“Your own? May I ask if the contents of that bag were your own?”
“'T is at the devil I 'm wishin' it now,” said Joe, putting his hand on his stomach. “Tis tearing me to pieces, it is, bad luck to it!”
O'Shea was angry, but such was the rueful expression of Joe's face that he laughed out again.
“Now he's goin' lame if you like!” cried Joe, with a tone of triumph that said, “All the mishaps are not on my side.”
O'Shea pulled up, and knowing, probably, the utter inutility of employing Joe at such a moment, got down himself to see what was amiss.
“No, it's the off leg,” cried Joe, as his master was carefully examining the near one.
“I suppose he must have touched the frog on a sharp stone,” said O'Shea, after a long and fruitless exploration.
“I don't think so,” said Joe; “'t is more like to be a dizaze of the bone,—one of thim dizazes of the fetlock that's never cured.”
A deeply uttered malediction was O'Shea's answer to the pleasant prediction.
“I never see one of them recover,” resumed Joe, who saw his advantage; “but the baste will do many a day's slow work—in a cart.”