AN ACCOUNT SETTLED

AN ACCOUNT SETTLED

One wet autumn evening, Mr Natty Grogan was taking stock and making up his books with the assistance of his family. When thus occupied, the young Grogans were wont to complain that he would be trotting after them with dogs’ abuse from Billy to Jock, till you couldn’t tell where to have him; while he used to declare that the lot of them all together were more different kinds of fools than you’d find anywhere else in the breadth of Ireland, and so was their mother before them. She had died many years since and her husband was reported to have remarked that the event would save him a couple of shillings a week, anyway, for milk and chicken-broth. But it is fair to observe that unfeeling speeches were likely enough to be put into his mouth on this occasion—such was his character among his neighbours. They said that his wife had been “a very dacint poor woman, and a dale too good for any such an ould slieveen, and it was a pity all the childer, except, maybe, Andy, took after himself.”

For the present, however, popular disapproval of the Grogans was in abeyance, as almost everybody else had gone to bed and to sleep, so that Athcrum’s one wide street lay deserted and blank. It was a very wet evening, and the whitewashed house-fronts had an ample dado of mud splashes about their doors and lower windows, but they were all now muffled up in darkness. The Grogans’ late sitting threw no light on the outer gloom, for the battered shop-shutters were up, and business proceeded in the little back room, whence old Natty lit himself every now and then with a sweeling dip, to grope among his stock-in-trade in the adjoining shop. He accompanied these researches with dissatisfied grunts, rising occasionally into requests wrathfully shouted to his family, for an explanation of what he found or missed. They grimaced at one another, and sometimes whispered together before they complied with his demands—Nannie and Tom and Stevie, seated round the table, where the strong lamp-light flared in their faces. Their father, peering in at them from murky recesses behind the counter, half saw and half surmised these signals, which did not soothe his irritation.

“What at all’s gone wid the rest of the ten-pound tin of arrowroot biscuits?” he called suddenly. “It was better than three parts full last time I seen it, and, accordin’ to the accounts, there’s no right to be anythin’ out of it since then, but ne’er an atom have you left in it, on’y a dust of crumbs.”

“Belike they niver put down the last person had some,” suggested Tom, disassociating himself from the transaction with prompt presence of mind.

“And why the mischief didn’t you? Am I keepin’ the pack of yous foolin’ here to be slingin’ me goods about the parish, and not so much as take the trouble to scrawm it down? There’s not an infant child goin’ to school but ’d make a better offer at doin’ business.”

“It’s very apt to ha’ been Mrs Moriarty,” said Nannie, choosing to ignore this aspect of the matter; “she did be gettin’ them kind of things the time the childer was sick. We can aisy charge them to her.”

“Mrs Moriarty’s great-grandmother’s cat!” said her father. “You might as well save yourself the trouble—and there’s none readier—of chargin’ anythin’ to her these times. The people at the post-office was tellin’ me this mornin’ that the last American letter come for her, sorra the money-order was in it at all, except word of the daughter bein’ in hospital, and the husband out of work. It’s one while before she’ll be settlin her account. Howsome’er, charge the biscuits to her, and don’t be makin’ too free wid allowin’ her anythin’ else on credit. Whose bill’s that you’re makin’ out there, Stevie?”

“Yourself’s after biddin’ me get Dan Farrell’s,” Stevie replied.

“Ay, did I? It’s the best chance we have to be gettin’ anythin’ out of the man, and he wid his couple of bastes in at Kenmare fair yisterday. If we don’t look out sharp, his story’ll be that the agent took the price off him for rint. The divil mend the both of them for a pair of thievin’ villins! Sure Widdy Rourke below was tellin’ me she seen Dan diff’rint times comin’ out of Carmody’s as hearty as anythin’; and when’s he had a glass from us at all? Ah, musha! long life to him. A great notion he has to be spendin’ his ready money at Carmody’s, and we to be givin’ him credit for everythin’ else he happens to fancy. Plase the pigs, I’ll learn him the differ! What’s the amount he’s owin’? Eighteen shillin’? Then just set him down a couple of pound of them biscuits, or anythin’—the way there’ll be no bother wid change comin’ out of his note.”

