“How long?” he asked, with dramatic effect. “Sure, the likes of me c’u’d be no directhor at all--but ’tis a dozen years since I swore to his honor, The O’Mahony himself, that I’d watch over ye, an’ protect ye, an’ keep ye from the lightest breath of harrum--an’ whin I meet him, whether it be the Lord’s will in this world or the nixt, I’ll go to him an’ I’ll take off me hat, an’ I’ll say: ‘Yer honor, what old Murphy putt his word to, that same he kep!’ An’ is it you, Miss Katie, that remimbers him that well, that ’u’d be blamin’ me for that same?” “I don’t know if I’m so much blaming you, Murphy,” said Kate, much softened by both the matter and the manner of this appeal, “but ’tis different, wit’ this young man, himself an O’Mahony by name.” “Faith, be the same token, ’tis manny thousands of O’Mahonys there are in foreign parts, I’m tould, an’ more thousands of ’em here at home, an’ if it’s for rowin’ ’em all on Dunmanus Bay ye’d be, on the score of their name, ’tis grand new boats we’d want.” Kate smiled musingly. “Did you mind, Murphy,” she asked, after a pause, “how like the sound of his speech was to The O’Mahony’s?” “That I did not!” said Murphy, conclusively. “Ah, ye’ve no ears, man! I was that flurried at the time, I couldn’t think what it was--but now, whin it comes back to me, it was like talking to The O’Mahony himself. There was that one word, ‘onistinjun,’ that The O’Mahony had forever on his tongue. Surely you noticed that!” “All Americans say that same,” Murphy explained carelessly. “’T is well known most of ’em are discinded from the Injuns. ’Tis that they m’ane.” It did not occur to Kate to question this bold ethno-philological proposition. She leant back in her seat at the stern, absent-mindedly toying with the ribbons of her hat, and watching the sky over Murphy’s head. “Poor, dear old O’Mahony!” she sighed at last. “Amin to that miss!” murmured the boatman, between strokes. “’T is a year an’ more now, Murphy, since we had the laste sign in the world from him. Ah, wirra! I’m beginnin’ to be afraid dead ’tis he is!” “Keep your heart, miss; keep your heart!” crooned the old boatman, in what had been for months a familiar phrase on his lips. “Sure no mortial man ever stepped fut on green sod that ’ud take more killin’ than our O’Mahony. Why, _coleen asthore_, wasn’t he foightin’ wid the French, against the Prooshians, an’ thin wid the Turkeys against the Rooshians, an’ bechune males, as ye’d say, didn’t he bear arms in Spain for the Catholic king, like the thunderin’ rare old O’Mahony that he is, an’ did ever so much as a scratch come to him--an’ him killin’ an’ destroyin’ thim by hundreds? Ah, rest aisy about _him_, Miss Katie!”