y friends won't be
glad to see me?' `Plase your honour, it's all an idea of mine--so say
no more about it. Only this I know; Father McGrath, who gives me
absolution, tould me the other day that I ought to pay him and not run
in debt, and then run away, like Terence O'Brien, who went to say
without paying for his shirts, and his shoes, and his stockings, nor
anything else, and who would live to be hanged, as sure as St. Patrick
swam over the Liffey with his head under his arm.' `Bad luck to that
Father McGrath,' cried I; `devil burn me, but I'll be revenged upon
him!'

"By that time we had arrived at the door of my father's house. I paid
the rapparee, and in I popped. There was my father and mother, and all
my brothers and sisters (bating Tim, who was in bed sure enough, and
died next day), and that baste, Father McGrath, to boot. When my mother
saw me she ran to me and hugged me as she wept on my neck, and then she
wiped her eyes and sat down again; but nobody else said, `How d'ye do?'
or opened their mouths to me. I said to myself, `Sure there's some
trifling mistake here,' but I held my tongue. At last they all opened
their mouths with a vengeance. My father commenced--`Ar'n't you ashamed
on yourself, Terence O'Brien?'--`Ar'n't you ashamed on yourself, Terence
O'Brien?' cried Father McGrath. `Ar'n't you ashamed on yourself?' cried
out all my brothers and sisters in full chorus, whilst my poor mother
put her apron to her eyes and said nothing. `The devil a bit for
myself, but very much ashamed for you all,' replied I, `to treat me in
this manner. What's the meaning of all this?' `Haven't they seized my
two cows to pay for your toggery, you spalpeen?' cried my father.
`Haven't they taken the hay to pay for your shoes and stockings?' cried
Father McGrath. `Haven't they taken the pig to pay for that ugly hat of
yours?' cried my eldest sister. `And haven't they taken my hens to pay
for that dirk of yours?' cried another. `And all our best furniture to
pay for your white shirts and black cravats?' cried Murdock, my brother.
`And haven't we been starved to death ever since?' cried they all.
`Och hone!' said my mother. `The devil they have!' said I, when they'd
all done. `Sure I'm sorry enough, but it's no fault of mine. Father,
didn't you send me to say?' `Yes, you rapparee; but didn't you
promise--or didn't I promise for you, which is all one and the same
thing--that you'd pay it all back with your prize