s in her sacking apron. "But it is
what the people is sayin' on the roads about" (sob) "about"
(sniff)--

"About _what_?' said Dick, who was being bored.

"About your Honour!" returned Mrs. Twomey, in a sort of roar.

"And what the devil are they saying about me?"

"God forbid that I'd put down any dirty stain before your Honour,"
sobbed Mrs. Twomey, recurring to her earlier metaphor; "it's that big
horse that ye're afther buyin' from Docthor Mangan; they say that he
gave him to ye too cheap on the head of it--"

"On the head of what, woman?" shouted Dick, now passing, by the
well-worn channel of anxiety, from boredom to anger.

"On the head of the Dispinsary! Sure they says 'twas your Honour gave
it to Danny Aherne!"

It is unnecessary to record Major Talbot-Lowry's indignation on
hearing this charge. The dairy, with its low ceiling and paven floor,
echoed, submissively, his well-justified strictures on the lies and
evil speaking of his humbler neighbours, and Mrs. Twomey dried her
eyes (much as she would scrub out one of her milk-pans) and hearkened.

Who shall say if she believed him? There is a standard of honour,
rigid and stern, for gentlemen, just as there is quite another
standard for those who do not, in the opinion of a people, Austrian in
their definition of what is or is not gentle birth, merit that title.
Dick Talbot-Lowry was a gentleman, and, in her own words, no "dirty
stain" would ever be attributed to him by Mary Twomey, but even she
knew that the ethics of buying and selling a horse apply to no other
transaction, and she knew also that in the disposal of a "place," more
may occur than meets the eye. She resented the slur on her chieftain,
but, in spite of her wrath, she could not feel quite certain that the
accusation was entirely unfounded.

CHAPTER XV

The town of Cluhir had more features than those that have already been
enumerated, to entitle it to respect. There was, primarily, the great
river, that moved majestically in its midst, bearing a church,
impartially, on its either bank, and hiding and nourishing in its
depths the salmon that gave the town its reason for existence. There
was the tall and noble bridge that spanned the river, and joined the
rival churches together (a feat of which it is safe to say no other
power in Ireland was capable). It was made of that blue-grey limestone
that builds bridges, and churches, and houses, with an equal success,
and it was the equiva