“Biscuits he didn’t get, I’ll take me living oath,” said Stevie confidently.

“Keep your oaths till they’re axed for. ’Twas as apt to be biscuits as anythin’. And I’ll tell you what it is, me young shaver, you’ll step over to Farrell’s to-morra mornin’ and get the bill ped.” Old Natty gave these commands in a triumphant tone, meaning them to be a penalty for his son’s contumacious contradiction; and Stevie did say grumblingly—

“Troth and bedad, it’s nicely bogged a man’ll be thrampin’ them roads after these polthogues.”

But the young Grogans had a way of posing in aggrieved attitudes from motives of policy, and the commission was really much to Stevie’s mind, the office of collector being always in request among them, because it was endowed with what they called their chances. These consisted in a private lengthening of the bill by addition of sundry fictitious items, the price of which the inventor pocketed. Thus, on the present occasion, before Stevie went to bed he was careful to supplement Dan Farrell’s account with the following entries, which were purely efforts of imagination—

s. d.

Extry male 2 3

Shuger 1 0

Other extrys 1 9

Five shillings was an unusually large toll to levy in this way, but Stevie knew his man, and had little fear of failing to extract it; easy-going Dan would so certainly be loth to “get argufyin’ and risin’ ructions.”

Next morning, Stevie started betimes on his two-mile walk. The raindrops had only just ceased pricking the wide, continuous puddle, which lent a Venetian aspect to the main street, and sounds of gurgling and dripping were audible all around, as if everything were talking over the late downpour. When Stevie faced towards the purple mountain range, in the direction of which lay Dan Farrell’s, he saw the pale mists creeping along the ridges, and writhing up the ravines, and swirling in the curved hollows, and the air had the breath of autumnal chill that comes with rain in harvest time. Water gleamed greyly from the furrows of every little field that he passed, and he passed scores of them before he reached the river bridge, where he was within a few perches of his goal. He might have taken a shorter route, but it included a swampy patch and the passage of some stepping-stones, for which he considered the state of affairs “too soft altogether”; and he therefore kept upon comparatively dry land. The dryness was very comparative indeed all over Dan Farrell’s little holding, which occupied the entrance to a winding green glen, where both stream and hillside curved suddenly, leaving a triangular bit of level ground. During the past night, however, this had undergone an abrupt change of contour, as the swollen river had flung an impetuous arm across it, islanding its apex and rejoining the main stream, turbid with melted clods and tangled with wisps of drowned green oats.

When Stevie came to the bridge, Dan Farrell himself was standing up to his knees in the soaked grain by the water’s edge and thinking of his bad luck, without any presentiment that more was on its way. He was a tall, black-bearded man, and had been a gaunt and grizzled one ever since a virulent attack of rheumatism last spring had changed him from middle-aged to elderly in a few racking weeks. This illness had brought Sarah Tighe, his sister’s daughter, from her home in Athcrum to nurse him and manage his forlorn household, for Dan had lately been left a widower, and his four children were incapably small. Sarah was now calling to him from the door to the effect that he hadn’t as much sense as little Bobby, or else he’d come in out of streeling through them oats, and they as wet as the waves of the say, unless maybe he’d a mind to have himself bawling for the next month with the pains in his bones. But Dan turned a bothered ear to her warnings, until she added—

“And if here isn’t one of the young Grogans slingein’ along over the bridge.”

Then the recollection of his growing account at the shop started out from the misty background of his troubles, and took up a commanding position in the forefront. He cast a glance of listless despondency on the flooded field and turbulent river, and began to walk slowly up the plashy furrow towards his house, set in motion by a vague sense that it was more fitting for him than for his niece to receive young Grogan. By the time he reached the door, Stevie was already there talking to Sarah, a plump young woman, whose colouring suggested an autumn hedgerow, with gleams of ruddy berries and black, and warm brown leaves. She was naturally conversational and vivacious, but it may be feared that her consciousness of Brian Mahony inside there disapproving of the colloquy led her to carry it on with increased animation. Had nobody been by to mind, Mr Stephen Grogan might have received a welcome more in accordance with Sarah’s own private opinion of him, which was low. When her uncle came up, she stood demurely aside, and waited while his health was inquired after and the weather bewailed. Then Stevie asked—

“And what way was the fair a’ Tuesday?”

