d break the heart of the anonymous individual
alluded to, "afore long, if she didn't take care!"
"'Twas when the men wor goin' to work at broad daylight this mornin',
Miss, I hear _him_ in the next room to me, stealin' to bed afther sittin'
up the night readin' them books, an' songs, an' things, that you're
deludin' the poor fellow's senses with--ach"----
"Oh! that reminds me," said the listener, producing a small volume from
the folds of her cloak; "I will just leave this book with my compliments.
He is, of course," she carelessly observed, "not now at home?"
"Jest took a short stick in his hand and went out for a solithary walk; by
himself, poor fellow, down by the Shuire. 'Tis the only time o' the day he
likes for walkin'."
"The time of the night, you mean, Curly," said the girl with a laugh, glad
to shake off a certain air of embarrassment she felt, by affected gaiety.
"Tell him he should keep better hours; though, upon my word," as she
prepared to face the darkening twilight, "I don't set him a very good
example myself. Good evening."
"The best of evenin's to you, _a cushla_," said Mr Cahill, as he bolted
the shop-door after her. "The bloody tithe-devourin' parson's daughter,"
he muttered, as he turned in and prepared to roll up his goods to be
forwarded to the Glebe next morning; "an' for all, she's a darlin'
herself, an' a blessin' to every one that's about her--but her murdherin'
father! Here, Padeen!--Padeen, I say!"
* * * * *
Katey Tyrrel was the spoiled child of an indulgent parent. Her father, the
Reverend Edward Tyrrel, was rector of the parish in which our story lies.
A man whose disposition, naturally soft and affectionate, had, in the
course of years, become sharp and irritable, from the long series of petty
vexations he had been subjected to in his efforts to collect the
unsatisfactory revenues of his incumbency, from as ingeniously-obstinate a
set of parishioners as were to be found in the most litigation-loving
island in the world. The district of country, too, in which Mr Tyrrel's
lot had fallen, although sufficiently fertile and wealthy, was, of all
others, from its situation at the foot of the high and sterile tract of
the Kilworth mountains, (then the favourite resort of highwaymen and
fugitives from the law,) with the gloomy range of the Gaultees to the
north, and on its southern edge the long and lonely Commeragh hills, that
divided it from Waterford,
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