“When will I come home?” inquired Bartle. “You may stay at home now that you're here,” said the other. “An' in the mane time, go an' help Connor put that hay in lap-cocks. Anything you want to bring here you can bring afther your day's work tonight.” “Did you ate your dinner, Bartle?” said Honora; “bekase if you didn't I'll get you something.” “It's not to this time o' day he'd be without his dinner, I suppose,” observed his new master. “You're very right, Fardorougha,” rejoined Bartle; “I'm thankful to you, ma'am, I did ate my dinner.” “Well, you'll get a rake in the barn, Bartle,” said his master; “an' now tramp down to Connor, an' I'll see how you'll handle yourselves, both o' you, from this till night.” Bartle accordingly--proceeded towards the meadow, and Fardorougha, as was his custom, throwing his great coat loosely about his shoulders, the arms dangling on each side of him, proceeded to another part of his farm. Flanagan's step, on his way to join Connor, was slow and meditative. The kindness of the son and mother touched him; for the line between their disposition and Fardorougha's was too strong and clear to allow the slightest suspicion of their participation in the spirit which regulated his life. The father, however, had just declared that his anxiety to accumulate money arose from a wish to settle his son independently in life; and Flanagan was too slightly acquainted with human character to see through this flimsy apology for extortion. He took it for granted that Fardorougha spoke truth, and his resolution received a bias from the impression, which, however, his better nature determined to subdue. In this uncertain state of mind he turned about almost instinctively, to look in the direction which Fardorougha had taken, and as he observed his diminutive figure creeping along with his great coat about him, he felt that the very sight of the man who had broken up their hearth and scattered them on the world, filled his heart with a deep and deadly animosity that occasioned him to pause as a person would do who finds himself unexpectedly upon the brink of a precipice. Connor, on seeing him enter the meadow with the rake, knew at once that the terms had been concluded between them; and the excellent young man's heart was deeply moved at the destitution which forced Flanagan to seek for service with the very individual who had occasioned it. “I see, Bartle,” said he, “you have agreed.” “We have,” replied Bartle. “But if there had been any other place to be got in the parish--(an' indeed only for the state I'm in)--I wouldn't have hired myself to him for nothing, or next to nothing, as I have done.” “Why, what did he promise?” “Three pounds a year, an' out o' that I'm to pay him fifteen shillings that my father owes him still.”