first myself, and let her come after when I saw a place to bring her to," Johnny answered. "An' indeed, Robert, I'll be thankful to you if you speak for me." "To be sure I will, Johnny, the best way I can," said Robert. But Annie, still fuming, commented sharply. "Troth, then, you needn't put yourself about. It's not every day them people will have ones looking after their daughter. 'Deed, then, Johnny, you're foolish-that's what you are. Why but you took up with some girl that would be a help to you? And the dear knows who you might meet out yonder." But again Robert interposed. "Faith, Annie, by what I read, Johnny's not that far wrong. A good wife out yonder is ill to come by one that would be a help to a man, and maybe worth more nor a bag of gold." "Ay, by what you read," cried Annie contemptuously. "You have for ever them notions out of books. Little good books ever were, I'm thinking, for the likes of you or Johnny." "Ach, give us peace, woman!" said Robert, ruffled at last. "Get me my coat, and we may be going. "Is it go that way?" cried Annie; "and you without your clean shirt! Go or not go, you'll go decent anywaythough it's little decency you'll find before you." Night had fallen dark when Robert and his son reached the M'Cormick's cottage. According to ceremonial custom, Johnny stayed outside in the muddy boreen while his supporter approached the house, and, finding only the halfdoor closed, opened it and entered slowly, as befits a stranger. - "Good evening to yous all," he said for the North has dropped the pious benedictions with which South and West still accompany salutation. James M'Cormick rose from his seat at the right-hand of the fire: a small man, almost buried in a portentous bush of foxy beard. "Is that Robert? It's yourself is a stranger here." Mrs M'Cormick, tall and grave of face, kindly and decent, rose too with greetings. "Come forward to the fire, Mr Corscadden," she said, drawing a chair to face the blaze of ruddy turf. Behind her the children were grouped along a settle, or squatted in the corner. A dark-haired girl sat nearest the wall, busy carding wool. She kept her face bent down over her work. "I'm thankful to you, Mrs M'Cormick," Robert answered. "But," and he drew with ceremony the bottle from his coat pocket, "there's a boy outside would like to know if you would let him stand treat to you this evening." There was a sudden stir among the children-a nudging and a whispering. The dark-haired girl bent her face lower over the wool. "Is it Johnny you have with you?" asked James M'Cormick, stooping to lift a coal and kindle his pipe. "There was word he was to come back." "Just Johnny," Johnny," answered Robert. "Och, poor Johnny! Bring him in, surely then, and welcome," said Mrs M'Cormick. "Johnny is still welcome in this house." Robert turned to the door, went out into the light streaming from it, and beckoned; then re-entered, with Johnny at his back. The household was on its feet now to greet the newcomer, and he went round shaking hands with each in turn. "How's Johnny?" "Well, thank God. And how's yourself?" The dark-haired Mary laid down her carding for a moment to give him the same greeting. "How's Johnny?" "Well, thank God. how's Mary?" Before she was back, Johnny had moved from his chair and contrived to seat himself next to her. Robert uncorked the bottle with the same air of ritual observance, filled a glass and handed it to M'Cormick, then another to his wife, who took it with some protestation. Then filling another, "Here, Johnny," he said, "give that to Mary, and make her drink success to you." Johnny offered it. "No, then," she answered. "Drink it yourself, Johnny. But I'm wishing you good fortune in your journey-indeed I am." "Well, here's luck," said Robert raising his glass, and "Here's luck was the answer. "And so you're for leaving us, Johnny," said M'Cormick, setting down his glass drained. "Well, many a one goes, and there's none should do better than yourself. And it's young Ogilvie that's taking you out. Man, you're the lucky one that has his passage paid and all.” "I'll hold you now," put in And Mrs M'Cormick, "he'll be counting the days till he's off. There's some think bad of going, but Johnny has a stout heart." Well, thank God." "Sit down, Johnny, now, and draw in your chair," said James M'Cormick. "Tell us, now, is it the truth you're for America?" But Robert interposed. "Don't let us be dry talking," he said. "It's not often I taste; but surely yous will take a glass with me when I do." "Troth, then," said Robert, "whatever's the way, Johnny thinks bad enough of going from some that's here. He doesn't want to go single, Mrs M'Cormick, that's the truth of it, and that's what we come here for this night-to see if we could come to some agreement amongst us." As Robert spoke, Mary rose from her corner and slipped quietly, evading Johnny's out stretched hand, into the room adjoining the kitchen. Again there was a stir among the wide-eyed children. "Look at her running," one whispered to the other. But James M'Cormick and his wife noticed them no more than the dogs and cats who crouched under chairs and tables. An Irish household has few secrets. "And what kind of agreement would that be," said James M'Cormick, his countenance falling into the lines that a peasant's lifetime of bargaining had moulded. "I'm thankful to you, Robert, for thinking on us, but we're as poor people as God ever made, and that's the short and the long of it." "Come now, James," said Robert, "you needn't be taking it that way. If you give in to the marriage, let you give her whatever you think right, much or little, and we're content. I was never one for them kind of bargains." "'Deed, then," said Mrs M'Cormick, "and you may say that, Mr Corscadden. You had never the name of a grasping man, for all you were no great spender; and whatever comes of it, I'll mind that you were a good friend to Mary since she was a wee thing, and us not looking for the like of this." "I'm not saying against it," said James M'Cormick. "Robert's a respected man, we know that. But speak up now, Robert, and tell us what you're meaning." Robert stated his proposal then, clearly and briefly, dwell ing on the rosiest side of Johnny's prospects. But the faces of his listeners fell manifestly. "An' it's not for taking her with him he would be," said James M'Cormick. "He would be to go