“I do, and so would poor Emmy Annaly, if she was alive, which it’s fortunate for her she is not (broken-hearted angel, if ever there was one, by wedlock! and the only one of the Annalys I ever liked),” said Cornelius to himself, in a low leisurely voice of soliloquy. Then resuming his conversation tone, and continuing his speech to Sir Ulick, “I say you pretended thirty years ago, I remember, to be a reformed rake, and looked mighty smooth and plausible--and promised fair that the improvement was solid, and was to last for ever and a day. But six months after marriage comes a relapse, and the reclaimed rake’s worse than ever. Well, to be sure, that’s in favour of your opinion against all things pretending to be reclaimed. But see, my poor bog, without promising so well, performs better; for it’s six years, instead of six months, that I’ve seen no tendency to relapse. See, the _cattle_ upon it speak for themselves; an honest calf won’t lie for any man.” “I give you joy of the success of your improvements. I admire, too, your ploughing team and ploughing tackle,” said Sir Ulick, with an ironical smile. “You don’t go into any indiscreet expense for farming implements or prize cattle.” “No,” said Cornelius, “I don’t prize the prize cattle; the best prize a man can get, and the only one worth having, is that which he must give himself, or not get, and of which he is the best judge at all sasons.” “What prize, may I ask?” “You may ask, and I’ll answer--the prize of _success_; and, success to myself, I have, it.” “And succeeding in all your ends by such noble means must be doubly gratifying--and is doubly commendable and surprising,” said Sir Ulick. “May I ask--for it’s my turn now to play ignoramus--may I ask, what noble means excites this gratuitous commendation and surprise?” “I commend, in the first place, the economy of your ploughing tackle--hay ropes, hay traces, and hay halters--doubly useful and convenient for harness and food.” Corny replied, “Some people I know, think the most expensive harness and tackle, and the most expensive ways of doing every thing, the best; but I don’t know if that is the way for the poor to grow rich--it may be the way for the rich to grow poor: we are all poor people in the Black Islands, and I can’t afford, or think it good policy, to give the example of extravagant new ways of doing old things.” “‘Tis a pity you don’t continue the old Irish style of ploughing by the tail,” said Sir Ulick. “That is against humanity to brute _bastes_, which, without any sickening palaver of sentiment, I practise. Also, it’s against an act of parliament, which I regard sometimes--that is, when I understand them; which, the way you parliament gentlemen draw them up, is not always particularly intelligible to plain common sense; and I have no lawyers here, thank Heaven! to consult: I am forced to be legislator, and lawyer, and ploughman, and all, you see, the best I can for myself.”