* Breeches made of sheep's skin, so called from the
noise they make in walking or running.
“It's well we have him at all,” said his mother; “sure if we hadn't him, we'd be breakin' our hearts, and sayin' if it 'ud plase God to send him back to us, that we'd be happy even wid givin' him his own way.”
“They say it breaks their strinth, too,” replied his father, “to be crubbin' them in too much, an' snappin' at thim for every hand's turn, an' I'm sure it does too.”
“Doesn't he become the pock-marks well, the crathur?” said the mdther.
“Become!” said the father; “but doesn't the droop in his eye set him off all to pieces!”
“Ay,” observed the mother, “an' how the crathur went round among all the neighbors to show them the 'leather crackers!' To see his little pride out o' the hare-skin cap, too, wid the hare's ears stickin' out of his temples. That an' the droopin: eye undher them makes him look so cunnin' an' ginteel, that one can't help havin' their heart fixed upon him.”
“He'd look betther still if that ould coat wasn't sweepin' the ground behind him; an' what 'ud you think to put a pair o' martyeens on his legs to hide the mazles! He might go anywhere thin.”
“Throth he might; but Larry, what in the world wide could be in the Fairy-man's bottle that Phelim took sich a likin' for it. He tould me this mornin' that he'd suffer to have the pock agin, set in case he was cured wid the same bottle.”
“Well, the Heaven be praised, any how, that we have a son for the half-acre, Sheelah.'
“Amin! An' let us take good care of him, now that he's spared to us.”