ll in a minute; see the time I have been at
it."

"Ah, to be sure, I forgot your antiquity."

"And it isn't the time only; it's giving your mind to it, old chap."

"What, you don't give your mind to your books, then, as you do to your
fiddle, _young gentleman?"_

"Not such a flat. Why, lookee here, governor, if you go and give your
mind to a thing you don't like, it's always time wasted, because some
other chap, that does like it, will beat you, and what's the use
working for to be beat?"

"'For' is redundant," objected Rolfe.

"But if you stick hard to the things you like, you do 'em downright
well. But old people are such fools, they always drive you the wrong
way. They make the gals play music six hours a day, and you might as
well set the hen bullfinches to pipe. Look at the gals as come here,
how they rattle up and down the piano, and can't make it sing a morsel.
Why, they _couldn't_ rattle like that, if they'd music in their skins,
d--n 'em; and they drive me to those stupid books, because I'm all for
music and moonshine. Can you keep a secret?"

"As the tomb."

"Well, then, I can do plenty of things well, besides fiddling; I can
set a wire with any poacher in the parish. I have caught plenty of our
old man's hares in my time; and it takes a workman to set a wire as it
should be. Show me a wire, and I'll tell you whether it was Hudson, or
Whitbeck, or Squinting Jack, or who it was that set it. I know all
their work that walks by moonlight hereabouts."

"This is criticism; a science; I prefer art; play me another tune, my
bold Bohemian."

"Ah, I thought I should catch ye with my fiddle. You're not such a muff
as the others, old 'un, not by a long chalk. Hang me if I won't give ye
'Ireland's music,' and I've sworn never to waste that on a fool."

He played the old Irish air so simply and tunably that Rolfe leaned
back in his chair, with half closed eyes, in soft voluptuous ecstasy.

The youngster watched him with his coal-black eye.

"I like you," said he, "better than I thought I should, a precious
sight."

"Highly flattered."

"Come with me, and hear my nurse sing it."

"What, and leave my novel?"

"Oh, bother your novel."

"And so I will. That will be tit for tat; it has bothered me. Lead on,
Bohemian bold."

The boy took him, over hedge and ditch, the short-cut to Meyrick's
farm; and caught Mrs. Meyrick, and said she must sing "Ireland's music"
to Rolfe the writer.

Mrs. Meyrick apolo