ildren. But he had more
than this, for he had health, a good conscience, and a returning
reputation. People now addressed him as an equal, as a man, as an
individual who constituted a portion of society; then, again, he loved
his wife as before, and lived with her in a spirit of affection equal to
any they had ever felt. Why, this was, to a man who suffered what he and
his family had suffered, perfect luxury.

In truth, Art now wondered at the life he had led,--he could not
understand it; why he should have suffered himself, for the sake of
a vile and questionable enjoyment--if enjoyment that could be called,
which was no enjoyment--at least for the sake of a demoralizing and
degrading habit, to fall down under the feet as it were, under the
evil tongues, and the sneers--of those who constituted his world--the
inhabitants of Ballykeerin--was now, that he had got rid of the
thraldom, perfectly a mystery to him. Be this as it may, since he had
regenerated his own character, the world was just as ready to take him
up as it had been to lay him down.

Nothing in life gives a man such an inclination for active industry as
to find that he is prospering; he has then heart and spirits to work,
and does work blithely and cheerfully; so was it with Art. He and his
employer were admirably adapted for each other, both being extremely
well-tempered, honest, and first-rate workmen. About the expiration of
the first twelve months, Art had begun to excite a good deal of interest
in the town of Ballykeerin, an interest which was beginning to affect
Owen Gallagher himself in a beneficial way. He was now pointed out to
strangers as the man, who, almost naked, used to stand drunk and begging
upon the bridge of Ballykeerin, surrounded by his starving and equally
naked children. In fact, he began to get a name, quite a reputation for
the triumph which he had achieved over drunkenness; and on this account
Owen Gallagher, when it was generally known in the country that Art
worked with him, found his business so rapidly extending, that he was
obliged, from time to time, to increase the number of hands in his
establishment. Art felt this, and being now aware that his position in
life was, in fact, more favorable for industrious exertion than ever,
resolved to give up journey work, and once more, if only for the
novelty of the thing, to set up for himself. Owen Gallagher, on hearing
this from his own lips, said he could not, nor would not blame h