augh that now went round, the
sly tendency of the question--"no, nor to your family either, for he
had nothing of the ass in him--eh? will you put that in your pocket, my
little _skinadhre_ (* A thin, fleshless, stunted person.)--ha! ha! ha!"

The laugh was now turned against M'Kinley.

Shane Fadh proceeded: "The ould Square, as I was tellin yez, cried to
find himself an' the poor baste so dissolute; but when he had gone a bit
from the fellow, he comes back to the vagabone--'Now,' says he, 'mind my
words--if you happen to live afther me, you need never expect a night's
pace; for I here make a serous an' solemn vow, that as long as my
property's in your possession, or in any of your seed, breed, or
gineration's, I'll never give over hauntin' you an' them, till you'll
rue to the back-bone your dishonesty an' chathery to me an' this poor
baste, that hasn't a shoe to his foot.'

"'Well,' says the nager, 'I'll take chance of that, any way.'"

"I'm tould, Shane," observed the poacher, "that the Square was a fine
man in his time, that wouldn't put up with sich treatment from anybody."

"Ay, but he was ould now," Shane replied, "and too wakely to fight.--A
fine man, Bill!--he was the finest man, 'cepting ould Square Storey,
that ever was in this counthry. I hard my granfather often say that he
was six feet four, and made in proportion--a handsome, black-a-vis'd
man, with great dark whiskers. Well! he spent money like sklates, and so
he died miserable--but had a merry birrel, as I said."

"But," inquired Nancy, "did he ever appear to the rogue that chated
him?"

"Every night in the year, Nancy, exceptin' Sundays; and what was more,
the horse along with him--for he used to come ridin' at midnight upon
the same garran; and it was no matther what place or company the other
'ud be in, the ould Square would come reglarly, and crave him for what
he owed him."

"So it appears that horses have sowls," observed M'Roarkin,
philosophically, giving, at the same time, a cynical chuckle at the
sarcasm contained in his own conceit.

"Whether they have sowls or bodies," replied the narrator, "what I'm
tellin' you is truth; every night in the year the ould chap would come
for what was indue him; find as the two went along, the noise of the
loose shoe upon the horse would be hard rattlin', and seen knockin' the
fire out of the stones, by the neighbors and the thief that chated him,
even before the Square would appeal at all at all."