“Where are you going?” asked the wife a second time.
“Why,” he answered, “only to dance at Jemmy Connolly’s; I’ll be back early.”
“Don’t go,” said the wife.
“I’ll go,” said Neal, “if the whole counthry was to prevint me. Thunder an’ lightnin’, woman, who am I?” he exclaimed, in a loud, but rather infirm voice. “Am n’t I Neal Malone, that never met a man who’d fight him? Neal Malone, that was never beat by man! Why, tare an’ ouns, woman! Whoo! I’ll get enraged some time, an’ play the divil! Who’s afeard, I say?”
“Don’t go,” added the wife a third time, giving Neal a significant look in the face.
In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business instead of going to the dance!
Neal now turned himself, like many a sage in similar circumstances, to philosophy; that is to say, he began to shake his head upon principle, after the manner of the schoolmaster. He would, indeed, have preferred the bottle upon principle; but there was no getting at the bottle except through the wife, and it so happened that by the time it reached him there was little consolation left in it. Neal bore all in silence; for silence, his friend had often told him, was a proof of wisdom.
Soon after this, Neal one evening met Mr. O’Connor by chance upon a plank which crossed a river. This plank was only a foot in breadth, so that no two individuals could pass each other upon it. We cannot find words in which to express the dismay of both on finding that they absolutely glided past each other without collision.
Both paused and surveyed each other solemnly; but the astonishment was all on the side of Mr. O’Connor.
“Neal,” said the schoolmaster, “by all the household gods, I conjure you to speak, that I may be assured you live!”