About a month or so before the departure of Frank and Art from the Corner House, Jemmy Murray and another man were one day in the beginning of May strolling through one of his pasture-fields. His companion was a thin, hard-visaged little fellow, with a triangular face, and dry bristly hair, very much the color of, and nearly as prickly as, a withered furze bush; both, indeed, were congenial spirits, for it is only necessary to say, that he of the furze bush was another of those charital and generous individuals whose great delight consisted, like his friend Murray, in watching the seasons, and speculating upon the failure of the crops. He had the reputation of being wealthy, and in fact was so; indeed, of the two, those who had reason to know, considered that he held the weightier purse; his name was Cooney Finigan, and the object of his visit to Murray--their conversation, however, will sufficiently develop that. Both, we should observe, appeared to be exceedingly blank and solemn; Cooney's hard face, as he cast his eye about him, would have made one imagine that he had just buried the last of his family, and Murray looked as if he had a son about to be hanged. The whole cause of this was simply that a finer season, nor one giving ampler promise of abundance, had not come within the memory of man. “Ah!” said Murray, with a sigh, “look, Cooney, at the distressin' growth of grass that's there--a foot high if it's an inch! If God hasn't sed it, there will be the largest and heaviest crops that ever was seen in the country; heigho!” “Well, but one can't have good luck always,” replied Cooney; “only it's the wondherful forwardness of the whate that's distressin' me.” “An' do you think that I'm sufferin' nothin' on that account?” asked his companion; “only you haven't three big stacks of hay waitin' for a failure, as I have.” “That's bekase I have no meadow on my farm,” replied Cooney; “otherwise I would be in the hay trade as well as yourself.” “Well, God help us, Cooney! every one has their misfortunes as well as you and I; sure enough, it's a bitther business to see how every thing's thrivin'--hay, oats, and whate! why they'll be for a song: may I never get a bad shillin', but the poor 'ill be paid for takin' them! that's the bitther pass things will come to; maurone ok! but it's a black lookout!” “An' this rain, too,” said Cooney, “so soft, and even, and small, and warm, that it's playin' the very devil. Nothin' could stand it. Why it ud make a rotten twig grow if it was put into the ground.” “Divil a one o' me would like to make the third,” said Murray, “for 'fraid I might have the misfortune to succeed. Death alive! Only think of my four arks, of meal, an' my three stacks of hay, an' divil a pile to come out of them for another twelve months!”