“Isn’t your misthress—manin’ the Dandy’s wife—a daughter of ould Fitzy Finnegan’s, the schrew of Glendhu?”
“Faith, you may say that, Rose, as we all know to our cost. Be me song, she does have us sometimes that you might see through us; an’ only for the masther——but, dang it, no matther—she’s down now, poor woman, an’ it’s not just the time to be rakin’ up her failins.”
“It is not, an’ God mark you to grace for sayin’ so. At a time like this we must forget every thing, only to do the best we can for our fellow-creatures. What are you lookin’ at, avick?”
Now, this question naturally arose from the fact that honest Phil had been, during their short conversation, peering keenly on each side of him, as if he expected an apparition to rise from every furze-bush on the common. The truth is, he was almost proverbial for his terror of ghosts and fairies, and all supernatural visitants whatever; but upon this occasion his fears arose to a painful height, in consequence of the popular belief, that, when a midwife is sent for, the Good People throw every possible obstruction in her way, either by laming the horse, if she rides, or by disqualifying the guide from performing his duty as such. Phil, however, felt ashamed to avow his fears on these points, but still could not help unconsciously turning the conversation to the very topic he ought to have avoided.
“What war you looking at, avick?”
“Why, bedad, there appeared something there beyant, like a man, only it was darker. But be this and be that—hem, ehem!—if I could get my hands on him, whatsomever he”——
“Hushth, boy, hould your tongue: you don’t know but it’s the very word you war goin’ to say might do us harm.”
“—Whatsomever he is, that I’d give him a lift on Hollowback if he happened to be any poor fellow that stood in need of it. Oh! the sorra word I was goin’ to say against any thing or any body.”
“You’re right, dear. If you knew as much as I could tell you—push an—you’d have a dhrop o’ sweat at the ind of every hair on your head.”
“Be my song, I’m tould you know a power o’ quare things, Mrs Moan; an’ if all that’s said is thrue, you sartinly do.”