“Whoo, by the powers!” shouted Shamus, at last thrown off his guard by the surpassing joy derived from this intelligence, as well as by the effects of the ale; and at the same time he jumped up, cutting a caper with his legs, and flourishing his shillalah. “Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked his friend, glancing at him a frowning and misgiving look. “We ax pardon, sir.” Shamus rallied his prudence. “An’, sure, sorrow a thing is the matter wid me, only the dhrop, I believe, made me do it, as it ever and always does, good luck to it for the same. An’ isn’t what we were spaking about the biggest raumaush [Footnote: Nonsense.] undher the sun, sir? Only it’s the laste bit in the world quare to me how you’d have the dhrame about your own country, that you didn’t see for so many years, sir--for twenty long years, I think you said, sir?” Shamus had now a new object in putting his sly question. “If I said so, I forgot,” answered the publican, his suspicions of Shamus at an end. “But it is about twenty years, indeed, since I left Ireland.” “And by your speech, sir, and your dacency, I’ll engage you were in a good way in the poor place afore you left it?” “You guess correctly, friend.” (The publican gave way to vanity.) “Before misfortunes came over me, I possessed, along with a good hundred acres besides, the very ground that the old ruin I saw in the foolish dream I told you stands upon.” “An’ so did my curse-o’-God’s uncle,” thought Shamus, his heart’s blood beginning to boil, though, with a great effort, he kept himself seemingly cool. “And this is the man fornent me, if he answers another word I’ll ax him. Faix, sir, and sure that makes your dhrame quarer than ever; and the ground the ould abbey is on, sir, and the good acres round it, did you say they lay somewhere in the poor county myself came from?” “What county is that, friend?” demanded the publican, again with a studious frown. “The ould County Monaghan, sure, sir,” replied Shamus, very deliberately. “No, but the county of Clare,” answered his companion.