it will do you no
harm."

This counsel, delivered much more in a tone of menace than of friendly
advice, concluded the interview, for having spoken, the fellow left the
cabin, and began to descend the mountain.

Owen's heart swelled fiercely--a flood of conflicting emotions were
warring within it; and as he turned to throw the paper into the fire,
his eye caught the date, 16th March. "St. Patrick's Eve, the very day
I saved his life," said he, bitterly. "Sure I knew well enough how it
would be when the landlord died! Well, well, if my poor ould father
doesn't know it, it's no matter.--Well, Patsy, acushla, what are ye
crying for? There, my boy, don't be afeard, 'tis Nony's with ye."

The accents so kindly uttered quieted the little fellow in a moment, and
in a few minutes after he was again asleep in the old straw chair beside
the fire. Brief as Owen's absence had been, the old man seemed much
worse as he entered the room. "God forgive me, Owen darling," said he,
"but it wasn't my poor sowl I was thinking of that minit. I was thinking
that you must get a letter wrote to the young landlord about this little
place--I'm sure he'll never say a word about rent, no more nor his
father; and as the times wasn't good lately--"

"There, there, father," interrupted Owen, who felt shocked at the old
man's not turning his thoughts in another direction; "never mind those
things," said he; "who knows which of us will be left? the sickness
doesn't spare the young, no more than the ould."

"Nor the rich, no more nor the poor," chimed in the old man, with a kind
of bitter satisfaction, as he thought on the landlord's death; for of
such incongruous motives is man made up, that calamities come lighter
when they involve the fall of those in station above our own. "'Tis
a fine day, seemingly," said he, suddenly changing the current of his
thoughts; "and elegant weather for the country; we'll have to turn in
the sheep over that wheat; it will be too rank: ayeh," cried he, with a
deep sigh, "I'll not be here to see it;" and for once, the emotions, no
dread of futurity could awaken, were realised by worldly considerations,
and the old man wept like a child.

"What time of the month is it?" asked he, after a long interval in which
neither spoke; for Owen was not really sorry that even thus painfully
the old man's thoughts should be turned towards eternity.

"'Tis the seventeenth, father, a holy-day all over Ireland!"

"Is there many at