"Me hands is that full at home, I don't know what to be at first. However," as if it was some small satisfaction, he added, "the devil a wan I'll bring in guilty."
"Nayther will I," agreed his companion, in solemn tones. "I seen Darby Chute in the day, with a few little bastes and a fine cow," (the name possessed a spell for Helen, and bound her attention at once). "I met him coming out of the bank, ere now; 'tis him has feathered his nest."
"Faix, ye may well say feathered," retorted the other, with a loud laugh; "he does not give the gun much time to cool!"
"Begorra, it's a shame! an old mad man and a couple of girls—well, if poor Pat Connor was to rise out of his grave, and see the way things is going."
Just as the conversation was becoming most exciting, these two tall countrymen moved away. Not five minutes afterwards, Darby's own well-known husky squeak fell upon Helen's ear. Little did he guess who it was that was sitting with her back to him, in the pink sun-bonnet. He was accompanied by a companion, and they were evidently about to clinch some bargain.
"I'm not very swate on that Scotch whiskey," said the latter, "it has not the right sort of bite in it to plase me! An' now Darby, me boy, what's the lowest you are going to say for the ould lady?"
"Ould lady! Holy Saint Patrick, do ye hear him? is it the young, white, short-horn cow, on her second calf?"
"I just mane the big bony cow you are striving to stick me with, for twenty-three pounds."
Helen pricked up her ears—twenty-three pounds!
"See here, James Casey, av I was to drop down dead this blessed minute, I won't take a halfpenny less than the twenty pounds, and only I'm hard pressed for money, and times is bad, I would drive her home afore me. She'd be chape at five-and-twenty: a pedigree cow. An' ye know it! so ye need not be playing with me, as if I was trying to sell you an ould Kerry Stripper. Take her or lave her, you are keeping others off, and the fair is getting thin."