“As bad as anythin’ at all,” said Dan, “onless you was to be payin’ the dalers to take your bastes off you for a complimint.”

“But you’re after selling a couple?” said Stevie.

“Och, did I—and what’s four pound ten to git for a grand little heifer, and she a rael dexter, if you was to be tired swearin’ agin it? Worth three times the money she’d ha’ been to me, if I could ha’ held on to her a sixmonth longer.”

“Sure, now, it’s you farmers that are the rich people, makin’ nothin’ of pound notes at that rate,” said Stevie, laughing with a sort of uneasy jocularity. Dan knew quite well what was coming, before the other went on, “So as I was passin’ this way, I just looked in wid our bit of account, Misther Farrell; it’s been runnin’ this good while now.”

“Ay, bedad,” Dan assented dejectedly, “will you be steppin’ inside?”

Inside reigned a brownish twilight, and the corners were all rounded off with smoke-haze. One of them was occupied by Brian Mahony, a neighbour of the Farrells, who, since Dan’s illness, had often come in to lend him a hand. This morning he had undertaken the repairs of a turf-creel. He was a powerful-looking young man, with a shock of chestnut hair and tawny tufts and frills about his face, which just then wore a glum expression, misliking the entrance of Stevie Grogan. His dissatisfaction caused him to appear deeply absorbed in his task, and to discuss it with the little Farrells, who stood around to watch his splicing and weaving. They were unsuspectingly flattered by his unusual disposition to consult them, and they favoured him with much criticism and advice.

“Sit you down, man, and warm yourself,” said Dan, taking the glazy blue paper which young Grogan had extracted from a thin pocket-book bound in black American cloth, and tied round with frayed strings of pink tape. “I’m afeard we haven’t e’en a sup of anythin’ in the house.”

As Stevie seated himself near the circle of glowing sods, Dan carried his bill over to the window, that the light of its one deep-set pane might assist his somewhat feeble scholarship in spelling out the items. Many of them baffled him completely, but the grand total of one pound five shillings appeared with cruel distinctness, and caused him serious dismay. He had been prepared for a sum that would make a very large hole in one of his few precious notes, and even this prospect was grievous. But the demand for a whole note, body and bones, and some silver too, came as an unexpected stroke. His hands shook as he held the paper to the light, obscured by the leaves of a straggling geranium plant, and he felt bitterly convinced that he was being cheated. Manners, however, would not permit him to enter any protest beyond saying to his niece—

“Musha, Sally, it’s a terrible sight of sugar you seem to ha’ been usin’.”

Upon this Stevie of course said—

“And I’m sure she doesn’t want it, anyway,”—smirking gallantly at Sarah, who had sat down in the adjacent chimney-corner and taken up her strip of lace-work.

“Won’erful fine talk you have,” said Sarah.

“And divil a word but the truth, talkin’ of you,” rejoined Stevie, sidling a little nearer to her along his rickety-legged bench.

Sarah replied by making a threatening demonstration with her needle, which caused her frail thread to snap.

“There now, you have it broke on me,” she said, “and sorra the bit of you’s worth the throuble of tyin’ a knot.”

“Ah now, don’t say so, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said insinuatingly. “That’s an iligant little pattron you have been doin’, oncommon tasty. We have some thread-lace edgin’ at our place that I declare isn’t a ha’porth better, and it comes to as much as thruppence a yard.” He intended the highest compliment, but did only plunge himself the deeper into the depths of her disfavour by thus evening her delicate point to his coarse, machine-made wares. She chose, however, for the time being, to dissemble her wrath against him, because she was angrier with Brian Mahony for his persistence in evidently ignoring her flirtation, and keeping up an unconcerned chatter addressed to the children. So she accepted Stevie’s offer to join the broken thread for her, and was coquettishly derisive of his clumsy-fingered failures, with much tittering and ostentatious enjoyment of the situation; and, in like manner, Brian worked away at the ragged-rimmed creel, and only desisted occasionally to scuffle sportively with Jimmy or Biddy for the possession of a long supple osier. Nobody could suppose him to care a thraneen what Sarah and the chap from Grogan’s found so amusing. He had something else to do than to be botherin’ his head about them.

