“In regard to me,” she observed, “you may save yourself the throuble o' comin'. I wouldn't marry Phelim, afther what the priest said yistherday, if he had the riches o' the townland we're spakin' in. I never cared for him, nor liked him; an' it was only to plase my father an' mother, that I consinted to be called to him at all. I'll never join myself to the likes of him. If I do, may I be a corpse the next minute!”
Having thus expressed herself, she left her father, Phelim, and Larry, to digest her sentiments, and immediately went home.
Donovan, who was outrageous at this contempt of his authority, got his hat with the intention of compelling her to return and retract, in their presence, what she had said; but the daughter, being the more light-footed of the two, reached home before he could overtake her, where, backed by her mother, she maintained her resolution, and succeeded, ere long, in bringing the father over to her opinion.
During this whole scene in Larry's, Fool Art sat in that wild abstraction which characterizes the unhappy class to which he belonged. He muttered to himself, laughed—or rather chuckled—shrugged his shoulders, and appeared to be as unconscious of what had taken place as an automaton. When the coast was clear he rose up and plucking Phelim's skirt, beckoned him towards the door.
“Phelim,” said he, when they had got out, “would you like to airn a crown?”
“Tell me how, Art?” said Phelim.
“A letther from, the Square to the jailer of M——— jail. If you bring back an answer, you'll get a crown, your dinner, an' a quart o' strong beer.”
“But why don't you bring it yourself, Art?”
“Why I'm afeard. Sure they'd keep ma in jail, I'm tould, if they'd catch me in it. Aha! Bo dodda, I won't go near them: sure they'd hang me for shootin' Bonypart.—Aha!”
“Must the answer be brought back today, Art?”