“Here!” said Ratigan, getting up, and catching her by the hand, “come over here, and sit down, and we can have a bit of discourse.... Just come here I am, from America, only landed yesterday....”
“From America! do ye tell me that, sir!” said Moll; “and are well acquainted with these parts, are you, sir?”
“Never set foot here, till now!” said Ratigan; “I just took me grip in me hand, and started off on this trip. And some friends of mine across the herring-pond were most anxious I should visit Ardenoo, and look up some old connections of theirs, and bring them all the news.... It’s when you’re away awhile from a place that you’ll be feeling queer and lonesome for them you left behind there!”
Ratigan was always ready for any kind of play-acting, and he could tell lies as easy as a dog can trot. He had made up this story, while Moll was groaning and letting herself down upon the bank beside him, very cautiously.
“Blind, are you? that’s a hard case!” he went on; “but I dare say you’ll be able to give me the information I require. I have all the names I was to ask after, wrote down here in my pocket-book,” he said, pretending to take one out of his breast, but all he had there was an old purse and it empty. “D ... D ... Dempsey ... ay, that’s the name of one ... queer names, the most of them are! Now, what about them?”
“Och, the Dempseys!” said Moll; “why, the sorra one of that family is left in the old place! by that name, at least. The last of them, little Kitty, took and married a boy ... Dan Grennan it is ... and he after coming home from America.... You never chanced to meet up wid a boy of the name, out there, sir?”
“Never heard it, till this minute!” he said.
“Well, Grennan came home, and just was in time to get Kitty, that was very near marrit upon old Heffernan of the Furry Farm.... And in luck Dan was, too, to get his head in there at Dempsey’s ... and a nice little girl for a wife he got, when he did cut his good days short, marrying at all!”
“Married young, did he?” said Ratigan.
“Ay, did he; and a very decent, quiet man he is, and always was; so that Kitty didn’t get the worst of it! They’re not to say too out-of-the-way rich; for whatever little money Dan brought home with him out of America didn’t stand them long. But God was good to Kitty; is sending her the full up of the house of childher; and nineteen turkeys she has, this year, let alone two pigs, and has the grass of her cow, for doing the herding for ould Heffernan....”