“Mush a why then, might one ask?”
“I'm afeard he's a cowardly crathur, and rather unmanly a thrifle. I like a man to be a man, an' not to get as white as a sheet, an' cowld as a tombstone, bekaise he hears what he thinks to be a groan at night, an' it may be nothin' but an owld cow behind a ditch. Ha! ha! ha!”
“An' where did he hear the groan?”
“Why, here where we're standin'. Ha! ha! ha! I was thinkin' of it since, an' I did hear somethin' very like a groan; but what about it? Sich a night as last night would make any one groan that had a groan in them.”
“You spoke about ditches, but sure there's no ditches here.”
“Divil a matther—who cares what it was? What did you want wid my father?”
“It was yourself that I wanted to see.”
“Faix, an' you've seen me, then, an' the full o' your eye you tuck out o' me. You'll know me again, I hope.”
“Is your mother livin'?”
“No.”