r fought and abused one another for what they both were
guilty of."

"Well," says Tom, "you have saved me some trouble, Mr. Morrow, for you
just said, to a hair, what they were. But I mustn't forget to mintion
one thing that I saw the morning of the berril. We were,--about a dozen
neighbors of us, talking in the street, just before the door; both the
hagyards were forninst us--Tom's snug and nate--but Charley Lawdher had
to go over from where we stood to drive the pig out of poor Larry's.
There was one of the stacks with the side out of it, just as he had
drawn away the sheaves from time to time; for the stack leaned to one
side, and he pulled sheaves out of the other side to keep it straight.
Now, Mr. Morrow, wasn't he an unfortunate man? for whoever would go down
to Squire Dickson's hagyard, would see the same Larry's handiwork so
beautiful and illegant, though his own was in such _brutheen_.* Even
his barn to wrack; and he was obliged to thrash his oats in the open air
when ther would be a frost, and he used to lose one-third of it; and if
there came a thaw, 'twould almost brake the crathur."

* Brutheen is potatoes champed with butter. Anything in a
loose, broken, and irregular state, is said to be in
brutheen--that is in disorder and contusion.

"God knows," said Nancy, looking over at Ned very significantly, "and
Larry's not alone in neglecting his business; that is, if certain people
were allowed to take their own way; but the truth of it is, that he met
with a bad woman. If he had a careful, sober, industrious wife of his
own, that would take care of the house and place--(_Biddy, will you hand
me over that other dew out of the windy-stool there till I finish this
stocking for Ned_)--the story would have another ending any how."

"In throth," said Tom, "that's no more than thruth, Nancy; but he had
not, and everything went to the bad with them entirely."

"It's a thousand pities he hadn't yourself, Nancy," said Alick,
grinning; "if he had, I haven't the laste doubt at all, but he'd die
worth money."

"Go on, Alick--go on, Avick; I will give you lave to have your joke,
any way; for it's you that's the patthern to any man that would wish to
thrive in the world."

"If Ned dies, Nancy, I don't know a woman I'd prefer; I'm now a widdy'
these five years; and I feel, somehow, particularly since I began
to spend my evenings here, that I'm disremembering very much the old
proverb--a burnt child, dre