's come to this wid you, poor
fellow!"

Bartle's cheek grew pale as ashes; he wrung Connor's hand with all his
force, and fixed an unshrinking eye on him as he replied--

"Thank you Connor, now--but I hope I'll live to thank you better yet,
and if I do, you needn't thank me for any return I may make you or
yours. I will close wid your father, an' take whatsomever he'll order
me; for, Connor," and he wrung his hand again--"Connor O'Donovan, I
haven't a house or home this day, nor a place under God's canopy where
to lay my head, except upon the damp floor of my father's naked cabin.
Think of that, Connor, an' think if I can forget it; still," he added,
"you'll see, Connor--Connor, you'll see how I'll forgive it."

"It's a credit to yourself to spake as you do," replied Connor; "call
this way, an' let me know what's done, an' I hope, Bartle, you an' I
will have some pleasant days together."

"Ay, an' pleasant nights, too, I hope," replied the other: "to be sure
I'll call; but if you take my advice, you'd tie a handkerchy about your
head; it's mad hot, an' enough to give one a fever bareheaded."

Having made this last observation, he loaped across a small drain that
bounded the meadow, and proceeded up the fields to Fardorougha's house.

Bartle Flanagan was a young man, about five feet six in height, but of
a remarkably compact and athletic form. His complexion was dark, but
his countenance open, and his features well set and regular. Indeed his
whole appearance might be termed bland and prepossessing. If he
ever appeared to disadvantage it was whilst under the influence of
resentment, during which his face became pale as death, nay, almost
livid; and, as his brows were strong and black, the contrast between
them and his complexion changed the whole expression of his countenance
into that of a person whose enmity a prudent man would avoid. He was not
quarrelsome, however, nor subject to any impetuous bursts of passion;
his resentments, if he retained any, were either dead or silent, or, at
all events, so well regulated that his acquaintances looked upon him as
a young fellow of a good-humored and friendly disposition. It is true, a
hint had gone abroad that on one or two occasions he was found
deficient in courage; but, as the circumstances referred to were rather
unimportant, his conduct by many was attributed rather to good sense
and a disinclination to quarrel on frivolous grounds, than to positive
cowardice. Such