Meanwhile the master of the house was performing his part—a sad one—in the small drama. He lifted a brown earthenware teapot out of its niche in the mud wall projecting beside the hearth. Its removal discovered the opening of another recess, whence he drew a rough deal box with a broken lid. In this the Farrells apparently stored miscellaneous valuables, for it contained a little roll of bank-notes, a grey flannel bag with silver in it, an old prayer-book that had belonged to Mrs Farrell, some spools of cotton, and so forth. Dan slowly peeled off one of the begrimed Munster notes, and, pre-occupied with regretful calculations, he forgot the shillings which were due, and restored box and teapot to their places. Then he laid down the note on the window-seat, spread out the bluish bill beside it, and stood smoothing both bits of paper with the palm of his hand.

“There’s that,” he said.

“Sure, I’ll be signin’ the resate,” said Stevie, jumping up with alacrity, and producing his shiny black pocket-book and red chalk pencil. But he came to a pause as he noticed the absence of the silver. He looked interrogatively at Dan. The man’s careworn, broken-down aspect, his lined face and tattered garments gave his creditor a conscience-stricken twinge, and for an instant suggested the possibility of renouncing that toll. Stevie, however, quickly ascertained that this was too much to expect from himself; the sum would come in just then too handily to be forgone, and he compromised the matter by resolving to see that the Farrells were let off easily in their next account. Future generosity is always easier than present justice, especially when the postponed virtue can be practised at somebody else’s expense. So—

“There was thim five shillin’s comin’ to us,” said Stevie, continuing to look at Dan.

“Och, murder, tubbe sure there was. It’s meself’s the gaby,” said Dan disconcertedly; and he went towards the niche to rectify his blunder, but he was interrupted by his niece.

“Sure I’ll fetch it out, Uncle Dan,” she said. “It’s throublesome for you to be stoopin’. Mr Grogan can be puttin’ his name on the account.”

She fumbled for a few moments in the box, and came over to the window with a large silver coin in her hand. It was a crown-piece, which, although it bore the stamp of the fourth George, still retained its sturdy thickness and bold outlines unimpaired, as if it had changed owners slowly. Around this she was wrapping a bit of crumpled, thin paper, perceiving which her uncle said—

“Sure, girl alive, I’ve got the note here right enough.”

“But it’s my belief ’twas the dirtiest one you had that you sorted out,” replied Sarah promptly. “Now I’ve found him a dacint clane one; and I’m sure you’d a dale liefer be takin’ it wid you, Mr Grogan?”

“’Deed you may depind upon that, Miss Tighe,” Stevie said, with an elated smirk; “and hard-set I’ll be to part wid it, when I consider how you put yourself about to be pickin’ and choosin’ for me.”

Here Brian Mahony abruptly threw down his creel and flung out of the house, with a scowl which did not escape Sarah’s observation. It did not please her, somehow, any better than his previous air of unconcern, whence we may infer that her mood was capricious and contrary. Stevie Grogan, at any rate, presently had reason to think it so, and a flatness and tartness came over the conversation, not inviting him to prolong his visit. After three snubs—

“The day’s darkenin’ again,” he said, “and I’ll be getting along afore there’s another plump of rain.” He took leave of Dan, who was reflecting sorrowfully how much poorer a man the last half-hour had made him, and went to the door, accompanied by Sarah. “Bedad!” he said, glancing around, “I think the sthrame looks to have quieted itself a goodish bit. I might be steppin’ across them stones, it saves better than a mile when you get into the bog over yonder.”

It is possible that Stevie was determined to adopt this course less by the aspect of the river than by a glimpse which he at that moment had had of Brian lounging moodily upon the bridge where he must otherwise pass. But if that were the case, his plan failed of its purpose. For as he walked through the tangled oats followed by Sarah, who had bethought her of a message to give him for her mother, Brian espied them, and immediately descended from the bridge and made for the ford along the river’s bank. He could not resist the spell which drew him to every opportunity of tormenting himself by witnessing what his jealous mind regarded as Sarah’s marked preference for young Grogan, and he sped so recklessly, stumbling and tripping over wisps of weeds and grass, that he reached the stepping-stones just as the others did.

