“Well, then, be it so; I can only say, if you ever change your mind, you'll find me both ready and willing to serve you; meanwhile you must pay no more rent, here.”
“No more rent!”
“Not a farthing; I'm sorry the favour is so slight a one, for indeed the mountain seems a bleak and profitless tract.”
“There is not its equal for mutton—”
“I'm glad of it, Owen; and it only remains for me to make the shepherd something more comfortable;—well, take this; and when I next come up here, which I intend to do, to fish the lake, I hope to find you in a better house;” and he pressed a pocket-book into the old man's hand as he said this, and left the cabin: while both Owen and his father were barely able to mutter a blessing upon him, so overwhelming and unexpected was the whole occurrence.
SECOND ERA
From no man's life, perhaps, is hope more rigidly excluded than from that of the Irish peasant of a poor district. The shipwrecked mariner upon his raft, the convict in his cell, the lingering sufferer on a sick hed, may hope; but he must not.