“I mane that when one or two of us go over there, we’re sure to be thought cute and intelligint; and the Saxon says, ‘Isn’t it wonderful what a clever people they are?’ But if he comes here himself, and sees nothing but misery and starvation, he cries ont, ‘They’re hopeless craytures—they live with the pig.’”
“And why wouldn’t we, if we had one?”
“Well, well, well,” muttered the other, who never minded nor heeded the interruption, “maybe the time is coming, maybe the great day is near. Don’t you know the song of the ‘Shamroge in my Hat?’”
“I ne’er heerd it.”
“The little I care for Emancipation,
The little I want such laws as that;
What I ask is, Ould Ireland to be a nation,
And myself with a shamroge in my hat.”
“I wonder will the letter come to-day,” said the old man, with a weary sigh; “my heart is heavy waiting for it.”
“If she sent you a ten-pound note, Peter Malone, whenever she wrote, there would be some sense and reason in your wishing for a letter; but, so well as I remember the one scrap of a letter she sent you, there was neither money nor money’s worth in it.”
“It was betther than goold to my heart,” said Malone, with a deep feeling in his voice and look.
“Well, there, it’s coming now; there’s Patsey holding up a letter in his hand. Do you see him at the ford, there?”
“I don’t see him, my eyes are so weak; but are ye sure of it, Tim O’Rorke? Don’t decave me, for the love of the blessed Virgin.”