“Well, Sheelah?—­”

“Well, yourself, Larry?  To the diouol I pitch your half acre, man.”

“To the diouol you—­pitch—­What do you fly at me for?”

“Who’s flyin’ at you?  They’d have little tow on their rock that ’ud fly at you.”

“You are flyin’ at me; an’ only you have a hard face, you wouldn’t do it.”

“A hard face!  Indeed it’s well come over wid us, to be tould that by the likes o’ you! ha!”

“No matther for that!  You had betther keep a soft tongue in your head, an’ a civil one, in the mane time.  Why did the divil timpt you to take a fancy to me at all?”

“That’s it.  Throw the grah an’ love I once had for you in my teeth, now.  It’s a manly thing for you to do, an’ you may be proud, of it.  Dear knows, it would be betther for me I had fell in consate wid any face but yours.”

“I wish to goodness you had!  I wouldn’t be as I am to-day.  There’s that half acre—­”

“To the diouol, I say, I pitch yourself an’ your half acre!  Why do you be comin’ acrass me wid your half acre?  Eh?—­why do you?”

“Come now; don’t be puttin’ your hands agin your sides, an waggin’ your impty head at me, like a rockin’ stone.”

“An’ why do you be aggravatin’ at me wid your half acre?”

“Bekase I have a good right to do it.  What’ll become of it when I d—­”

“——­That for you an’ it, you poor excuse!”

“When I di—­”

“——­That for you an’ it, I say!  That for you an’ it, you atomy!”

“What’ll become of my half acre when I die?  Did you hear that?”

“You ought to think of what’ll become of yourself, when you die; that’s what you ought to think of; but little it throubles you, you sinful reprobate!  Sure the neighbors despises you.”

“That’s falsity; but they know the life I lade wid you.  The edge of your tongue’s well known.  They pity me, for bein’ joined to the likes of you.  Your bad tongue’s all you’re good for.”

“Aren’t you afeard to be flyin’ in the face o’ Providence the way you are?  An’ to be ladin’ me sich a heart-scalded life for no rason?”

“It’s your own story you’re tellin’.  Sure I haven’t a day’s pace wid you, or ever had these three years.  But wait till next harvest, an’ if I’m spared, I’ll go to England.  Whin I do, I’ve a consate in my head, that you’ll never see my face agin.”

“Oh, you know that’s an’ ould story wid you.  Many a time you threatened us wid that afore.  Who knows but you’d be dhrowned on your way, an’ thin we’d get another husband.”

“An’ be these blessed tongs, I’ll do it afore I’m much oulder!”

“An’ lave me here to starve an’ sthruggle by myself!  Desart me like a villain, to poverty an’ hardship!  Marciful Mother of Heaven, look down upon me this day! but I’m the ill-thrated, an’ ill-used poor crathur, by a man that I don’t, an’ never did, desarve it from!  An’ all in regard that that ‘half acre’ must go to strangers!  Och! oh!”