"Come your ways in, Boyd," I cried. "Have you had any breakfast? No--then you are just in time! And you will find that our chairs are only wood, and you would not hurt our fine carpets, not if you danced on them with clogs!" "D'ye tell me, now?" said Boyd, much relieved. "Sure, and it's a told tale through the whole parish that you are livin' in the very lap of luxury--with nothing in the world to do for it but just make scratch-scratches on paper with a quill-pen!" By this time Irma was at the door, hiding herself a little, for she had still the morning apron on--that in which she had been helping Mrs. Pathrick. But she was greatly delighted to see Boyd, who, if the truth must be told, made his best service like an Irishman and a gentleman--for, as he said, "Even five-and-thirty years of Galloway had not wiped the sclate of his manners!" Now Boyd was always a favourite with Irma, and I fear that she was fonder of him than she ought to have been, instead of pitying his hard-driven Bridget--just because Bridget had not his beautiful manners. Presently, as his mouth ceased to fill and empty itself so wonderfully expeditiously, Boyd began to talk. "As to what fetched me, Miss Irma," he said, in answer to questions, "faith, I walked all the road, taking many a house on the way where kenned folk dwelt. Here were pigs to kill and cure. And I killed and cured them. Farther on there were floors to lay, and I laid them, or fish-hooks to busk, and I busked them." I put a question here. "Oh, Bridget," he said, shrugging his shoulders with a wearied air, "Bridget doesn't know when she's well off. Och, the craitur! It began with the night of the September Fair. Now, it is known to all the countryside that Boyd Connoway is no drinker. He will sit and talk, as is just and sociable, but nothing more. No, Miss Irma. And so I told Bridget. But it so chanced that Fair Monday was a stormy day, which is the most temptatious for poor lads in from the country, with only two holidays in the year, most of them. And what with the new watch and the councilmen being so strict against disorder--why, I could not let a dog get into trouble if I could help it. So I spent the most of the night seeing them home out of harm's way--and if ever there was a work of necessity and mercy, that was.