“Shure, I’d like to charge it the price of me best shirt, I would,” grumbled Dinny, rubbing himself softly. “No, he didn’t hurt me much; he lifted me up too tinderly wid his shnout; but that was his artfulness, the baste; he knew what the crukked thorns would do.”
“Then you have no bones broken, Dinny?” said Dick.
“An is it a pig I’d let break me bones?” cried Dinny, indignantly. “A great ugly baste! I’d like to have the killing of him any day in the week. Just look at me fire flying all over the place. Shure, I’ll be very glad when we get home again;” and he went grumbling away.
The damage to the waggon was not serious. The horn of the great beast had gone right through the plank of the forepart, where the chest generally stood on which the driver sat, and that could easily be repaired; while they were carpenters enough to splice the broken dissel-boom, or if needs be, cut down a suitable tree and make another; so that altogether there was nothing much to bemoan. A good deal of laughter followed, Dick and Jack being unable to contain their mirth, as they thought of Dinny’s discomfiture.
“Oh, yis; it’s all very foine, Masther Jack; but if you’d been sent flying like I was then, it isn’t much ye’d have laughed.”
“No, I suppose not, Dinny,” said the lad frankly; “but never mind about the thorns.”
“Shure, it isn’t the holes in me shkin,” said Dinny; “they’ll grow again. I was thinking about me shirt.”
“I’ll ask father to give you one of his, Dinny,” said Dick.
“One o’ thim flannel ones wid blue sthripes?” said Dinny eagerly.
“Yes, one of those if you like, Dinny.”