The moment it had been ascertained that Emon-a-knock had been so seriously hurt, somebody thought—oh, the thoughtfulness of some people!—that some conveyance would be required, and she was determined to take time by the forelock. Jamesy Doyle it was who had been despatched for the jennet and cart, with a token to the only servant-woman in the house to put a hair-mattress—she knew where to get it—over plenty of straw in the cart, and to make no delay.

Jamesy Doyle was the very fellow to make no mistake, and to do as he was bid; and sure enough there he was now, coming up the boreen with everything as correct as possible. Phil M'Dermott and Ned Murrican led poor Emon to the end of the lane just as Jamesy Doyle came up.

"This is for you, my poor fellow," said he, addressing Emon. "An' I'm to lave you every foot at your own doore—them's my ordhers from th' ould masther himsel'."

Emon was about to speak, or to endeavor to do so; but M'Dermott stopped him.

"Don't be desthroyin' yourself, Emon, strivin' to spake; but let us lift you into the cart—an' hould your tongue."

Emon-a-knock smiled; but it was a happy smile.

Of course there was a crowd round him; and many a whispered observation passed through them as poor Emon was lifted in, fixed in a reclining position, and Jamesy Doyle desired "to go on," while Phil M'Dermott and big Ned Murrican gave him an escort, walking one on each side.

"It was herself sent Jamesy Doyle for the jennit, Judy; I heerd her tellin' him to put plenty of straw into the cart."

"Ay, Peggy, an' I heerd her tellin' him to get a hair-mattress, an' pat it atop of it. Isn't it well for the likes of her that has hair-mattresses to spare?"

"Ay, Nelly Gaffeny, an' didn't I hear her tellin' him to dhrive fur his life!"

"In troth an' you didn't, Nancy; what she said was, 'to make no delay;' wasn't I as near her as I am to you this minute?"

"Whist, girls!" broke in (as Lever would say) a sensible old woman— "it was ould Ned Cavana himself sent Jamesy off; wasn't I lookin' at him givin' him the kay of the barn to get the sthraw? Dear me, how pleasant ye all are!"

"Thrue for you, Katty avrone; but wasn't it Winny that put him up to it, an' the tears coming up in her eyes as she axed him? an' be the same token, the hankicher she had in her hand was for all the world the very color of Emon-a-knock's cap an' sleeves."

There was a good deal of truth, but some exaggeration, in the above gossip.

It was old Ned Cavana himself who had despatched Jamesy Doyle for the jennet and cart, and he had also given him the key of the barn—old Katty was quite right so far.

Now let it be known that there was not a man in the parish of Rathcash, who was the owner of a horse and cart, who would not have cheerfully sent for it to bring Emon-a-knock home, when the proper time arrived to do so—and Winny Cavana knew that; she knew that her father would be all life for the purpose, the moment it was mentioned to him; and she was determined that her father should be "first in the field." There was nothing extraordinary in the fact itself; it was the relative positions of the parties that rendered it food for the gossip which we have been listening to. But old Ned never thought of the gossip in his willingness to serve a neighbor. Winny had thought of it, but braved it, rather than lose the chance. It was she who had suggested to her father to send Jamesy for the jennet, and to give him the key of the barn where the dry straw was. If the gossips had known this little turn of the transaction, doubtless it would not have escaped their comments.

But we must return to the common, and see how matters are going on there.

Tom Murdock had witnessed from no great distance the arrival of the jennet and cart; and of course he knew them. He did not know, however, that it was Winny Cavana who had sent for them—he only guessed that. He saw "that——whelp"——he put this shameful addition to it in his anger—lifted into it; and if he had a regret as to the accident, it was that the blow had not been the inch-and-a-half lower which Father Farrell had blessed his stars had not been the case. This was the second time his eyes had seen the preference he always dreaded. He had not forgotten the scene with the dog on the road. He had not been so far that he could not see, nor so careless that he did not remark, the handkerchief; nor was he so stupid as not to divine the purport of the amicable little battle which apparently took place between them about it. The color of Lennon's cap and sleeves now also recurred to his mind, and jealousy suggested that it was she who made them.

