"_Och badhershin_, doesn't he go up to walk home wid Kate Mulvey, for she's always iv the party?" "And _badhershin_ yourself, Bill, isn't Phil M'Dermott always to the fore for Kate?--another intherloper from Shanvilla. I donna what the sorra the Rathcash boys are about." Other confabs of a similar nature were carried on by different sets as they returned from prayers, and saw the Cavanas with their company turn up the lane toward the house. The young girls of the district, too, had their chats upon the subject; but they were so voluble, and some of them so ill-natured, that I forbear to give the reader any specimen of their remarks. One or two intimate associates of Tom ventured to quiz him upon the state of affairs. Now none but an intimate friend, indeed, of Tom's should have ventured, under the circumstances, to have touched upon so sore a subject, and those who did, intimate as they were, did not venture to repeat the joke. No, it was no joke; and that they soon found out. To one friend who had quizzed him privately he said, "Suspend your judgment, Denis; and if I don't prove myself more than a match for that half-bred _kiout_, then condemn me." But to another, who had quizzed him before some bystanders in rather a ridiculous point of view, he turned like a bull-terrier, while his face assumed a scowl of a peculiarly unpleasant character. "It is no business of yours," he said, "and I advise you to mind your own affairs, or perhaps I'll make you." The man drew in his horns, and sneaked off, of course; and from that moment they all guessed that the business had gone against Tom, and they left off quizzing. Tom felt that he had been wrong, and had only helped to betray himself. His game now was to prevent, if possible, any talk about the matter, one way or the other, until his plans should be matured, when he doubted not that success would gain him the approbation of every one, no matter what the means. The preface to his plans was, to spread a report that he had gone back to Armagh to get married to a girl with an immense fortune, and he endorsed the report by the fact of his leaving home; but whether to Armagh or not, was never clearly known. Young Lennon went on with his job, at which old Ned told him "to take his time, an' do it well. It was not," he said, "like digging a plot, which had to be dug every year, or maybe twice. When it was wance finished and covered up, there it was; worse nor the first day, if it was not done right; so don't hurry it over, Emon-a-wochal. I don't mind the expense; ground can't be dhrained for nothin', an' it id be a bad job if we were obliged to be openin' any of the dhrains a second time, an' maybe not know where the stoppage lay; so take your time, and don't blame me if you botch it." "You need not fear, sir," said Lennon. (He always said "sir" as yet.) "You need not fear; if every drain of them does not run like the stream from Tubbernaltha, never give me a day's work again." {107}