“Boys, there's great excuse for me, in regard of my fight wid Mike Reillaghan; that you'll all allow. Come, boys, your healths! I can tell yez you'll find this good, the divil a doubt of it; be the same token, that I stole it from my father's Christmas dhrink; but no matther for that—I hope we'll never do worse. So, as I was sayin', you must bear me out as well as you can, when I'm brought before the Dilegates to-morrow, for challengin' and strikin' a brother.* But, I think, you'll stand by me, boys?”
* Those connected with illegal combinations are sworn
to have no private or personal quarrels, nor to strike
nor provoke each other to fight. He and Mike were
members of such societies.
“By the tarn-o'-war, Frank, myself will fight to the knees for you.”
“Faith, you may depend on us, Frank, or we're not to the fore.”
“I know it, boys; and now for a piece of fun for this night. You see—come, Lanty, tare-an'-ounkers, drink, man alive—you see, wid regard to Peggy Gartland—eh? what the hell! is that a cough?”
“One o' the horses, man—go an.”
“Rody, did Darby More go into the barn before you came out of it?”
“Darby More? not he. If he did, I'd a seen him surely.”
“Why, thin, I'd kiss the book I seen him goin' towards the barn, as I was comin' into the stable. Sowl, he's a made boy, that; an' if I don't mistake, he's in Mike Reillaghan's intherest. You know divil a secret can escape him.”
“Hut! the prayin' ould crathur was on his way to the Midnight Mass; he thravels slow, and, of coorse, has to set out early; besides, you know, he has Carols, and bades, and the likes, to sell at the chapel.”