“'Well,' says the nager, 'if-you're not able to keep your horse shod, I would jist recommend you to sell him, and thin his shoes won't cost you any thing,' says he.
“The ould Square went away with tears in his eyes,—for he loved the poor brute, bekase they wor the two last branches of the ould stock.”
“Why,” inquired M'Kinley, in his small squeaking voice, “was the horse related to the family?”
“I didn't say he was related to the fam——
“Get out, you shingaun!” (* Fairy-like, or connected to the fairies) returned the old man, perceiving by the laugh that now went round, the sly tendency of the question—“no, nor to your family either, for he had nothing of the ass in him—eh? will you put that in your pocket, my little skinadhre (* A thin, fleshless, stunted person.)—ha! ha! ha!”
The laugh was now turned against M'Kinley.
Shane Fadh proceeded: “The ould Square, as I was tellin yez, cried to find himself an' the poor baste so dissolute; but when he had gone a bit from the fellow, he comes back to the vagabone—'Now,' says he, 'mind my words—if you happen to live afther me, you need never expect a night's pace; for I here make a serous an' solemn vow, that as long as my property's in your possession, or in any of your seed, breed, or gineration's, I'll never give over hauntin' you an' them, till you'll rue to the back-bone your dishonesty an' chathery to me an' this poor baste, that hasn't a shoe to his foot.'
“'Well,' says the nager, 'I'll take chance of that, any way.'”
“I'm tould, Shane,” observed the poacher, “that the Square was a fine man in his time, that wouldn't put up with sich treatment from anybody.”
“Ay, but he was ould now,” Shane replied, “and too wakely to fight.—A fine man, Bill!—he was the finest man, 'cepting ould Square Storey, that ever was in this counthry. I hard my granfather often say that he was six feet four, and made in proportion—a handsome, black-a-vis'd man, with great dark whiskers. Well! he spent money like sklates, and so he died miserable—but had a merry birrel, as I said.”