"Where did I get them, is it?"

"Ay; I said so."

"Why, where they grew--ha, ha, ha! There's information for you."

"Oh, G.o.d help you! how do you expect to get through life at all?"

"Why, as well as I can--although not, maybe, as well as I wish."

"Where did you cut them thorns, I ax?"

"An' I tould you; but since that won't satisfy you, I cut them on the _Rath_ above there."

"Heaven presarve us, you hardened jade, have you no fear of anything about you?"

"Divil a much that I know of, sure enough."

"Didn't you know that them thorns belongs to the fairies, and that some evil will betide any one that touches or injures a single branch o'

them."

"Divil a single branch I injured," replied Sarah, laughing; "I cut down the whole tree at wanst."

"My sowl to glory, if I think its safe to live in the house wid you, you hardened divil."

"Troth, I think you may well say so, afther yesterday's escape,"

returned Sarah; "an' I have no objection that you should go to glory, body an' soul; an' a purty piece o goods will be in glory when you're there--ha, ha, ha!"

"Throw out them thorns, I bid you."

"Why so? Don't we want them for the fire?"

"No matther for that; we don't want to bring 'the good people'--this day's Thursday, the Lord stand between us an' harm--amin!--about our ears. Out wid them."

"No, the sorra branch."

"Out wid them, I say, Are you afeard of neither G.o.d nor the divil?"

"Not overburdened with much fear of either o' them," replied the daring young creature.

"Aren't you afeard o' the good people, then?"

"If they're good people, why should we be afeard o' them? No, I'm not."

"Put the thorns out, I bid you again."

"Divil a chip, mother dear; if your own evil conscience or your dirty cowardice makes you afeard o' the fairies, don't think I am. I don't care that about them. These same thorns must boil the dinner in spite of all the fairies in Europe; so don't fret either yourself or me on the head o' them."

"Oh, I see what's to come! There's a doom over this house, that's all, an' over some, if not all o' them that's in it. Everything's leadin' to it; an' come it will."

"Why, mother, dear, at this rate you'll leave my father nothin' to say.

You're keepin' all the black prophecies to yourself. Why don't you rise up, man alive," she added, turning to him, "and let her hear how much of the divil's lingo you can give?--It's hard, if you can't prophesy as much evil as she can. Shake yourself, ruffle your feathers, or clap your wings three times, in the divil's name, an' tell her she'll be hanged; or, if you wish to soften it, say she'll go to Heaven in a string. Ha, ha, ha!"

At this moment, a poor, famine-struck looking woman, with three or four children, the very pictures of starvation and misery, came to the door, and, in that voice of terrible dest.i.tution, which rings feeble and hollow from an empty and exhausted frame, she implored them for some food.

"We haven't it for you, honest woman," said Nelly, in her cold, indifferent voice--"it's not for you now."

The hope of relief was nearly destroyed by the unfeeling tones of the voice in which she was answered. She looked, however, at her famishing children, and once more returned to the door, after having gone a few steps from it.

"Oh, what will become of these?" she added, pointing to the children. "I don't care about myself--I think my cares will soon be over."

"Go to the divil out o' that!" shouted the prophet--"don't be tormentin'

us wid yourself and your brats."

"Didn't you hear already," repeated his wife, "that you got your answer?

We're poor ourselves, and we can't help every one that comes to us. It's not for you now."

"Don't you hear that there's nothing for you?" again cried the prophet, in an angry voice; "yet you'll be botherin' us!"

"Indeed, we haven't it, good woman," repeated Nelly; "so take your answer."

"Don't you know that's a lie?" said Sarah, addressing her step-mother.

"You have it, if you wish to give it."

"What's a lie?" said her father, starting, for he had again relapsed into his moodiness. "What's a lie?--who--who's a liar?"

"You are!" she replied, looking him coolly and contemptuously in the face; "you tell the poor woman that there's nothing for her. Don't you know that's a lie? It may be very well to tell a lie to them that can bear it--to a rich bodagh, or his proud lady of a wife--although it's a mean thing even to them; but to tell a lie to that heartbroken woman and her poor childhre--her childhre--aren't they her own?--an' who would spake for them if she wouldn't. If every one treated the poor that way, what would become of them? Ay, to look in her face, where there's want an' hunger, and answer distress wid a lie--it's cruel--cruel!"

"What a kind-hearted creature she is," said her step-mother, looking towards her father--"isn't she?"

"Come here, poor woman," said Sarah, calling her back; "it is for you. If these two choose to let you and your childhre die or starve, I won't;" and she went to the meal to serve them as she spoke.

The woman returned, and looked with considerable surprise at her; but Nelly went also to the meal, and was about to interpose, when Sarah's frame became excited, and her eyes flashed, as they always did when in a state of pa.s.sion.

"If you're wise, don't prevent me," she said. "Help these creatures I will. I'm your match now, an' more than your match, thank G.o.d; so be quiet."

"If I was to die for it, you won't have your will now, then," said Nelly.

"Die when you like, then," replied Sarah; "but help that poor woman an'

her childhre I will."

"Fight it out," said Donnel Dhu, "its a nice quarrel, although Sal has the right on her side."

"If you prevent me," said she, disregarding her step-mother, "you'll rue it quickly; or hould--I'm beginnin' to hate this kind of quarrellin'--here, let her have as much meal as will make my supper; I'll do without any for the sake of the childhre, this night."

This was uttered in a tone of voice more mitigated, but at the same time so resolute, that Nelly stepped back and left her to pursue her own course.

She then took a wooden trencher, and with a liberal hand a.s.sisted the poor creatures, who began to feel alarmed at the altercation which their distress had occasioned in the family.

"You're starvin', childre," said she, whilst emptying the meal into the poor woman's bag.