"Bedad, I have," said Ned, "and more betoken, fell into the wather through the hole."
"Why, wouldn't she listen to you?"
"Yes, fast enough, but I didn't give her a chance; my ould complaint came strong upon me. Ora! what's the use in havin' a tongue at all, if it won't wag the words out of a fellow's head. I'm a purty speciment of an omad-haun; there she sot, Mike, lookin' out of the corners of her eyes at me, as much as to say, spake out like a man, with a soft smile runnin' about all over her face, and playing among her beautiful dimples, like the merry moonbame dancin' on the lake. Oh, murther! Mike, what the mischief am I to do? I can't live without her, an' I haven't the heart to tell her so."
"Well, it is disgraceful," replied Mike, "to see a good-lookin' man disparage his country by flinchin from a purty girl; may-be it might do you good to go an' kiss the Blarney Stone."
"That's it," exclaimed Ned, joyously clapping his hands together, and cutting an instinctive caper, "that's it. I wonder I niver thought of it before; I'll walk every stitch of the way, though my legs should drop off before I got half there. Do you think it 'ud do me good to kiss it?"
"Divil a doubt of it—sure it never was known to fail yet," said Mike, oracularly.
"Why, then, may I niver ate a male's vittles, if there's any vartue in the stone, if I don't have it out of it." And that very night, so eager was Ned to get cured of his bashfulness, off he started for Killarney. It was a long and tedious journey, but the thought of being able to speak to Nelly when he returned, was sufficient to drive away fatigue; in due time he reached the far-famed castle,
"On the top of whose wall,
But take care you don't fall,
There's a stone that contains all the Blarney!"