“O, jaminy stars! that's you, I suppose; ha, ha, ha.”
“Keep silence,” said Barney, “and listen. Nanse, you are right in one sinse, and the cook's right in another; you're both right, but at the present spakin' you're both wrong. Listen—you all know the Shan-dhinne-dhuv?”
“Know him! The Lord stand between us and him,” replied Nanse; “I hope in God we'll never either know or see him.”
“You know,” proceeded Barney, “that he keeps' the haunted house, and appears in the neighborhood of it?”
“Yes, we know that, achora,” replied the cook, sweetly.
“Well, you can't forget Bet Harramount, the witch, that lived for some time in Rathfillan? She that was hunted in the shape of a white hare by pious Father McFeen's famous greyhound, Koolawn.”
“Doesn't all the world know it, Barney, avillish?” said Nanse.
“Divil the word she'll let out o' the poor boy's lips,” said the cook, with a fair portion of venom. Nanse made no reply, but laughed with a certain description of confidence, as she glanced sneeringly at the cook, who, to say the truth, turned her eyes with a fiery and impulsive look towards the ladle.
“Well,” proceeded Barney, “you all know that the divil took her and her imp, the white cat, away on the night of the great storm that took place then?”
“We do! Sure we have heard it a thousand times.”