"I do what I have to do, and must do; God knows its throuble enough. Do you go and do the same; even that, bad as it is, is better than amusing my sister by laughing at me."
"Oh, Thady, how can you be saying such things! you see I am staying for you, and why can't you be quiet?"
Thady made no reply; the Captain twirled his hat, and ceremoniously bowing to the lady, took his leave.
Thady had screwed his courage to the sticking point while the Captain was the foe with whom he had to contend, and he had carried on the battle manfully while he spoke to Feemy in the Captain's presence; but to tell the truth, when he heard the clatter of his horse's feet he almost wished him back again, or that Feemy was away with him to Aughermore. He was puzzled how to begin; he could not think what he was to say; was he to quarrel with his sister for having a lover without telling him? was he to put it on the ground that her lover was a Protestant? That would have been the easiest line, but then Father John had especially barred that! Was he to scold her because her lover would not marry her at once? That seemed unreasonable. It had never occurred to him, in his indignation, to think of these difficulties, and he now stood with his back to the fire, looking awfully black, but saying nothing.
"Well, Thady, what is it I'll be doing for you, instead of going to Aughermore this morning?" at last said Feemy, the first to begin the disagreeable conversation.
When Thady looked up, thinking what to answer to this plain speech, his eye, luckily for him, fell on the new Mohill collar.
"Where were you getting that collar, Feemy?"
"And are you afther making me stay at home all the blessed day, and sending Captain Ussher all the way back to Mohill, and he having come over here by engagement to walk with me,"—this was a fib of Feemy's,—"and all to ask me where I got a new collar?"
"May be I was, Feemy, and may be I wasn't; but I suppose there isn't any harum in my asking the question, or in you answering it?"
"Oh no, not the laist; only it ain't usual in you to be asking such questions."