“But can you?”
“I could, but I won't.”
“I don't believe father will yield. I will send you some money from England if you will promise to go away.”
“Aye; but I don't want it. I want to stay on. Where would my old bones lie when I died if I am not in my own counthry? I'm not going to leave my counthry for nobody. The cot where I was born shall see me die; and if the roof is took off, why, I'll put it back again. I'll defy him and his new-fangled ways and his English wife to the death. You'll see mischief if you don't put things right, Miss Nora. It all rests with yez, alannah.”
“I am awfully sorry for you, Andy; but I don't believe you would seriously injure father, for you know what the consequences would be.”
“Aye; but when a man like me is sore put to it he don't think of consequences. It's just the burning wish to avenge his wrongs; that's what he feels, and that's what I feel, Miss Nora, and so you had best take warning.”
“Well, I am going away to-morrow,” said the girl. “My father is in great trouble, and wants money very badly himself, and I am going to England.”
“To be out of the way when the ruin comes. I know,” said the man, with a loud laugh.
“No; you are utterly mistaken. Andy, don't you remember when I was a little girl how you used to let me ride on your shoulder, and once you asked me for a tiny bit of my hair, that time when it was all in curls, and I gave you just the end of one of my curls, and you said you would keep it to your dying day? Would you be cruel to Nora now, and just when her heart is heavy?”
“Your heart heavy? You, one of the quality—'taint likely,” said the man.