On this occasion, however, his feelings were not to be harrowed by the display of much sentiment or facetiousness at leave-taking, as it was drowned in a sudden burst of rain, which made Sarah pull her fringed shawl into deep eaves over her face, and gasp out with ducked head—

“Och, mercy on us, here’s polthogues—I must run for me life, and you’d best step out, Stevie Grogan, or you’ll be bogged entirely before you get home.”

Thus exhorted, Stevie began hurriedly to stride from stone to stone. In one hand he held the shiny pocket-book, and with the other he clutched the brim of his black felt hat, which a rising gust momentarily threatened to whisk away. He was nearly half over, when the wind came swooping past in a furious flurry, and at the same time a thicker coil of the brown river-water broke on the stones, making one on which he had just set his foot wobble violently. The consequence was that he stumbled badly, only keeping his balance by a headlong plunge forward with outspread arms; and not till he had floundered on to the opposite bank did he perceive that his hat and book were both missing. His hat, after a high-whirled flight, lit on the rapid stream, and went skimming down it without let or hindrance, while his more precious book described a parabolic curve in the air, and dropped into the water near the place where Brian and Sarah stood. For a moment it lay on the surface, and Brian, leaning over at a dangerous angle, tried to reach it with his long osier rod. Upon which Sarah, gripping him by the arm, pulled him back with all her might, saying in an agonised tone:

“Och, goodness gracious, man, get out of that, and let it be!” But even as she spoke, the black cover, weighed down, no doubt, by the filched crown-piece, sunk out of sight and was no more seen. A few seconds later, however, the rough brown eddies a little lower down became strewn with small flecks whiter than the creamy foam. Evidently the strings and covers had collapsed, and let their frail contents go to wrack.

“Sure it’s every bit of it flitthered into laves,” said Sarah, releasing Brian’s arm; “niver sight nor light of it he’ll get the chance to lay eyes on agin, note or no note.” The tone in which she announced this fact was both relieved and triumphant. As for the owner of that perishing property, he stood on the opposite bank, bareheaded in the pelting rain, discontented and woe-begone, an object to move pity. But Sarah added: “And the divil’s cure to him, the thievin’ slieveen. We’ve got the resate off him all right any way.”

Brian, on the contrary, now took off his own limp cloth cap, crumpled it round a great shingle stone for ballast, and flung it across to Stevie.

“Clap that on your head, and be leggin’ it home wid you, if you’ll take my advice,” he shouted against the wind; “you’ll get nothin’, unless it’s your death of could, standin’ there in the rain. Belike we might be some odd chance get the five shillin’ piece at the bottom, when the river goes down, but them bits of papers is past prayin’ for intirely.” This seemed obvious even to the unwillingly convinced Stevie, and he started dolefully through the driving rain, half-blinded by it and the descending peak of Brian’s too roomy cap. The others raced home under much less trying circumstances, and were speedily sheltered beneath Dan Farrell’s thatch.

Sarah took her strip of lace-work, and sat down with it in the brighter patch by the window. She was filling in the centre of a fantastic blossom with a pattern which seemed to have been suggested by the dewy web of some long-legged spinner hitched from blade point to point. Brian Mahony fetched his creel and osiers out of the corner, and stood opposite to her, busy with his coarse weaving. Now and then he looked at her complacently as she stooped over her fine stitches, and for some time neither of them spoke. At last Brian said—

“That was a fine fright I’m after giving you down there, Sarah. You have the sleeve nearly rieved out of my ould coat. Was it dhrowndin’ meself you thought I’d be that you took such a hould of me?”

“Dhrowndin’ himself? Frightenin’ me? Musha good gracious, what talk has the man out of him at all?” Sarah said with shrill ejaculation. “Bedad, if that was all that ailed the likes of you, I’d ha’ had somethin’ better to be at than throublin’ myself to interfere wid you. But afeared I was that you’d be hookin’ that chap’s ould book ashore on us; thryin’ your best you were to do that fool’s thrick.”

