e gallows?"

"You should be taken up, fellow, as a vagrant," a third would observe;
"and if I ever catch you coming up my avenue again, depend upon it, I
will slip my dogs at you and your idle spawn."

Owen, on these occasions, turned away in silence; he did not curse them;
but the pangs of his honest heart went before Him who will, sooner or
later, visit upon the heads of such men their cruel spurning and neglect
of the poor.

"Kathleen," he observed to his wife, one day, about a, year or more
after they had begun to beg; "Kathleen, I have been turnin' it in my
mind, that some of these childhre might sthrive to earn their bit an'
sup, an' their little coverin' of clo'es, poor things. We might put them
to herd cows in the summer, an' the girshas to somethin' else in the
farmers' house. What do you think, asthore?"

"For God's sake do, Owen; sure my heart's crushed to see them--my own
childhre, that I could lay down my life for--beggin' from door to door.
Och, do something for them that way, Owen, an' you'll relieve the heart
that loves them. It's a sore sight to a mother's eye, Owen, to see her
childhre beggin' their morsel."

"It is darlin'--it is; we'll hire out the three eldest--Brian, an' Owen,
an' Pether, to herd cows; an' we may get Peggy into some farmer's
house to do loose jobs an' run of messages. Then we'd have only little
Kathleen an' poor Ned along wid us. I'll try any way, an' if I can get
them places, who knows what may happen? I have a plan in my head that
I'll tell you, thin."

"Arrah, what is it, Owen, jewel. Sure if I know it, maybe when I'm
sorrowful, that thinkin' of it, an' lookin' forrid to it will make me
happier. An' I'm sure, acushla, you would like that."

"But maybe, Kathleen, if it wouldn't come to pass, that the
disappointment 'ud be heavy on you?"

"How could it, Owen? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, whatever
happens?"

"Thrue enough, indeed, I forgot that; an' yet we might, Kathleen. Sure
we'd be worse, if we or the childhre had bad health."

"God forgive me thin, for what I said! We might be worse. Well, but what
is the plan, Owen?"

"Why, when we got the childhre places, I'll sthrive to take a little
house, an' work as a cottar. Then, Kathleen, we'd have a home of our
own. I'd work from light to light; I'd work before hours an' afther
hours; ay, nine days in the week, or we'd be comfortable in our own
little home. We might be poor, Kathleen, I know that, an' hard pressed