“It goes to my heart, Jemmy, to refuse you—six in family, an' the two of yourselves. Troth it does, to my very heart itself; but stay, maybe we may manage it. You have no money, you say?”
“No money now, but won't be so long, plaise God.”
“Well, but haven't you value of any kind?—: sure, God help them, they can't starve, poor cratures—the Lord pity them!” Here he wiped away a drop of villainous rheum which ran down his cheek, and he did it with such an appearance of sympathy, that almost any one would have imagined it was a tear of compassion for the distresses of the poor man's family.
“Oh! no, they can't starve. Have you no valuables of any kind, Jemmy!—ne'er a baste now, or anything that way?”
“Why, there's a young heifer; but I'm strugglin' to keep it to help me in the rent. I was obliged to sell my pig long ago, for I had no way of feedin' it.”
“Well, bring me the heifer, Jemmy, an' I won't let the crathurs starve. We'll see what can be done when it comes here. An' now, Jemmy, let me ax if you wint to hear mass on last Sunday?”
“Troth I didn't like to go in this trim. Peggy has a web of frieze half made this good while; it'll be finished some time, I hope.”
“Ah! Jemmy, Jemmy, it's no wondher the world's the way it is, for indeed there's little thought of God or religion in it. You passed last Sunday like a haythen, an' now you see how you stand to-day for the same.”
“You'll let me bring some o' the meal home wid me now,” said the man; “the poor cratures tasted hardly anything to-day yet, an' they wor cryin' whin I left home. I'll come back wid the heifer fullfut. Troth they're in utther misery, Darby.”
“Poor things!—an' no wondher, wid such a haythen of a father; but, Jemmy, bring the heifer here first till I look at it, an' the sooner you bring it here the sooner they'll have relief, the crathurs.”