"Time the chile was bruk aff that habit," observed the mother, as she seated herself beside the table with some sewing.
"Let her be a child as long as she can, Mrs. O'Halloran," I remarked.
"Surely you would n't wish any alteration in her."
"Nat without it was an altheration fur the betther," replied the worthy woman.
"An' it's little hopes there is iv hur, consitherin' the way she's rairt.
Did iver anybody hear o' rairin' childher' without batin' them
when they want it?"
"You bate hur, an' A'll bate you!" interposed Rory, turning to bay on the most salient of the three or four pleas which had power to rouse the Old Adam in his unassertive nature.
"Well, A 'm sure A was bate—ay, an' soun'ly bate—when A was lek hur; an' iv A did n't desarve it then, A desarved it other times, when A did n't git it."
An obvious rejoinder rose to my mind, but evidently not to Rory's, for the look on his face told only of a dogged resolution to continue sinning against the light. He knew that his own contumacy in this respect would land his soul in perdition, and he deliberately let it go at that. Brave old Rory! Never does erratic man appear to such advantage as when his own intuitive moral sense rigorously overbears a conscientiousness warped by some fallacy which he still accepts as truth.
Yet the mother loved the child in her own hard, puritanical way. And, in any case, you are not competent to judge her, unless you have to work for your living, instead of finding somebody eager to support you in luxury for the pleasure of your society; unless, instead of marrying some squatter, or bank clerk, or Member of Parliament, you have inadvertently coupled yourself to a Catholic boundary man, named nothing short of Rory O'Halloran.
The embittered woman retired early, and without phrases. As she did so, I casually noticed that the bed-room was bisected by a partition, with a curtained doorway.
"Ever try your hand at literature, Rory?" I presently asked, remembering Williamson's remark.
"Well, A ken har'ly say No, an' A ken har'ly say Yis," replied Rory, with ill-feigned humility. "A've got a bit iv a thraytise scribbled down, furbye a wheen o' other wans on han'. A thought mebbe"—and his glance rested on the angelface of the sleeping child—"well, A thought mebbe it would do hur no harrum fur people till know that hur father—well-as ye might say— Nat but what she'll hev money in the bank, plaze God. But A'll lay hur down in hur wee cot now, an' A'll bring the thrifle we wur mentionin'."