"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 [{793}] 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.
"Take my advice, Tom Murdock"—this was the second time she had found it necessary to overcome her antipathy to pronounce the name—"take my advice, and never speak to me again upon the subject. Sure, there's many a fine handsome girl would be glad to listen to you; and I'll now ask you one question before we part. Wouldn't it be better and fitter for you to bestow yourself and your land upon some handsome young girl who has nothing of her own, and was, maybe, well inclined for you, and to rise her up to be independent, than to be striving to force yourself and it upon them that doesn't want your land, and cannot care for yourself? Why don't you look about you? There's many a girl in the parish as handsome, and handsomer, than I am, that would just jump at you."
Winny had no sooner uttered these latter words than she regretted them. She did not wish Tom Murdock to know that she had overheard him. She was glad however to perceive that, in his anger, he had not recognized them as a quotation from his conversation with his father at the gate.
There was a silence now for a minute or two. Tom's blood was 'up; his hopes of success were over, and he was determined to speak his mind in an opposite direction.
"Have I set you thinking, Tom?" said Winny, half timidly.
"I'm d—d but you have, Winny Cavana; and I'll answer your question with one much like it. And would not it be better and fitter for you—of course it would—to bestow yourself and your fortune and your land upon some handsome young fellow that has nothing but his day's wages, and was well inclined for you, and to rise him up out of poverty, than to spoil a good chance for a friend by joining yours to them that has enough without it? Why didn't you follow up your first question with that, Winny Cavana?" And he stopped short, enjoying the evident confusion he had caused.