and
that the lips he smothered did not catch breath enough to call him a
gawbie, and whisper that the old people inside were listening. The
truth dawned on him in a moment, and then he felt like a man with an eel
crawling down his back, and he wanted nothing else for supper.

It was summer time, and Davy, though a most accomplished sleeper, found
no difficulty in wakening himself with the dawn next morning. He was
cutting turf in the dubs of the Curragh just then, and he had four hours
of this pastime, with spells of sober meditation between, before he came
up to the house for breakfast. Then as he rolled in at the porch, and
stamped the water out of his long-legged boots, he saw at a glance that
a thunder-cloud was brewing there. Nelly was busy at the long table
before the window, laying the bowls of milk and the deep plates for the
porridge. Her print frock was as sweet as the May blossom, her cheeks
were nearly as red as the red rose, and like the rose her head hung
down. She did not look at him as he entered. Neither did Mrs. Kinvig,
who was bending over the pot swung from the hook above the fire, and
working the porridge-stick round and round with unwonted energy. But
Kinvig himself made up for both of them. The big man was shaving before
a looking-glass propped up on the table, and against the Pilgrim's
Progress and Clark's Commentaries. His left hand held the point of his
nose aside between the tip of his thumb and first finger, while the
other swept the razor through a hillock of lather and revealed a portion
of a mouth twisted three-quarters across his face. But the moment he saw
Davy he dropped the razor, and looked up with as much dignity as a man
could get out of a countenance half covered with soap.

"Come in, sir," said he, with a pretense of great deference. "Mawther,"
he said, twisting to Mrs. Kinvig, "just wipe down a chair for the
gentleman."

Davy slithered into his seat. "I'm in for it," he thought.

"They're telling me," said Kinvig, "that there is a fortune coming at
you. Aw, yes, though, and that you're taking notions on a farmer's girl.
Respectable man, too--one of the first that's going, with sixty acres
at him and more. Amazing thick, they're telling me. Kissing behind the
door, and the like of that! The capers! It was only yesterday you came
to me with nothing on your back but your father's ould trowis, cut down
at the knees."

Nelly slipped out. Her mother made a noise with the porridge