off, and her to stay till he would come back for her, and her living with us, a married woman and likely a child with her.” But Johnny, who had sat so far silent and somewhat sheepish, started up now. "Are you evening it to me that I would desert her, then?" he cried. "Or that I would not be fit to rise as much money as would pay her passage? Faith, and if that's what you think "Whisht now, Johnny," said his father, "leave this to me, will you? Sure, James is right to take care for his daughter. Now, James, here's what I would say. If you're against keeping her, and her married to him, let her come to our house and live there till he can fetch her. And if you're for keeping her, let her stay here. You know the sort of Johnny well enough, and I needn't be talking. But if anything would happen him, she'll be no charge on you, without you wish it. Is that fair, now?" "Och ay, that's fair enough," James M'Cormick answered, drawing at his pipe, and striving to conceal his surprise at SO incautious a bargainer. "But still, nowseemed anxious and uncertain, and looked at his wife. She spoke then, filling up his pause. He "Ay, Robert, it's a quare way for a girl not to be going with her husband. But you needn't be thinking," she said with a dignity that answered his own, "that we would want to put her on to you. We would be badly off without her, and that's the truth.” "You have no call to tell me that," Robert answered. "But you see yourself the way it is, Margaret,"-for, like her, he had lapsed from the tone of ceremony into a sincerer utterance," the young ones are for going, and if they are, we have a right to help them -and then make the best we can of it ourselves." "Troth, Robert," she answered, "you may say that. I don't know what way you'll make out without Johnny." "Troth, and neither do I, Margaret," Robert answered her, wincing as if under a pain. Yet his tone, now under command, emphasised Johnny's value rather than his own loss. "But that's not our question," he said, turning sharp from this way of thought. "Come now, James, yonder's Johnny waiting. Will you let him ask herself. She'll not get a decenter boy, if I say it that should not, betwixt this and Cork. Shake hands on it now." And he stretched his hand out. James M'Cormick straightened himself in his seat, then, half rising, reached over and slapped his hand into the other. "Let him ask herself, then. If she says for him, I'll not be against. Call her in here, woman,” he said to his wife. But Johnny leant over, and spoke low to Mrs M'Cormick. She laughed and nodded. "Well, well, Johnny, go in yourself, then. It's maybe the best way; the young people has notions now that they never had in my time." Johnny rose and entered the door which led into the room, half closing it behind him. Mary sat there by the table, still busy at her work. But at sight of him she put it down in her lap. 66 Well, Mary," he said awkwardly, yet with the pride of achievement about him. The girl looked at him straight now, with reproachful eyes. "Och, Johnny, why did you do it? Why but you came to me?" "Wasn't it what you told me yourself?" he answered, taken aback by her tone. "You would never take me till my father came asking you himself. An' isn't he come the night?" 66 It's a wonder to me you would bring him," the girl said. Johnny looked in surprise at her, and seeing in her face what answered the indignation in her voice, he spoke in perplexity, yet half in amusement. "Dear knows, Mary, but you're the hard girl to please. I suppose now you'll be vexed because I took you on a sudden. But I thought it would be a surprise for you. Surely you'll not ask to refuse me for the like of that." Her tone was grave enough in reply. "Indeed, then, it's not for that, nor the like of that, Johnny. But if you came to me first, you had no call to make this journey." Johnny's countenance changed suddenly. He flushed deep. Words seemed to choke him. "You changed your mind, then," said he. "Faith, a nice fool you made of me." At the pain in his voice the girl's lips trembled, her eyes filled. "No, then, Johnny, I never changed," she said. "I never took any notion but the one. But to be marrying you this way, and you going out yonder, it's what I won't do." "Are you frightened I wouldn't be able to bring you out?" he said, still in anger. "I suppose you're not asking, like James, would I desert you?" "Johnny, dear," she said earnestly, still pleading with him, "'tisn't the like of that; troth, now, it isn't. But did you not hear the talk there is now against people quitting their own country?" At her words confidence returned to the suitor. He laughed, with a man's reasoning contempt for theory, and assured now of persuading. "Sure, Mary, there's nothing in that but talk. Why wouldn't I go where there's work waiting me, and good chances. I wouldn't be leaving Scotland at all, only there's no chances in it." "Scotland!" said she, with an accent of scorn. 66 Leaving Scotland, is it? Is it to Scotland you belong? Och, Johnny, have you no heart at all. Did you not take notice to Robert how he's failed since you left? It's the pity of the world to watch him and the poor childer striving to work that farm.' The attack was sudden, wholly unlooked for. New thoughts came and went confusedly on Johnny's face. She could see him wrestle with them. "Robert's all for my going," he answered. To the girl in her mood, in her growing hope and desire to convince, the answer was а provocation. "He is, troth!" she said, with rising heat. "To be sure he is. He would never let on not if you cut him with knives." Her eyes kindled, her voice swelled. "Didn't he humble himself to the ground to come here at all this night? Well I know how he's looked on, and how the like of us is looked on-and him offering everything in the world sooner than you would be crossed. Ay, his last penny he would give, to help you to go and leave him-him that bred you, and fed you, and taught you. Well, go then; and wherever you go, Johnny, I wish you well. But I'll not go with you-no, not if you had gold in every hand." The young man's face was white now, as only now he realised the strength of the will against him. He had come well pleased with himself to offer rewards: he was treated as a misdoer. Worse than that, there was an echo to her words deep in his own heart. But disappointment was uppermost, and he par |