hill and spoke no word until
they reached the summit. Sitting down under the great portcullis, they
munched their bread and sugar amicably together, Mike's eyes pensively
gazing in front of him the while, and Roseen's roving hither and
thither with quick, eager glances. Suddenly she tilted her head
backward, gazing at a narrow horizontal slit in the masonry high over
their heads. "That's where they used to throw the bilin' lead down in
ould ancient times when anybody wanted to come fightin' them."

Mike gazed upwards likewise, still slowly munching, but said nothing.

"When you an' me grows up an' gets married to each other, the way we
always said we would," pursued Roseen, "this 'ud be a gran' place to
live."

Mike's face brightened, and he nodded enthusiastically. "It would so,"
he agreed.

"There's lots o' beau'ful rooms that we could live in," resumed
Roseen, "an' we'd make a fire in that great big enormous stone hearth
beyant, an' we'd ate off o' that big stone table, an' when anybody 'ud
offer to come annoyin' us, we'd just melt a bit o' lead an' throw it
down on them."

Mike looked astonished and perturbed. "Sure it 'ud burn the flesh off
o' their bones. I wouldn't like to be doin' that, Roseen."

"If they was rale bad people," said Roseen persuasively; "rale wicked,
crule people, the same as me gran'father beyant, it 'ud sarve them
right,--or we might throw down a sup of bilin' wather," she added as a
concession.

Mike appeared unconvinced.

"I don't think ye have a right to be talkin' that way of your
gran'father," he said reprovingly; "an' he isn't that bad. He never
offered to lay a finger on me as long as I am in it, barring the time
I let the sheep into the hay-field."

"He's a crule ould villain!" returned Roseen conclusively. "Look at
all he done on me mother. Come on now," with a sudden change of tone,
"whistle a tune an' we'll have a dance."

Mike looked lovingly at the last fragments of his griddle cake, the
enjoyment of which he had been anxious to prolong as much as possible,
and then after a little sigh, crammed them into his mouth and led the
way to the giant's wrestling ground.

"Wait a bit," he cried, as Roseen took hold of the folds of her ragged
skirt daintily in the finger and thumb of each hand, and looked
expectantly towards him, "I'm just goin' to thramp a bit in the
joynt's steps."

"What are ye doin' that for at all?" asked Roseen, knitting her
brows.

"Sure me father