weeny--how many have ye?"

"I have four."

"And how old are they?"

"There's one o' thim is six years an another o' thim is seven--"

"Yes, and the other two eight and nine, I suppose?" commented Dr. Lyden.

The defendant remained silent.

"Do ye see now how well he began with the youngest--the way we'd think
'twas the eldest!" resumed Dr. Lyden. "I think we may assume that a
gorsoon--male or female--of eight or nine years is capable of setting a
dog on the sheep."

Here Darcy spoke again.

"He says," interpreted William, "there isn't pig nor ass, sheep nor
duck, belongin' to him that isn't heart-scalded with the same childhren
an' their dog."

"Well, I say now, an' I swear it," said Sweeny, his eye kindling like a
coal, and his voice rising as the core of what was probably an old
neighbourly grudge was neared, "my land is bare from his bastes
threspassing on it, and my childhren are in dread to pass his house
itself with the kicks an' the sthrokes himself an' his mother dhraws on
them! The Lord Almighty knows--"

"Stop now!" said Mr. Heraty, holding up his hand. "Stop! The Lord's not
intherferin' in this case at all! It's me an' Doctor Lyden has it to
settle."

No one seemed to find anything surprising in this pronouncement; it was
accepted as seriously as any similar statement of the Prophet Samuel to
the Children of Israel, and was evidently meant to imply that abstract
justice might be expected.

"We may assume, then," said Dr. Lyden amiably, "that the sheep walked
out into Sweeny's end of the lake and drowned herself there on account
of the spite there was between the two families."

The court tittered. A dingy red showed itself among the grizzled hairs
and wrinkles on Sweeny's cheek. In Ireland a point can often be better
carried by sarcasm than by logic.

"She was blind enough to dhrown herself, or two like her!" he said
angrily; "she was that owld and blind it was ayqual to her where she'd
go!"

"How d'ye know she was blind?" said Mr. Heraty quickly.

"I thought the defence opened with the statement that it wasn't Darcy's
sheep at all," put in Dr. Lyden, leaning back in his chair with his eyes
fixed on the rafters.

Sweeny firmly regarded Mr. Heraty.

"How would I know she was blind?" he repeated. "Many's the time when
she'd be takin' a sthroll in on my land I'd see her fallin' down in the
rocks, she was that blind! An' didn't I see Darcy's mother one time, an'
she puttin' something on h