“A kind harvest to you, John Dolan,” cried the postilion, “and success to ye, Winny, with the quality. There’s a luck-penny for the child to begin with,” added he, throwing the child a penny. “Your honour, they’re only poor _cratures_ going up the country to beg, while the man goes over to reap the harvest in England. Nor this would not be, neither, if the lord was in it to give ‘em _employ_. That man, now, was a good and willing _slave_ in his day: I mind him working with myself in the shrubberies at Clonbrony Castle, when I was a boy--but I’ll not be detaining your honour, now the road’s better.” The postilion drove on at a good rate for some time, till he came to a piece of the road freshly covered with broken stones, where he was obliged again to go slowly. They overtook a string of cars, on which were piled up high, beds, tables, chairs, trunks, boxes, band-boxes. “How are you, Finnucan? you’ve fine loading there--from Dublin, are you?” “From Bray.” “And what news?” “_Great_ news and bad for Old Nick, or some belonging to him, thanks be to Heaven! for myself hates him.” “What’s happened him?” “His sister’s husband that’s failed, the great grocer that was, the man that had the wife that _ow’d_[7] the fine house near Bray, that they got that time the parliament _flitted_, and that I seen in her carriage flaming--well, it’s all out; they’re all _done up_.” “Tut! is that all? then they’ll thrive, and set up again grander than ever, I’ll engage: have not they Old Nick for an attorney at their back? a good warrant?” “Oh, trust him for that! he won’t go _security_, nor pay a farthing, for his _shister_, nor wouldn’t, was she his father; I heard him telling her so, which I could not have done in his place, at that time, and she crying as if her heart would break, and I standing by in the parlour.” “The _neger_[8]! And did he speak that way, and you by?” “Ay, did he; and said, ‘Mrs. Raffarty,’ says he, ‘it’s all your own fault; you’re an extravagant fool, and ever was, and I wash my hands of you.’ that was the word he spoke; and she answered, and said, ‘And mayn’t I send the beds and blankets?’ said she, ‘and what I can, by the cars, out of the way of the creditors, to Clonbrony Castle? and won’t you let me hide there, from the shame, till the bustle’s over?’ ‘You may do that,’ says he, ‘for what I care; but remember,’ says he, ‘that I’ve the first claim to them goods;’ and that’s all he would grant. So they are coming down all o’ Monday--them are the band-boxes, and all--to settle it; and faith it was a pity of her! to hear her sobbing, and to see her own brother speak and look so hard! and she a lady.” “Sure, she’s not a lady born, no more than himself,” said Larry; “but that’s no excuse for him. His heart’s as hard as that stone,” said Larry; “and my own people knew that long ago, and now his own know it: and what right have we to complain, since he’s as bad to his own flesh and blood as to us?”