"Blessin's on the fellow that first invented 'baccy; it's mate an' dhrink to the poor man; I'd be on me oath, if I wouldn't rather lose me dinner nor me pipe, any day in the week."
"Where did 'baccy come from, Corney?" inquired Mary.
"Why, from 'Meriky; where else?" he replied, "that sint us the first pitaty. Long life to it, for both, say I!"
"What sort of a place is that, I wonder?"
"'Meriky, is it? They tell me it's mighty sizable, Moll, darlin'. I'm towld that you might rowl England through it, an' it would hardly make a dent in the ground; there's fresh water oceans inside of it that you might dround Ireland in, and save Father Matthew a wonderful sight of throuble; an' as for Scotchland, you might stick it in a corner of one of their forests, an' you'd niver be able to find it out, except, may-be, it might be by the smell of the whisky. If I had only a thrifle of money, I'd go an' seek me fortune there."
"Arrah, thin, what for Corney?"
"Oh! I don't know; I'm not aisy in me mind. If we were only as rich now as Phil Blake, how happy we might be!"
There was the cloud that shut out content from Corney's heart—far-sighted envy, that looks with longing eyes on distant objects, regardless of the comfort near. Most stupid envy, which relinquishes the good within its grasp to reach at something better unattainable, and only becomes conscious of its folly when time has swept away the substance and the shadow.
"It was the fairies that gave it to him," resumed Corney, as though communing with himself, while poor Mary, with a fond wife's prescience, mourned, as she foresaw that the indulgence of this new feeling would, most probably, change her hitherto industrious mate into an idle visionary.
"The Fairies!—An' why the divil shouldn't they give one man a taste of good luck, as well as another? I'll do it—I will—this very blessed night—I'll do it!"