The Emigrants Of Ahadarra. William Carleton

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      Thank you, father—much obliged; you entertain a good opinion of me.”

      “Do I, faith? Don't be too sure of that.”

      “I've bought her at any rate,” said Hycy—“thirty-five's the figure; but she's a dead bargain at fifty.”

      “Bought her!” exclaimed the father; “an' how, in God's name, do you expect to pay for her?”

      “By an order on a very excellent, worthy man and gentleman-farmer—ycleped James Burke, Esquire—who has the honor of being father to that ornament of the barony, Hycy Burke, the accomplished. My worthy sire will fork out.”

      “If I do, that I may—”

      “Silence, poor creature!” said his wife, clapping her hand upon his mouth—“make no rash or vulgar oaths. Surely, Misther Burke—”

      “How often did I bid you not to misther me? Holy scrapers, am I to be misthered and pesthered this way, an' my name plane Jemmy Burke!”

      “You see, Hycy, the vulgarian will come out,” said his mother. “I say, Misther Burke, are you to see your son worse mounted at the Herringstown Hunt than any other gentleman among them? Have you no pride?

      “No, thank God! barin' that I'm an honest man an' no gentleman; an', as for Hycy, Rosha—”

      “Mrs. Burke, father, if you please,” interposed Hycy; “remember who your wife is at all events.”

      “Faith, Hycy, she'll come better off if I forget that same; but I tell you that instead of bein' the laughin'-stock of the same Hunt, it's betune the stilts of a plough you ought to be, or out in the fields keepin' the men to their business.”

      “I paid three guineas earnest money, at all events,” said the son; “but 'it matters not,' as the preacher says—

      “'When I was at home I was merry and frisky,

       My dad kept a pig and my mother sold whiskey'—

      Beg pardon, mother, no allusion—my word and honor none—to you I mean—

      “'My uncle was rich, but would never be aisy

       Till I was enlisted by Corporal Casey.'

      Fine times in the army, Mr. Burke, with every prospect of a speedy promotion. Mother, my stomach craves its matutinal supply—I'm in excellent condition for breakfast.”

      “It's ready. Jemmy, you'll—Misther Burke, I mane—you'll pay for Misther Hycy's mare.”

      “If I do—you'll live to see it, that's all. Give the boy his breakwhist.”

      “Thank you, worthy father—much obliged for your generosity—

      “'Oh, love is the soul of a nate Irishman

       He loves all that's lovely, loves all that he can,

       With his sprig of—'

      Ah, Peety Dhu, how are you, my worthy peripatetic? Why, this daughter of yours is getting quite a Hebe on our hands. Mrs. Burke, breakfast—breakfast, madam, as you love Hycy, the accomplished.” So saying, Hycy the accomplished proceeded to the parlor we have described, followed by his maternal relative, as he often called his mother.

      “Well, upon my word and honor, mother,” said the aforesaid Hycy, who knew and played upon his mother's weak points, “it is a sad thing to see such a woman as you are, married to a man who has neither the spirit nor feelings of a gentleman—my word and honor it is.”

      “I feel that, Hycy, but there's no help for spilt milk; we must only make the best of a bad bargain. Are you coming to your breakfast,” she shouted, calling to honest Jemmy, who still sat on the hob ruminating with a kind of placid vexation over his son's extravagance—“your tay's filled out!”

      “There let it,” he replied, “I'll have none of your plash to-day; I tuck my skinful of good stiff stirabout that's worth a shipload of it. Drink it yourselves—I'm no gintleman.”

      “Arrah, when did you find that out, Misther Burke?” she shouted back again.

      “To his friends and acquaintances it is anything but a recent disco very,” added Hycy; and each complimented the observation of the other with a hearty laugh, during which the object of it went out to the fields to join the men.

      “I'm afraid it's no go, mother,” proceeded the son, when breakfast was finished—“he won't stand it. Ah, if both my parents were of the same geometrical proportion, there would be little difficulty in this business; but upon my honor and reputation, my dear mother, I think between you and me that my father's a gross abstraction—a most substantial and ponderous apparition.”

      “An' didn't I know that an' say that too all along?” replied his mother, catching as much of the high English from him as she could manage: “however, lave the enumeration of the mare to me. It'll go hard or I'll get it out of him.”

      “It is done,” he replied; “your stratagetic powers are great, my dear mother, consequently it is left in your hands.”

      Hycy, whilst in the kitchen, cast his eye several times upon the handsome young daughter of Peety Dhu, a circumstance to which we owe the instance of benevolent patronage now about to be recorded.

      “Mother,” he proceeds, “I think it would be a charity to rescue that interesting little girl of Peety Dhu's from a life of mendicancy.”

      “From a what?” she asked, staring at him.

      “Why,” he replied, now really anxious to make himself understood—“from the disgraceful line of life he's bringin' her up to. You should take her in and provide for her.”

      “When I do, Hycy,” replied his mother, bridling, “it won't be a beggar's daughter nor a niece of Philip Hogan's—sorrow bit.”

      “As for her being a niece of Hogan's, you know it is by his mother's side; but wouldn't it be a feather in her cap to get under the protection of a highly respectable woman, though? The patronage of a person like you, Mrs. Burke, would be the making of her—my word and honor it would.”

      “Hem!—ahem!—do you think so, Hycy?”

      “Tut, mother—that indeed!—can there be a doubt about it?”

      “Well then, in that case, I think she may stay—that is, if the father will consent to it.”

      “Thank you, mother, for that example of protection and benevolence. I feel that all my virtues certainly proceed from your side of the house and are derived from yourself—there can be no doubt of that.”

      “Indeed I think so myself, Hycy, for where else would you get them? You have the M'Swiggin nose; an' it can't be from any one else you take your high notions. All you show of the gentleman, Hycy, it's not hard to name them you have it from, I believe.”

      “Spoken like a Sybil. Mother, within the whole range of my female acquaintances I don't know a woman that has in her СКАЧАТЬ