“Ah, I thought I should catch ye with my fiddle. You're not such a muff as the others, old 'un, not by a long chalk. Hang me if I won't give ye 'Ireland's music,' and I've sworn never to waste that on a fool.”
He played the old Irish air so simply and tunably that Rolfe leaned back in his chair, with half closed eyes, in soft voluptuous ecstasy.
The youngster watched him with his coal-black eye.
“I like you,” said he, “better than I thought I should, a precious sight.”
“Highly flattered.”
“Come with me, and hear my nurse sing it.”
“What, and leave my novel?”
“Oh, bother your novel.”
“And so I will. That will be tit for tat; it has bothered me. Lead on, Bohemian bold.”
The boy took him, over hedge and ditch, the short-cut to Meyrick's farm; and caught Mrs. Meyrick, and said she must sing “Ireland's music” to Rolfe the writer.