“Go along, a veehonce, (* you profligate) an' bring him up,” replied the father: “you to talk about prayin'! Them that 'ud catch you at a prayer ought to be showed for the world to wondher at: a man wid two heads an him would be a fool to him. Go along, I say, and do what you're bid.”
“I'm goin',” said Frank. “I'm off; but what if he doesn't come? I'll then have my journey for nothin'.”
“An' it's good payment for any journey ever you'll make, barrin' it's to the gallows,” replied the father, nearly provoked at his reluctance in obeying him: “won't you have dancin' enough in the coorse o' the night, for you'll not go to the Midnight Mass, and why don't you be off wid you at wanst?”
Frank shrugged his shoulders two or three times, being loth to leave the music and dancing; but on seeing his father about to address him in sharper language, he went out with a frown on his brows, and a half-smothered imprecation bursting from his lips.
He had not proceeded more than a few yards from the door, when he met Rody Teague, his father's servant, on his way to the kitchen. “Rody,” said he, “isn't this a purty business? My father wantin' to send me down to Owen Reillaghan's; when, by the vartue o' my oath, I'd as soon go half way into hell, as to any place where his son, Mike Reillaghan, 'ud be. How will I manage, Rody?”
“Why,” replied Rody, “as to meetin' wid Mike, take my advice and avoid him. And what is more I'd give up Peggy Gartland for good. Isn't it a mane thing for you, Frank, to be hangin' afther a girl that's fonder of another than she is of yourself. By this and by that, I'd no more do it—avvouh! catch me at it—I'd have spunk in me.”
Frank's brow darkened as Rody spoke; instead of instantly replying', he was silent and appeared to be debating some point in his own mind, on which he had not come to a determination.
“My father didn't hear of the fight between Mike and me?” said he, interrogatively—“do you think he did, Rody?”
“Not to my knowledge,” replied the servant; “if he did, he wouldn't surely send you down; but talking of the fight, you are known to be a stout, well-fought boy—no doubt of that—still, I say, you had no right to provoke Mike as you did, who, it's well known, could bate any two men in the parish; and so sign, you got yourself dacently trounced, about a girl that doesn't love a bone in your skin.”
“He disgraced me, Rody,” observed Frank—“I can't rise my head; and you know I was thought, by all the parish, as good a man as him. No, I wouldn't, this blessed Christmas Eve above us, for all that ever my name was worth, be disgraced by him as I am. But—hould, man—have patience!”