''Faith, and you're a great beast entirely; and one might dance a jig on your back, and leave room for the piper besides.'
I opened the window, and in the bright moonlight beheld the party leading up a short, rugged-looking pony, whose breadth of beam and square proportions fully justified all Joe's encomiums.
'Have you bought this pony for me, Joe?' cried I. 'No, sir, only borrowed him. He'll take you up to Wheley's mills, where we'll get Andy's mare to-morrow morning.'
'Borrowed him?' 'Yes.'
'Where 's his owner?'
'He 's in bed, where he ought to be. I tould him through the door who it was for, and that he needn't get up, as I 'd find the ways of the place myself; and ye see so I did.'
'Told him who it was for! Why, he never heard of me in his life.'
'Devil may care; sure you're the priest's friend, and who has a better warrant for everything in the place? Don't you know the song—
“And Father Fitz had no cows nor sheep,
And the devil a hen or pig to keep;
But a pleasanter house to dine or sleep
You 'd never find till morning.”
“For Molly, says he, if the fowls be few,
I 've only one counsel to give to you:
There's hens hard by—go kill for two,
For I 've a friend till morning.”
By the Rock of Cashel, it 'ud be a hard case av the priest was to want. Look how the ould saddle fits him! faix, ye 'd think he was made for it!'