“Ah, Misther Burke,” replied Peety, in a tone of gratitude peculiar to his class, “you're the ould* man still—ever an' always the large heart an' lavish hand—an' so sign's on it—full an' plinty upon an' about you—an' may it ever be so wid you an' yours, a chierna, I pray. An how is the misthress, sir?”
* That is to say, the same man still.
“Throth, she's very well, Peety—has no raison to complain, thank God!”
“Thank God, indeed! and betther may she be, is my worst wish to her—an' Masther Hycy, sir?—but I needn't ax how he is. Isn't the whole country ringin' wid his praises;—the blessin' o' God an you, acushla”—this was to Nancy Devlin, on handing them the new milk—“draw over, darlin', nearer to the table—there now”—this to his daughter, whom he settled affectionately to her food. “Ay, indeed,” he proceeded, “sure there's only the one word of it over the whole Barony we're sittin' in—that there's neither fetch nor fellow for him through the whole parish. Some people, indeed, say that Bryan M'Mahon comes near him; but only some, for it's given up to Masther Hycy all to pieces.”
“Faix, an' I for one, although I'm his father—amn't I, Rosha?” he added, good-humoredly addressing his wife, who had just come into the kitchen from above stairs.
“Throth,” said the wife, who never replied with good humor unless when addressed as Mrs. Burke, “you're ill off for something to speak about. How are you, Peety? an' how is your little girl?”
“In good health, ma'am, thank God an' you; an' very well employed at the present time, thanks to you still!”
To this Mrs. Burke made no reply; for it may be necessary to state here, that although she was not actually penurious or altogether without hospitality, and something that might occasionally be termed charity, still it is due to honest Jemmy to inform the reader in the outset, that, as Peety Dhu said, “the large heart and the lavish hand” were especially his own. Mrs. Burke was considered to have been handsome—indeed, a kind of rustic beauty in her day—and, like many of that class, she had not been without a due share of vanity, or perhaps we might say coquetry, if we were to speak the truth. Her teeth were good, and she had a very pretty dimple in one of her cheeks when she smiled, two circumstances which contributed strongly to sustain her good humor, and an unaccountable tendency to laughter, when the poverty of the jest was out of all proportion to the mirth that followed it. Notwithstanding this apparently light and agreeable spirit, she was both vulgar and arrogant, and labored under the weak and ridiculous ambition of being considered a woman of high pretensions, who had been most unfortunately thrown away, if not altogether lost, upon a husband whom she considered as every way unworthy of her. Her father had risen into the possession of some unexpected property when it was too late to bestow upon her a suitable education, and the consequence was that, in addition to natural vanity, on the score of beauty, she was a good deal troubled with purse-pride, which, with a foolish susceptibility of flattery, was a leading feature in her disposition. In addition to this, she was an inveterate and incurable slattern, though a gay and lively one; and we need scarcely say that whatever she did in the shape of benevolence or charity, in most instances owed its origin to the influences of the weaknesses she was known to possess.
Breakfast, at length, was over, and the laborers, with an odd hiccup here and there among them, from sheer repletion, got their hats and began to proceed towards the farm.
“Now, boys,” said Jemmy, after dropping a spittle into his pipe, pressing it down with his little finger, and putting it into his waistcoat pocket, “see an' get them praties down as soon as you can, an' don't work as if you intended to keep your Christmas there; an' Paddy the Bounce, I'll thank you to keep your jokes an' your stories to yourself, an' not to be idlin' the rest till afther your work's done. Throth it was an unlucky day I had anything to do wid you, you divartin' vagabone—ha! ha! ha! When I hired him in the Micklemas fair,” proceeded Jemmy, without addressing himself to any particular individual, “he killed me wid laughin' to such a degree, that I couldn't refuse the mehony whatsomever wages he axed; an' now he has the men, insteed o' mindin' their work, dancin' through the field, an' likely to split at the fun he tells them, ha! ha! ha! Be off, now, boys. Pettier Murphy, you randletree, let,the girl alone. That's it Peggy, lay on him; ha! devil's cure to you! take what you've got any way—you desarve it.”