ashes_."

This was a triumph to the youngsters, who, began to shake their little
fists at him, and to exclaim in a chorus--"Ha, you dirty rip! wait till
we get you out o' the house, an' if we don't put you from ever drivin'!
Why, but you work like another!--ha, you'll get it!"--and every little
fist was shook in vengeance at him.

"Whist wid ye," said Jemmy to the little ones; "let him alone, he got
enough. There's the cows for you; an keen may the curse o' the widow
an' orphans light upon you, and upon them that sent you, from first to
last!--an' that's the best we wish you!"

"Frank," said Owen to the bailiff, "is there any one in the town below
that will take the rint, an' give a resate for it? Do you think, man,
that the neighbors of an honest, industrious woman 'ud see the cattle
taken out of her byre for a thrifle? Hut tut! no, man alive--no sich
thing! There's not a man in the parish, wid manes to do it, would see
them taken away to be canted, at only about a fourth part of their
value. Hut, tut,--no!"

As the sterling fellow spoke, the cheeks of the widow were suffused with
tears, and her son Jemmy's hollow eyes once more kindled, but with a far
different expression from that which but a few minutes before flashed
from them.

"Owen," said he, and utterance nearly failed him: "Owen, if I was well
it wouldn't be as it is wid us; but--no, indeed it would not; but--may
God bless you for this! Owen, never fear but you'll be paid; may God
bless you, Owen!"

As he spoke the hand of his humble benefactor was warmly grasped in his.
A tear fell upon it: for with one of those quick and fervid transitions
of feeling so peculiar to the people, he now felt a strong, generous
emotion of gratitude, mingled, perhaps, with a sense of wounded pride,
on finding the poverty of their little family so openly exposed.

"Hut, tut, Jimmy, avick," said Owen, who understood his feelings; "phoo,
man alive! hut--hem!--why, sure it's nothin' at all, at all; anybody
would do it--only a bare five an' twenty shillins [it was five pound]:
any neighbor--Mick Cassidy, Jack Moran, or Pether M'Cullagh, would do
it.--Come, Frank, step out; the money's to the fore. Rosha, put
your cloak about you, and let us go down to the agint, or clerk, or
whatsomever he is--sure, that makes no maxin anyhow;--I suppose he
has power to give a resate. Jemmy, go to bed again, you're pale, poor
bouchal; and, childhre, ye crathurs ye, the cows won't be taken from