“Are ye in the lottery the year?” asked the priest. “Arrah, what matter whether I am or not!” said Sir Thomas. “Hav’n’t I been in it since I was a boy, and niver won any thing beyond a blackguard twenty or two? Upon my conscience, I verily believe, if I had been bound to a hatter, people would be born without heads!” Well, the divil a one could point out the likelihood of luck; and the poor ould gentleman seemed mighty disconsolate. “Arrah,” says I, “hould up, Sir Thomas--who knows but we’ll get to the sunny side of the hedge yet? There’s Master Dick--and if he would only marry an heiress--” “Be dad,” says the ould gentleman, “Father Pat, there’s sense in that.” The priest shook his head. “And why shouldn’t he?” says Sir Thomas. “Because,” returned the priest, “he’s never out of one scrape till he’s into another. And then he’s so captious; if he was in heaven--where the Lord send him in proper time, if possible!--why, he would pick a quarrel with St. Peter.” “It’s all a flow of spirit,” says the ould man. “_It’s a flow of spirits_ that causes it generally,” says the priest; “but it’s all your own fault, Sir Thomas, and I often tould ye so. Instead of lettin’ him stick to his larnin’, ye would have him brought up yer own way, ridin’ three times a week to the Clonsallagh hounds, and shooting at chalked men on the barn door through the remainder.” “Arrah, be quiet,” says the ould gentleman. “Though he’s my son--at laste I have his mother’s word for it--is there a nater horseman within the Shannon? Put Dick Macnamara on the pig-skin with any thing daeent anunder him, and I’ll back him over a sportin’ country for all I’m worth in the world.” “Ay,” said the priest, in a side-whisper; “and if ye lost, the divil a much the winner would be the better.” “He’s six feet in his stockings--sound as a bell--he’ll throw any man of his inches in the province, and dance the _pater-o-pee_ * afterwards.” “Arrah,” says the priest, “if there’s no way of payin’ the mortgage but by dancin’ the _pater-o-pee_, out we bundle at November.” * A dance peculiar to Connemara. “And why shouldn’t he marry an heiress?” says the ould man. “First,” says Father Butler, “because he has no luck; and second, because he has no larnin’. Wasn’t I returnin’ from a sick-call only yesterday, and as God’s goodness would have it, didn’t I meet my Lady French’s messenger with a note?--‘Who’s that from?’ says I. ‘Mr. Dick Macnamara,’ says he. Well, I had a misdoubtin’ about it, and so I opens the note--and--_Mona-sin-dhiaoul!_--Lord forgive me for sayin’ so!--if he hadn’t spelt ‘compliments’ with a K!” “And if he spelt it with two K’s,” says the ould gentleman, “will that hinder him marryin’ a woman if she wants a husband? I tell ye what, there’s more sense in what Shemus Rhua says than any of ye seems to know. Wasn’t the family as badly off when my grandfather--God rest his soul!--ran away with Miss Kelly?”