And Seumas Shanley went, the glow of a great hope lighting all the way before him.
II.
When Ned M'Grane lifted the latch of Larry Boylan's kitchen door and walked into the spacious kitchen itself on the following Sunday afternoon there was a look of concern on his usually jovial face, and when Larry turned his gaze from the fire to greet the visitor, the look of concern on Ned's face deepened very considerably and perceptibly, and he seemed very much perturbed. Larry sat in a crouching attitude quite close to the big fire of blazing turf-sods, a red handkerchief covering his chin, his jaws, and his ears, and knotted on top of his head. He held his hand over his mouth, and now and then he groaned most miserably and lugubriously. An old woman—the same Kitty Malone mentioned by Seumas Shanley—was working about the kitchen; no one else was to be seen.
The blacksmith was a pretty frequent and always a welcome visitor at Larry Boylan's. He was Nannie Boylan's godfather, and old Larry as well claimed relationship with the M'Grane family—usually when he wanted some work done at the forge. He was, therefore, glad to see Ned on the present occasion.
"I'm sorry to see the enemy is at you again, Larry," said Ned, as he seated himself on the stool placed before the fire for him by Kitty. "I wondered when I didn't see you at Mass to-day, an' I didn't know what was up until I met Kitty there, on the road, an' she said it was the tooth. Is it bad? It must be a cold you got."
"Oh, it's a terror, Ned," groaned Larry, as a twinge of pain passed over his weazened face. "I never had it as bad before. I'm nearly cracked with it, an' the head is like to fly off me. Nannie that brought home a curran' cake from the market yesterday, an' sweet, white stuff on the top of it, an' we ate it with the tay, an' about an hour after the old tooth gave one jump, an' it's at me ever since. I never slept a wink all night with it. Nannie herself got the toothache about a couple of hours ago, an' she's mortial bad with it, too. She had to go to bed a while ago."
"The poor thing," said Ned M'Grane, sympathetically. "I'm sorry in troth, for both of you, an' glad that I came down. I might as well not be at home at all, because Seumas Shanley wanted me to go with him over to Knockbride after Mass. He was goin' over to see some of his mother's people that came home from America. I think they're goin' to have a spree or a flare-up of some kind over there to-night. I was near goin' only I knew I'd have to be up early in the mornin' to shoe the Major's horses."
"The same bucko is no loss by goin' to Knockbride or anywhere else," said Larry, with a frown; and then in a whisper, and forgetting the toothache for a moment, he said: "I'm thinkin' he's after some lassie in that direction. When he seen I wouldn't let Nannie throw over a well-to-do, comfortable man like Jack Flanagan for a scamp like him, I suppose he took after some other decent man's daughter. He was stravagin' about the market yesterday with some strange girl, an' wouldn't even look at us. I think my lassie," jerking his thumb towards the door of the little bedroom to which Nannie had retired, "had a wish for him up to that, but she saw then it wasn't her, but the place, he was after. And I'm glad she got sense, because it isn't every day she could get married into a place like Jack Flanagan's—an' it's little fortune he wants either. We made the match for after Lent yesterday."
"Is that a fact?" said Ned. "Well, your mind ought to be easy now."
"So it is, Ned; so it is. When it came to the finish, Nannie didn't go against my wishes, an' all she asked was that I'd leave her free until after Lent; an' sure there's no use in rushin' it—is there, Ned?"