on swarthy,
relieved, however, by certain freckles, with which the skin was
plentifully studded. He had strange wandering eyes, gray, and somewhat
unequal in size; they seldom rested on the book, but were generally
wandering about the room, from one object to another. Sometimes he would
fix them intently on the wall; and then suddenly starting, as if from a
reverie, he would commence making certain mysterious movements with his
thumbs and fore-fingers, as if he were shuffling something from him.

One morning, as he sat by himself on a bench, engaged in this manner, I
went up to him, and said, "Good day, Murtagh; you do not seem to have
much to do?"

"Faith, you may say that, Shorsha dear!--it is seldom much to do that I
have."

"And what are you doing with your hands?"

"Faith, then, if I must tell you, I was e'en dealing with the cards."

"Do you play much at cards?"

"Sorra a game, Shorsha, have I played with the cards since my uncle
Phelim, the thief, stole away the ould pack, when he went to settle in
the county Waterford!"

"But you have other things to do?"

"Sorra anything else has Murtagh to do that he cares about; and that
makes me dread so going home at nights."

"I should like to know all about you; where do you live, joy?"

"Faith, then, ye shall know all about me, and where I live. It is at a
place called the Wilderness that I live, and they call it so, because it
is a fearful wild place, without any house near it but my father's own;
and that's where I live when at home."

"And your father is a farmer, I suppose?"

"You may say that; and it is a farmer I should have been, like my brother
Denis, had not my uncle Phelim, the thief! tould my father to send me to
school, to learn Greek letters, that I might be made a saggart of, and
sent to Paris and Salamanca."

"And you would rather be a farmer than a priest?"

"You may say that!--for, were I a farmer, like the rest, I should have
something to do, like the rest--something that I cared for--and I should
come home tired at night, and fall asleep, as the rest do, before the
fire; but when I comes home at night I am not tired, for I have been
doing nothing all day that I care for; and then I sits down and stares
about me, and at the fire, till I become frighted; and then I shouts to
my brother Denis, or to the gasoons, 'Get up, I say, and let's be doing
something; tell us a tale of Finn-ma-Coul, and how he lay down in the
Shannon's bed, and