to love me as you do now, or your heart should ever cool to me:  but I’m sure,’ says she, ’you’ll never forget this night—­and the solemn promises you made me, before God and the blessed skies above us.’

“We were sitting at the time under the shade of a rowan-tree, and I had only one answer to make—­I pulled her to my breast, where she laid her head and cried like a child with her cheek against mine.  My own eyes weren’t dry, although I felt no sorrow, but—­but—­I never forgot that night—­and I never will.”

He now paused a few minutes, being too much affected to proceed.

“Poor Shane,” said Nancy, in a whisper to Andy Morrow, “night and day he’s thinking about that woman; she’s now dead going on a year, and you would think by him, although he bears up very well before company that she died only yestherday—­but indeed it’s he that was always the kind-hearted, affectionate man; and a better husband never broke bread.”

“Well,” said Shane, resuming the story, and clearing his voice, “it’s great consolation to me, now that she’s gone, to think that I never broke the promise I made her that night; for as I tould you, except in regard to the duck-egg, a bitther word never passed between us.  I was in a passion then, for a wonder, and bent upon showing her that I was a dangerous man to provoke; so just to give her a spice of what I could do, I made Larry feel it—­and may God forgive me for raising my hand even then to her.  But sure he would be a brute that would beat such a woman except by proxy.  When it was clear dark we set off, and after crossing the country for two miles, reached my uncle’s, where a great many of my friends were expecting us.  As soon as we came to the door I struck it two or three times, for that was the sign, and my aunt came out, and taking Mary in her arms, kissed her, and, with a thousand welcomes, brought us both in.