"There, Emon dear; for God's sake, I say again, be off home. I'll keep it in memory of the day that you saved my poor dog from destruction—there now, will that do?" and she held out her hand.
"It is enough, Winny dear. This has been the happiest day of my life. May I hope it has only been the first of a long life like it?"
"Now, Emon, don't talk nonsense, but be off home, if you have any wit —good-bye;" and this time she gave him her hand and let it lie in his.
"God bless you, Winny dearest, I oughtn't to be too hard on you. Sure you have raised my heart up into heaven already, and there is something now worth living for." And he turned away with a quick and steady step.
"She called me 'dear' twice," he soliloquized, after he thought she had fairly turned round. But Winny had heard him, and as she took the handkerchief from Bully-dhu's neck, she patted him upon the head, saying, "And you are a dear good fellow, and I'm very fond of you."
Emon heard every part of this little speech except the first word, and Winny managed it to perfection; for though she had used the word "and" in connection with what she had heard Emon say, she was too cunning to let him hear that one small word, which would have calmed his beating heart; and the rest she would fain have it appear had been said to the dog, for which purpose she accompanied the words with those pats upon his head. She spoke somewhat louder, however, than was necessary, if Bully-dhu was alone intended to hear her.
Emon saw the transaction, and heard some of the words—only some. But they were sufficient to make him envy the dog, as he watched them going up the lane, and into the house.
It might be a nice point, in the higher ranks of life, to determine whether, in a "breach of promise" case, the above passages could be relied on as unequivocal evidence on either side of a promise; or whether a young lover would be justified in believing that his suit had been successful upon no other foundation than what had then taken place. But in the rank of life in which Winny Cavana and Edward Lennon moved, it was as good between them as if they had been "book-sworn"—and they both knew it.
Before Winny went to her bed that night she had washed and ironed the handkerchief, and she kept it ever after in her pocket, folded up in a piece of newspaper. It had no mark [{511}] upon it when she got it, but she was not afraid, after some time, to work the letters E. A. K. in the comer, as no one was ever to see it but herself, not even Kate Mulvey.
Old Ned Cavana, after returning from prayers, determined to rest himself for some time before taking a tour of the farm, and lay down upon an old black sofa in the parlor. There is no shame in the truth that an old man of his age soon fell fast asleep. The servant-girl looked in once or twice to tell him that the spotted heifer had cut her leg jumping over a wall, as Jamesy Doyle was turning her out of the wheat; but she knew it would not signify; and not wishing, or perhaps not venturing, to disturb him, she quietly shut the door again. He slept so long, that he was only just getting the spotted heifer's leg stuped in the farm-yard while the scene already described was passing between Winny and young Lennon upon the road. Were it not for that same heifer's leg he would doubtless have been standing at the window watching his daughter's return. Upon such fortuitous accidents do lovers' chances sometimes hang! This was what Winny in her ignorance of her father's employment had dreaded; and hence alone her anxiety that Emon should "be off home, if he had any wit."