)
"If you mane me," said the housekeeper, "by the crook on the fire, I'd
lave you a mark."
"I mane you for one, thin, since you provoke me," replied Donovan.
"For one, is it?" said Nick; "an' who's the other, i' you plase?"
"Your brother's daughter," he replied. "Do you think I'd even (*
compare) my daughter to a thief?"
"Be gorra," observed Phelim, "that's too provokin', an' what I wouldn't
bear. Will ye keep the pace, I say, till I spake a word to Mrs Doran?
Mrs. Doran, can I have a word or two wid you outside the house?"
"To be sure you can," she replied; "I'd give you fair play, if the
diouol was in you."
Phelim, accordingly, brought her out, and thus accosted her,--
"Now, Mrs. Doran, you think I thrated you ondacent; but do you see that
book?" said he, producing a book of ballads, on which he had sworn many
a similar oath before? "Be the contints o' that book, as sure as you're
beside me, it's you I intind to marry. These other two--the curse o'
the crows upon them! I wish we could get them from about the place--is
bothyrin' for love o' me, an' I surely did promise to get myself called
to them. They wanted it to be a promise of marriage; but, says I, 'sure
if we're called together it's the same, for whin it comes to that, all's
right,'--an' so I tould both o' them, unknownst to one another. Arra,
be me sowl, you'd make two like them, so you would; an' if you hadn't
a penny, I'd marry you afore aither o' them to-morrow.
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