"I dare say they are not all gone yet, Tom; an' I wish you would set them to get us a few pockets full, and we would ask a few of the neighbors here to burn them on All-Hallow Eve."
"That's easy done, father; I can get three or four quarts by to-morrow night. Those two very chaps would be glad to earn a few pence for them; they wanted me to buy what they had; and if I knew your intentions at the time, I should have done so; but it's not too late. Who do you intend to ask, father?"
"Why, old Cavana and his daughter, of course, and the Mulveys; in short, you know, all the neighbors. I won't leave any of them out, Tom. The Cavanas, you know, are all as wan as ourselves, livin' at the doore with us; and they're much like us too, Tom, in many respects. Old Ned is rich, an' has but one child—a very fine girl. I'm old, an' as rich as what Ned is, and I have but one child; I'll say though you're to the fore, Tom—a very fine young man."
Old Mick paused. He wanted to see if his son's intelligence was on the alert. It must have been very dull indeed had it failed to perceive what his father was driving at; but he was silent.
"That Winny Cavana is a very fine girl, Tom," he continued; "and I often wonder that a handsome young fellow like you doesn't make more of her. She'll have six hundred pounds fortune, as round as a hoop; beside, whoever gets her will fall in for that farm at her [{507}] father's death. There's ninety-nine years of it, Tom, just like our own."
"She's a conceited proud piece of goods, father; and I suspect she would rather give her six hundred pounds to some skauhawn than to a man of substance like me."
"Maybe not now. Did you ever thry?"
"No, father, I never did. People don't often hold their face up to the hail."
"Na-bockleish, Tom, she'd do a grate dale for her father, for you know she must owe everything to him; an' if she vexes him he can cut her out of her six hundred pounds, and lave the interest in his farm to any one he likes; and I know what he thinks about you, Tom."
"Ay, and he's so fond of that one that she can twist him round her finger. Wait now, father, until you see if I'm not up to every twist and turn of the pair of them."