"Now, isn't that a great deal better?"
"Ye're a fine man, Giblin, and ye did it without making a bit of dirt; what'll I give ye for so fine a job?"
"If ye wouldn't mind, I'd like the meadow field nearing on mine. It's little enough for a job like that."
"It's yours and welcome, Giblin"; and without another word the deed was drawn.
That was the finest of the McAndrew fields, and the only pasture land left to Shamus.
It was not long before it came about that first one and then another lost the house he lived in, until all had to live together in the father's old place.
O'Toole and Giblin had encroached field by field, and there was nothing left but the old house and a strip of garden that none of them knew how to till.
It was hard times for the seven McAndrews, but they were happy and contented as long as they had enough to eat, and that they had surely, for the wives of the men who got away all their fine lands and cattle, had sore hearts when they saw their men enriched at the expense of the omadhauns, and every day, unbeknown to their husbands, they carried them meat and drink.
O'Toole and Giblin now had their avaricious eyes set on the house and garden, and they were on the watch for a chance to clutch them, when luck, or something worse, threw the chance in the way of O'Toole.
He was returning from town one day just in the cool of the afternoon, when he spied the seven brothers by the roadside, sitting in a circle facing each other.