"Not Betsy Cane! why she told me three weeks ago you were to be married to her."
"And so I was, yer riverence, only ye see for a mistake as happened."
"A mistake! Was it she made the mistake or you?"
"Why it warn't exactly herself thin as did it; it war her mother."
"Her mother made a mistake! What mistake did her mother make?"
"Along of the cow, yer riverence." Denis seemed very slow of explaining, and Father John began to be impatient.
"What cow, Denis? How did the mother's making a mistake about the cow prevent your marrying her daughter?"
"Why, yer riverence, then, if you'll let me, I'll jist explain the matter. Ould Betsy Cane—that's her mother you know—promised me the brown cow, yer riverence may know, as is in the little garden behint the cabin, for her dater's fortin; and says I to her, 'Well, may be she may be worth four pound tin, Mrs. Cane.' 'Four pound tin,' says she, 'Mr. McGovery; and you to know no better than that, and she to calve before Christmas! well then, four pound tin indeed,'—jist in that manner, yer riverence. Well then I looks at the cow, and she seemed a purty sort of a cow, and I agreed to the bargain, yer honer, purviding the cow turned out to be with calf. Well, yer honer, now it's no such thing, but it's sticking me she was entirely about, the cow: so now she got the cow and her daughter both at home; and likely to for me."
"And so, Denis, you broke your promise, and refused to marry the girl you were engaged to, because a cow was not in calf?"
"No I didn't, yer honer; that is, I did refuse to marry the girl; why wouldn't I? But I didn't break my promise, becase I only promised, purviding—; and you see, Father John, they was only decaving me."