“You will never let on to a living soul?” asks M‘Carthy.
“Is it that I’d be lodging an information against a noble person like yourself?” says the man.
With that, the young gentleman began telling the secrets of his heart.
“It is no disease is on me,” says he, “but a terrible misfortune.”
“’Tis heart scalded I am that you have either a sorrow or a sickness, and you grand to look on and better to listen to,” says the other.
“It is in love I am,” says M‘Carthy.
“And how would that be a misfortune to a fine lad like yourself?” asks the man.
“Let you never let on!” says M‘Carthy. “The way of it is this: I am lamenting for no lady who is walking the world, nor for one who is dead that I could be following to the grave. I have a little statue which has the most beautiful countenance on it that was ever seen, and it is destroyed with grief I am that it will never be speaking to me at all.”
With that he brought the image out from under his pillow, and the loveliness of it made the man lep off the chair.
“I’d be stealing the wee statue from your honour if I stopped in this place,” says he. “But let you take valour into your heart, for that is the likeness of a lady who is living in the world, and you will be finding her surely.”