“And what for wouldn’t I be saving it if I could?” said Brian, partly consoled for the unflattering explanation of his solicitude by the animosity of her tone when she mentioned that chap; “sure, onst the money was ped away, you were nothin’ the betther for it goin’ to loss.”

“That’s all you know about it,” said Sarah, with mysterious glee. She glanced round to see whether her uncle by the hearth were listening, and as he appeared to be half-asleep, she went on in a lower tone: “Why, look here, Brian—sure that grand clane pound-note I let on to be sortin’ out for him, ne’er a note it was at all, but just an ould bit of the silver-paper pattron I had workin’ me lace from; when it’s crumpled up and creased like, it looks the very moral of one, and the great gomeral stuck it into his book widout takin’ the throuble of unfoldin’ it, be good luck.”

“And what at all did you do that for?” asked Brian after a puzzled pause.

“What for?” said Sarah, “sure in the first beginnin’ of it ’twas just to be risin’ a laugh on him; that was all the notion I had. It come in me head when I was lookin’ for the shillin’s, and seen the thin paper there. But afterwards, when he tuk and put it up widout mindin’, thinks I to myself, I’ll ha’ given him a good long thramp over it anyway; it’s back he’ll be thrapesin’ to-morra or next day to get the right one, in a fine fantigue. But now when he’s slung the whole affair into the wather, so as nobody’ll be the wiser what was in th’ ould pocket-book and what wasn’t, that’s the greatest chance could ha’ happened, and we wid the resate signed and all, the way he can’t say a word agin us. It’s as good as a pound saved to me uncle, poor man, that’s annoyed enough wid his bit of harvest ruinated and everythin’. And you doin’ your endeavours to destroy it all wid fishin’ the book out; small blame to me if I’d pulled the fool’s arm off of you, let alone your ould sleeve.”

“It was no thing to go do,” said Brian gruffly, “to be playin’ them sort of thricks.”

“Sorra the ha’porth of harm was there in it,” Sarah replied airily; “and considerin’ that whatever he got’s swallied up in the river, ’twould ha’ been a cruel pity if we’d gave him anythin’ betther.”

“You’d a right to be sendin’ him the rael note now,” said Brian with decision.

“Saints above! Whethen now, I hope you’ll get your health until I do,” said Sarah, with a shrillness subdued by her uncle’s proximity. “That’d be a nice piece of foolery. Why, you sthookawn, the young slieveen’s no worse off this minute than he would ha’ been if I was after givin’ him a five-pound note to drop out of his hand.”

“You got the resate off of him for nothin’ at all,” said Brian; “he’s never been ped. And the river makes no differ. How would it, when he hadn’t anythin’ of yours to lose in it?”

“That’s just what I’m sayin’. It makes no odds to him; he’d ha’ lost it whether or no. And for the matther of that, he’s been ped times and again for anythin’ Uncle Dan ever got from them, poor man; for them Grogans are notorious thieves, as everybody well knows. Me sister was tellin’ us the other day, they charge three shillin’s a pound for tay that’s on’y eighteen-pence in Dublin. It’s a charity to let them have a taste of chatin’ for themselves. Not that we’re chatin’ them at all at all, it so happens.”

Brian listened quite unimpressed, having no turn for casuistry. He now condescended, however, to urge an objection based upon the expedient.

“And what’ll your uncle say to it, when he finds he’s got a pound too much?”

“I was thinkin’ of that,” said Sarah, nowise disconcerted. “Belike I could persuade him he miscounted them at the fair. But I dare say ’twould be better if I just slipt one off the roll, and kep’ it to get odds and ends of things wid for him, accordin’ as they would be wanted, and never let on about it. Och, no fear, but I’ll conthrive one way or the other.”

“Ay, bedad; it seems to me that you’re great at conthrivin’ and schemin’,” said Brian bitterly. “I’ve as good a mind as ever I had in me life to tell him the whole affair.”

“And if you offer to do such a thing on me, you ould clashbag, you!” Sarah said in a furious whisper, “sorra a word I’ll spake to you agin as long as I live in the world.”

