"In earnest! Yes, Winny, by the bright sky over me—and it is not brighter than your own eyes—I am in earnest! It is a long day now since I first took to loving you, though it was only of late you might have picked it out of my looks. Ah, Winny dear, if you hadn't a penny-piece but yourself, I would have spoken to you long ago. But there was a great deal of talk among the neighbors about the joining of them two farms together, and I was afraid you might think—"
"I understand. You were afraid I might think it was my money and the farm you were after, and not myself. Was not that it, Tom?"
"Just so, Winny. But I am indeed in earnest, and for yourself alone, Winny dear; and I'm willing to prove my words by making you my wife, and mistress of all I have coming Shraftide, God willing." And he took her by the hand.
She withdrew it at once, after a slight struggle, and replied, "Tom Murdock, put such a thing totally out of your head, for it can never be—never, by the same oath you swore just now, and that is the blue heaven above me!" And she turned back toward the lane.
"I cross, Winny. Don't say that. I know that your father and mine would both be willing for the match. As to what your father would do for you, Winny mavourneen, I don't care a boughalawn lui; for I'm rich enough without a cross of his money or his land. My own father will make over to me by lawful deed, the day you become my wife, his house and furniture, together with the whole of his land and cattle. Your father, I know, Winny, would do the same for you, for he has but yourself belonging to him; and although your fortune or your land has nothing to say to my love, yet, Winny, dear, between us, if you will consent to my prayer, for it is nothing less, there's few grandees in the country could compare to you,—I'll say nothing for myself, Winny dear, only say the word."
"No, Tom, I'll say no word but what I'm after saying; and you are only making matters worse, talking of grandeur and riches that way. You would only be striving at what you would not be able for, nor allowed to keep up, Tom, and as for myself, I'd look well, wouldn't I? stuck up on a new sidecar, and a drawn bonnet and feathers, coming down the lane of a Sunday, and the neighbors thronging to mass,—aping my betters, and getting myself and yourself laughed at. Devil a one, Tom, but they'd call you Lord Boher-na-Milthiogue. No, Tom; put it out of your head; that is my first and last word to you." And she hastened her step.
"No, Winny, you won't leave me that way, will you? By all the books that were ever shut and opened, you may make what you please of me. I'll never ask to put yourself or myself a pin's-point beyond what we always were, either in grandeur or anything else. But wouldn't it be a fine thing, Winny dear, to have our children able to hold up their heads with the best in the county, in a manner?"
"Ay, in a manner, indeed. No, Tom; they would never be anything but the Murdocks of Rathcashmore—grandchildren of ould Mick Murdock and ould Ned Cavana, the common farmers."
"And what have you to say against old Mick Murdock?" exclaimed Tom, beginning to feel that his suit was hopeless, and flaming up inwardly in the spirit which was most natural to him.
"Nothing indeed, Tom; you need not be so angry, I meant no offence; I said as much against my own father as against yours, if there was anything against either. But we must soon part now, Tom, and let us part friends at all events, living as we do within a stone's-throw of each other." She held out her hand, but he took it coldly and loosely. He felt that his game was up.