“Terry the Woods, your honour,” replied a score of voices together.
“Terry the Woods!” repeated he, “and is Terry a tenant of mine?”
“Faix, I am proud to say I am not,” said Terry, grounding his weapon, and advancing a step towards him, “divil a farthin' of rent I ever paid, nor ever will. I do have my health mighty well—glory be to God!—and sleep sound, and have good clothes, and do nothing for it; and they say I am a fool, but which of us is the greatest fool after all.”
Another outbreak of laughter was only quelled by Sir Marmaduke asking the reason of Terry's appearance there, that morning—if he had nothing to look for.
“I just came to pay my respects,” said Terry composedly, “to wish you a welcome to the country. I thought that as you might be lading the same kind of life as myself, we wouldn't be bad companions, you see, neither of us having much on our hands; and then,” continued he, as he took off his paper bonnet and made a deep reverence, “I wanted to see the young lady there, for they tould me she was a born beauty.”
Miss Travers blushed. She was young enough to blush at a compliment from such a source, as her father said laughingly—
“Well, Terry, and have they been deceiving you?”
“No,” said he, gravely, as with steady gaze he fixed his large blue eyes on the fair features before him. “No—she is a purty crayture—a taste sorrowful or so—but I like her all the better. I was the same myself when I was younger.”
Terry's remark was true enough. The young girl had been a listener for some time to the stories of the people, and her face betrayed the sad emotions of her heart. Never before had such scenes of human suffering been revealed before her—the tortuous windings of the poor man's destiny, where want and sickness he in wait for those whose happiest hours are the struggles against poverty and its evils.
“I can show you the beautifullest places in the whole country,” said Terry, approaching Miss Travers, and addressing her in a low voice, “I'll tell you where the white heath is growing, with big bells on it, like cups, to hould the dew. Were you ever up over Keim-an-eigh?”