The O’Mahony laughed aloud.
“I guess you’d a got your fill of it yisterday, sis,” he remarked.
“It’s that I’d have liked best of all,” she pursued. “Ah! take me with you, O’Mahony, whin next the waves are up and the wind’s tearin’ fit to bust itsilf. I’ll not die till I’ve been out in the thick of it, wance for all.”
“Why, gal alive, you’d a-be’n smashed into sausage-meat!” chuckled the man. “Still, you’re right, though. They ain’t nothin’ else in the world fit to hold a candle to it. Egad! Some time I will take you, sis!”
The child spoke more seriously:
“Sure, we’re the O’Mahonys of the Coast of White Foam, according to O’Heerin’s old verse, and it’s in my blood as well as yours.”
“Right you are, sis!” he responded, smiling, as he added under his breath: “an’ mebbe a trifle more.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he changed the subject.
“See here; you’re up on these things—in fact, they don’t seem to learn you anything else—hain’t I heerd O’Daly tell about the old O’Mahonys luggin’ round a box full o’ saints’ bones when they went on a rampage, to sort o’ give ’em luck! I got to thinkin’ about it last night after I went to bed, but I couldn’t jest git it straight in my head.”
“It’s the cathach” (she pronounced it caha) “you mane,” Kate answered. “Sometimes it contained bones, but more often ’twas a crozieror a holy book from the saint’s own pen, or a part of his vest-mints.”
“No; I like the bones notion best," said The O’Mahony. “There’s something substantial an’ solid about bones. If you’ve got a genuine saint’s bones, it’s a thing he’s bound to take an interest in, an’ see through; whereas, them other things—his books an’ his clo’se an’ so on—why, he may a-been sick an’ tired of ’em years ’fore he died.”