“Begorra, I wish I was a pig them times.”
“And a pike daren't come up to table without an elegant pudding in his belly that cost five pounds!”
“'Tis the fish has their own luck always,” was the profound meditation at this piece of good fortune.
“Ayeh! ayeh!” continued the hostess in a strain of lamentation, “When the ould stock was in it, we never heerd tell of improvements. He'll be making me take out a license, I suppose,” said she, in a voice of half contemptuous incredulity.
“Faix, there's no knowing,” said Joe, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe, and nodded his head sententiously, as though to say, that in the miserable times they'd fallen upon, any thing was possible.
“Licensed for sperits and groceries,” said Mrs. M'Kelly, with a sort of hysterical giggle, as if the thought were too much for her nerves.
“I wouldn't wonder if he put up a pike,” stammered out Jim, thereby implying that human atrocity would have reached its climax.
The silence which followed this terrible suggestion, was now loudly interrupted by a smart knocking at the door of the cabin, which was already barred and locked for the night.
“Who's there?” said Mary, as she held a cloak across the blaze of the fire, so as to prevent the light being seen through the apertures of the door—“'tis in bed we are, and late enough, too.”
“Open the door, Mary, it's me,” said a somewhat confident voice. “I saw the fire burning brightly—and there's no use hiding it.”