“True, neighbour; all that are not gentlemen must live. But there’s nothing in life easier than to live without their help; and I’d be proud to do it, if it were only to see them standing and standing all day, and many days, to see the shoals go by, and never a boat out to catch a fish for them. I’d go ten miles any day to see them stand idle, with all their sheds and cranes, and the new pier with the boats lying about it as if all the world was asleep. There would be easy work for a summer’s day!” “Easy enough for them, Dan, but hard enough for us that have not our pockets full of money like them.” “Never mind the money; where’s the money that will buy such a sunshine as this?” “If people like the sunshine as well with bare limbs and an empty stomach, Dan, I have nothing to say to them. For my part, I begin to feel the north wind chilling, now I am growing old; and I can’t fish till I have had my morning meal.” “O, the morning meal is the pleasantest thing in nature when it gives one no trouble; and if you would do as I do, you would have one every day in the year, without giving a triumph to them villains. Just bestir yourself to plant your potatoes, and then you are provided without more words. O, people should go to old Ireland to learn how to live!” “I thought Ireland had been a bad place to live in.” “Devil a bit, neighbour. It is the cheerfullest, brightest land the saints reign over,—glory to them for it!” “Then what brought you here?” “Just somebody told Noreen’s father that one might fish guineas in these seas; so he had us married, and sent us over; but, as I tell Noreen, there is less gold here than at Rathmullin, seeing that the sun shines one half less. But we make ourselves content, as they do in Ireland; and that a man may do all the world over—let alone a woman that has a gentle cratur like me for a husband.” “But how would you have me make myself content, when I can’t sell my fish either fresh or salted? I thought you had had more feeling for your neighbours, Dan.” “I! God help me, I’m as tinder-hearted as a lord’s lady. It is because I am so tinder-hearted that I would have nobody bother themselves. Just give a man a cabin, and a bit of ground, and a spade, and a girl for a wife to crown all, and why should he trouble himself till the stars fall out of the sky?” “And is that the way you do in Ireland?” “Just so; and that is why Ireland is better than any other land.” “But I have more to provide for than my wife,” said Murdoch, casting a look towards his little field. “Make Rob dig it for you the first year,” said Dan; “and if there is potatoes enough, well and good; and if not, go fish for what is wanting, or let Rob get a potato-ground for himself.” “But we shall want clothes, and money for rent.” “Tell the Company you’ll work out the rent, or sell your boat for it, or beseech the saints that love to help. Any way better than bother yourself.”