res upon the Tinkers, because he feels an
aggravated form of rivalry existing between him and them. For the
wiliness which is understood to be Ody's forte also pre-eminently
characterises many of the Tinkers' nefarious proceedings, and this makes
it seem to him that they not only set their wits against his, but throw
discredit upon his favourite quality by the glaring moral defects which
they exhibit in conjunction with it. One's pleasure in being described
admiringly as "the ould boyo that's in it," is much diminished when one
hears the same thing said bitterly of some slieveen who has filched a
poor body's meal bag, or run off with a lone widdy woman's fowl.

Still, although the Tinkers' name has become a by-word among us through
a long series of petty offences rather than any one flagrant crime,
there is a notable misdeed on record against them, which has never been
forgotten in the lapse of many years. It was perpetrated soon after the
death of Mrs. Kilfoyle's mother, the Widow Joyce, an event which is but
dimly recollected now at Lisconnel, as nearly half a century has gone
by. She did not very long survive her husband, and he had left his roots
behind in his little place at Clonmena, where, as we know, he had farmed
not wisely, but too well, and had been put out of it for his pains to
expend his energy upon our oozy black sods and stark-white boulders. But
instead he moped about fretting for his fair green fields and few
proudly-cherished beasts--especially the little old Kerry cow. And at
his funeral the neighbours said: "Ah bedad, poor man, God help him, he
niver held up his head agin from that good day to this."

When Mrs. Joyce felt that it behoved her to settle her affairs, she
found that the most important possession she had to dispose of was her
large cloak. She had acquired it at the prosperous time of her marriage,
and it was a very superior specimen of its kind, its dark-blue cloth
being superfine, and its ample capes and capacious hood being
double-lined and quilted, and stitched in a way which I cannot pretend
to describe, but which made it a most substantial and handsome garment.
If Mrs. Joyce had been left entirely to her own choice in the matter, I
think she would have bequeathed it to her younger daughter Theresa,
notwithstanding that custom clearly designated Bessy Kilfoyle, the
eldest of the family, as the heiress. For she said to herself that poor
Bessy had her husband and childer to consowl her