“That's bekase I have no meadow on my farm,” replied Cooney; “otherwise I would be in the hay trade as well as yourself.”
“Well, God help us, Cooney! every one has their misfortunes as well as you and I; sure enough, it's a bitther business to see how every thing's thrivin'—hay, oats, and whate! why they'll be for a song: may I never get a bad shillin', but the poor 'ill be paid for takin' them! that's the bitther pass things will come to; maurone ok! but it's a black lookout!”
“An' this rain, too,” said Cooney, “so soft, and even, and small, and warm, that it's playin' the very devil. Nothin' could stand it. Why it ud make a rotten twig grow if it was put into the ground.”
“Divil a one o' me would like to make the third,” said Murray, “for 'fraid I might have the misfortune to succeed. Death alive! Only think of my four arks, of meal, an' my three stacks of hay, an' divil a pile to come out of them for another twelve months!”
“It's bad, too bad, I allow,” said the other; “still let us not despair, man alive; who knows but the saison may change for the worse yet. Whish!” he exclaimed, slapping the side of his thigh, “hould up your head, Jemmy, I have thought of it; I have thought of it.”
“You have thought of what, Cooney?”
“Why, death alive, man, sure there's plenty of time, God be praised for it, for the—murdher, why didn't we think of it before? ha, ha, ha!”
“For the what, man? don't keep us longin' for it.”
“Why for the pratie crops to fail still; sure it's only the beginning o' May now, and who knows but we might have the happiness to see a right good general failure of the praties still? Eh? ha, ha, ha!”
“Upon my sounds, Cooney, you have taken a good deal of weight off of me. Faith we have the lookout of a bad potato crop yet, sure enough. How is the wind? Don't you think you feel a little dry bitin' in it, as if it came from the aist?”