If the women howled before, they double-howled then, and would have turned him out neck and crop, but my father lifted his head from where he was lying speechless in a kind of a fit at the foot of the bed, and says he, ’Barney Barton! ye knew the sweet lady that lies there long before that too brief privilege was mine.  Ye served her well, and ye’ve served me well for her sake; whatever ye ask for of hers in this hour ye’ll get, Barney Barton.  She trusted ye—­and I may.’  ‘GOD bless ye, squire,’ says Barney; and what does he do but go up to her and unloose the ribbon from her throat with his own hands.  And away he went with the crucifix, past the women that couldn’t get a sound out of them now, and past my father as silent as themselves, and into the room where I lay kicking up the devil’s own din in my cradle.  And when he held it up to me, with the light shining on the silver, and the black ribbons hanging down, never believe him if I didn’t stop squalling, and stretch out my hands with a smile as sweet as sunshine.  And Barney tied it round my neck, and took me into his arms.  And they said he spoke never a word when they told him my mother was dead, and shed never a tear when he saw her lie, but he sobbed his heart out over me.”

“You may well care for him!” said I.

“Indeed I may.  He kept my mother’s memory green in my heart, and he taught me all ever I knew but books.  He taught me to walk, and he taught me to ride, and shooting, and fishing, and such like country diversions; and strange to say, he taught me to swim, the way they learn in my mother’s country, with a bundle of bull-rushes—­for the old man couldn’t swim a stroke himself, or he might be here now, alive and hearty, please GOD.”

“Were there only you and he in the hooker?”

“That’s all.  It was altogether sheer madness, for the old boat was barely fit for a day’s fishing in fine weather, and though Barney nearly killed himself overhauling her, and patching her sails, I doubt if he knew very well what he was after.  I’ve been thinking, Jack, that his mind was not what it was.  He was always a bit obstinate, if he got a notion into his head, but of late the squire himself couldn’t turn him.  When he wanted to do a thing about the place that Barney didn’t approve, if he didn’t give in (as he was apt to do, being easy-tempered) I can tell ye he had to do it on the sly.  That was how he ordered the new ploughs that nearly broke Barney’s heart, both because of being new-fangled machines, and ready money having to be paid for them.  ’I’ll see the ould place ruined before ye come to your own, Master Dennis,’ he told me.  And—­Jack! that’s another thing makes me think what I tell ye.  He was for ever talking as if the place was coming to me, and I’ve two brothers older than myself, let alone my sister.  But ye might as well reason with the rock of Croagh Patrick!  Well, if he didn’t ask my father to let him and me run round in the hooker with a load of sea-weed for Tim Brady’s farm, and of course we got leave, and started as pleasant as could be; barring that if Barney’d been a year or two younger, there’d have been wigs on the green over the cold potatoes, before we got off.”