"That's my mind, sir."

"Well, now, listen to mine, and maybe, Hycy, I'll taiche you better
manners and more respect for your father; suppose I bring your brother
home from school,--suppose I breed him up an honest farmer,--and suppose
I give him all my property, and lave Mr. Gentleman Hycy to lead a
gentleman's life on his own means, the best way he can. There now is
something for you to suppose, and so I must go to my men."

He took up his hat as he spoke and went out to the fields, leaving both
mother and son in no slight degree startled by an intimation so utterly
unexpected, but which they knew enough of him to believe was one not at
all unlikely to be acted on by a man who so frequently followed up his
own determinations with a spirit amounting almost to obstinacy.

"I think, mother," observed the latter, "we must take in sail a little;
'the gentleman' won't bear the ironical to such an extent, although he
is master of it in his own way; in other words, Mr. Burke won't bear to
be laughed at."

"Not he," said his mother, in the tone of one who was half angry at him
on that very account, "he'll bear nothing."

"D--n it, to tell that vulgar bumpkin, Cavanagh, I suppose in a state
of maudlin drunkenness, that he would make me marry his daughter--to
oblige, him!--contempt could go no further; it was making a complete
cipher of me."

"Ay, but I'm disturbed about what he said going out, Hycy. I don't
half like the face he had on him when he said it; and when he comes to
discover other things, too, money matthers--there will be no keepin the
house wid him."

"I fear as much," said Hycy; "however, we must only play our cards as
well as we can; he is an impracticable man, no doubt of it, and it is a
sad thing that a young fellow of spirit should be depending on such a--

"'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can you bloom so fresh and fair,
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care, &c., &c.

"Well, well--I do not relish that last hint certainly, and if other
projects should fail, why, as touching the fair Katsey, it might not
be impossible that--however, time will develop. She is a fine girl, a
magnificent creature, no doubt of it, still, most maternal relative, as
I said, time will develop--by the way, Mrs. M'Mahon, the clodhopper's
mother, is to be interred to-morrow, and I suppose you and 'the
gentleman' will attend the funeral."

"Sartinly, we must."

"So s