“Say no more; I'll go wid you; but how will you get in, Ned?”
“Never you mind that; here, take a pull out of this flask before you go any further. Blood an' flummery! what a night; divil a my finger I can see before me. Here—where's your hand?—that's it; warm your heart, my boy.”
“You intind thin, Ned, to give Biddy the hard word about Flanagan?”
“Why, to bid her put them on their guard; sure there can be no harm in that.”
“They say, Ned, it's not safe to trust a woman; what if you'd ax to see the Bodagh's son, the young soggarth?”
“I'd trust my life to Biddy—she that was so honest to the Donovans wouldn't be desateful to her sweetheart that—he—hem—she's far gone in consate wid—your sowl. Her brother Alick's to meet me at the Bodagh's on his way from their lodge, for they hould a meetin to-night too.”
“Never say it again. I'll stick to you; so push an, for it's late. You'll be apt to make up the match before you part, I suppose.”
“That won't be hard to do any time, Dandy.”
Both then proceeded down the same field, which we have already said was called the Black Park, in consequence of its dark and mossy soil. Having, with some difficulty, found the stile at the lower end of it, they passed into a short car track, which they were barely able to follow.
The night, considering that it was the month of November, was close and foggy—such as frequently follows a calm day of incessant rain. The bottoms were plashing, the drams all full, and the small rivulets and streams about the country were above their hanks, whilst the larger rivers swept along with the hoarse continuous murmurs of an unusual flood. The sky was one sheet of blackness—for not a cloud could be seen, or anything, except the passing gleam of a cottage taper, lessened by the haziness of the night into a mere point of faint light, and thrown by the same cause into a distance which appeared to the eye much more remote than that of reality.