“Faix, then, perhaps I won’t be throublin’ meself to ax you in a hurry,” retorted Brian, “when the on’y talk people has out of them is tellin’ lies and makin’ fools of everybody. My notion is, the fewer words they spake to you, the luckier you’ll be.”

“Plase yourself, and you’ll plase me,” said Sarah, with an assumption of calm indifference, which would have been more successfully achieved if she had not flushed to the scarlet of a frost-nipt brier leaf, besides adding inconsistently, “I’d liefer hear the pigs gruntin’ in the ould stye than to be listenin’ to some people gabbin’ and blatherin’.”

“And plenty good enough company they are, too, poor bastes, for the likes of some I could name—and long sorry I’d be to stop anywheres I wasn’t wanted, wastin’ me time mendin’ things, and gettin’ imperance for it—and one while it’ll be afore you’ll have raison to complain of me disturbin’ you,” said Brian, whose wrath had flared up even more ruddily than hers. And thereupon he bolted away into the rain, without waiting to borrow the loan of Dan’s hat. At which Sarah through all her huff, stood somewhat aghast, knowing that for a man to go out of doors bareheaded argues no ordinary perturbation of spirit.

After this there were many more wet days, and a few golden fine ones, and the harvest was got in one way or the other, and the winter came, and Sarah Tighe went home to live with her family at Athcrum, and finished her fine lace border. But she and Brian did not meet again. At last, one bright, frosty morning, not long before Christmas, they ran against each other coming round the corner of the row in which the little post-office stands. Sarah was so startled that for a moment or two she halted, irresolute, ere she recollected that it behoved her to flounce past him with up-tilted chin. She was just proceeding to do so, when he twitched her shawl, and said, in an expostulatory tone—

“Och now, Sarah, is it cross wid me ye’re goin’ to be all this time?”

“It isn’t me that’s cross wid anybody at all,” said Sarah, subsiding lamentably from her dignified attitude.

“Sure then,” said Brian, “I was on’y wantin’ to tell you what I’ve done about that pound-note was owin’ to the Grogans. Sooner than that you’d have anythin’—anythin’ quare-like on your conscience, I’ve saved up, and sent it to th’ ould miscreant in a letter. So it can’t come agin you now anyway. I’m just after postin’ it this minute.”

“Och, murdher! and are you so?” said Sarah, with an accent of the keenest regret. “And weren’t you the gomeral to not tell me that last week?”

“And I on’y droppin’ it in the letter-box this instiant of time?” said Brian. “But at all events, what differ’d that have made?”

“Differ enough,” said Sarah ruefully. “You see, the fact of the matter was, when I come to considher, I didn’t know but the ould naygur Grogan had a right to that pound-note after all; so last week, when I sold me flounce of deep lace for thirty shillin’s, I got an order, and put it in a cover, and sent it to ould Natty himself. I wasn’t goin’ to let that young thief of the world, Stevie, be layin’ one of his greasy fingers on it, anyhow; and even so I thought badly enough of postin’ it away. For now the winter’s comin’ on us, there was a dale of things I’d liefer ha’ done wid it.”

“Begorra, that’s the very same way it was wid me just now,” said Brian.

“Maybe the post-mistress’d give it back to you, if you thried,” suggested Sarah. “She couldn’t hardly ha’ done anythin’ wid the letters yet.”

“Sorra a thry I’ll thry,” said Brian, with decision. “Sure I wasn’t manin’ to say that I begrudged it e’er a bit, Sally, when it was settin’ things straight for you, acushla.”

“Ah, but to think of payin’ them twyste over—that’s what distresses me,” said Sarah, who did not, however, look inconsolable. “’Deed, now, we managed it finely, Brian; I’m afeard that you and I are a great pair of fools.”

But Brian replied with complacent promptitude, “True for you, then, Sally, machree; that’s just the way it is. Fools we are, very belike, and a pair we are for sartin. Och now, honey, be aisy; sure ’twas yourself said it. And maybe we’ll do all as well as if we’d had more wit. It’s continted I am, anyway. Ay, bedad, a pair of fools—but them Grogans are welcome to their couple of pounds.”