As one of the little ones ran out to fill his jug, he spied his mother
and Owen approaching, on which, with the empty vessel in his hand, he
flew towards them, his little features distorted by glee and ferocity,
wildly mixed up together.
"Oh mudher, mudher--ha, ha, ha!--don't come in yet; don't come in, Owen,
till Jimmy un' huz, an' the Denisses, gets the bailie drownded. We'll
soon have the _bot_ (* tub) full; but Paddy an' Jack Denis have the
eyes a'most pucked out of him; an' Katty's takin' the rapin' hook from,
behind the _cuppet_, to get it about his neck."
Owen and the widow entered with all haste, precisely at the moment when
Frank's head was dipped, for the first time, into the vessel.
"Is it goin' to murdher him ye are?" said Owen, as he seized Jemmy with
a grasp that transferred him to the opposite end of the house; "hould
back ye pack of young divils, an' let the man up. What did he come to
do but his duty? I tell you, Jimmy, if you wor at yourself, an' in full
strinth, that you'd have the man's blood on you where you stand, and
would suffer as you ought to do for it."
"There, let me," replied the lad, his eyes glowing and his veins
swollen with passion; "I don't care if I did. It would be no sin, an' no
disgrace, to hang for the like of him; dacenter to do that, than stale a
creel of turf, or a wisp of straw, 'tanny rate.
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