old-fashioned musket, the stock mended by some rude country
hand. This was Tom Keane, the "caretaker," who, in all the indolent
enjoyment of office, sat smoking his "dudeen," and calmly surveying the
process by which a young heifer was cropping the yearling shoots of an
ash-tree.

Twice was his name called by a woman's voice from within the house
before he took any notice of it.

"Arrah, Tom, are ye asleep?" said she, coming to the door, and showing a
figure whose wretchedness was even greater than his own; while a certain
delicacy of feature, an expression of a mild and pleasing character,
still lingered on a face where want and privation had set many a mark.
"Tom, alanah!" said she, in a tone of coaxing softness, "sure it's time
to go down to the post-office. Ye know how anxious the ould man is for a
letter."

"Ay, and he has rayson, too," said Tom, without stirring.

"And Miss Mary herself was up here yesterday evening to bid you go
early, and, if there was a letter, to bring it in all haste."

"And what for need I make haste?" said the man, sulkily. "Is it any
matther to me whether he gets one or no? Will _I_ be richer or poorer?
Poorer!" added he, with a savage laugh; "be gorra! that wud be hard,
anyhow. That's a comfort old Oorrigan hasn't. If they turn him out of
the place, then he'll know what it is to be poor!"

"Oh, Tom, acushla! don't say _that_, and he so good to us, and the
young lady that was so kind when the childer had the measles, comin'
twice--no, but three times a day, with everything she could think of."

"Wasn't it to please herself? Who axed her?" said Tom, savagely.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" sighed the woman. "Them's the hard words,--'to
please herself!'"

"Ay, just so! When ye know them people as well as me, you 'll say the
same. That's what they like,--to make themselves great among the poor;
giving a trifle here, and a penny there; making gruel for this one, and
tay for that; marchin' in as if they owned the house, and turning up
their noses at everything they see. 'Why don't you sweep before the
door, Nancy?'--'Has the pig any right to be eating there out of the
kish with the childer?'--'Ye ought to send that child to school'--and,
'What's your husband doing?'--That's the cry with them. 'What's your
husband doing? Is he getting the wheat in, or is he at the potatoes?'
Tear and ages!" cried he, with a wild energy, "what does any one of
themselves do from morning till night, that they 're