'
'All that may be very true,' said I, 'and pace be to his soul; but I
don't see why you are to drag me, that's in such a hurry, two miles out
of my way, out of principle.' 'Is your honour in a hurry to get home?
Then I'll be thinking they'll not be in such a hurry to see you.' 'And
who told you that my name was O'Brien, you baste?--and do you dare to
say that my 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
M'Grath, 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.
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