But his business was by no means finished on the common. He could not, as it were, abscond, deserting his friends; and ill as his humor was for what was before him, he must go through with it. It would help to keep him from thinking for a while, at all events. Beside, the sooner he saw Winny Cavana now the better. He would explain the accident to her as if it had happened to any other person, not as to one in whom he believed there was a particular interest on her part. To be silent on the subject altogether, he felt would betray the very thing he wished to avoid.

The hurling match over, it had been arranged that the evening should conclude with a dance, to crown the amicable feelings with which the two contending parishes had met in the strife of hurls. The boys and girls of Rathcash and Shanvilla, whichever side won, were to mingle in the mazy dance, to the enlivening lilts of blind Murrin the piper, who, as he could not see the game, had been the whole afternoon squealing, and droning, and hopping the brass end of his pipes upon a square polished-leather patch, stitched upon the knee of his breeches.

There now appeared to be some sort of a hitch as to the dance coming off at all, in consequence of the "untoward event" which had already considerably marred the harmony of the meeting; for it would be idle to deny that dissatisfaction and doubt still lingered in the hearts of Shanvilla. Both sides had brought a barrel of beer for the occasion, which by this time it was almost necessary to put upon "the stoop;" Tom Murdock superintending the distribution of that from Rathcash, and a brother of big Ned Murrican's that from Shanvilla.

Blind Murrin heard some of the talk which was passing round him about the postponement of the dance. Like all blind pipers he was sharp of hearing, and somewhat cranky if put at all out of tune.

"Arra, what would they put it off for?" said he, looking up, and closing his elbow on the bellows to silence the pipes. "Is it because wan man got a cut on the head? I heerd Father Farrell say there wouldn't be a haporth on him agen Sunda' eight days; an' I heerd him, more be token, tellin' the boys to go an' ask the Rathcash girls to dance. Arra, what do ye mane? Isn't the counthry gotthered now; an' the day as fine as summer, an' the grass brave an' dhry, an' lashin's of beer at both sides, an' didn't I come eleven miles this mornin' a purpose, an' what the diowl would they go an' put off the dance for? Do you mane to say they're onshioughs or aumadhawns, or—what?"

"No, Billy," said a Shanvilla girl, with good legs, neat feet, black boots, and stockings as white as snow,—"no, Billy; but neither the Shanvilla boys nor girls have any heart to dance, after Emon-a-knock bein' kilt an' sent home."

"There won't be a haporth on him, I tell you, agen Sunda'. Didn't I hear Father Farrell say so, over an' over again? arra badhershin, Kitty, to be sure they'll dance!"

While blind Murrin was "letting off" thus, Phil M'Dermott was seen returning by a short cut across the fields toward them.

"Here's news of Emon, anyway; he's aither better or worse," continued Kitty Reilly; and some dread that it was unfavorable crept through the Shanvillas.

"Well, Phil, how is he? well, Phil, how is he?" greeted M'Dermott from several quarters as he came up.

"All right, girls. He's much better, and he sent me back for fear I'd lose the first dance—for he knew I was engaged;" and he winked at a very pretty Rathcash girl with soft blue eyes and bright auburn hair, who was not far off.

"Arra, didn't I know they'd dance?" said Murrin, giving two or three dumb squeezes with his elbow before the music came, like the three or four first pulls at a pump before the water flows.

It then ran like lightning through the crowd that the dance was going to begin, and old Murrin blew up in earnest at the top of his power. He had, with the help of some of the best dancers amongst the girls on both sides, selected that spot for the purpose, before the game had commenced; and he had kept his ground patiently all through, playing all the planxties in Carolan's catalogue. But not without wetting his whistle; for as he belonged to neither party, he had been supplied with beer alternately by both.

Phil M'Dermott whispered a few words to the pretty Rathcash girl, and left her apparently in haste. But she was "heerd" by one of our gossips to say, "Of course, Phil; but I will not say 'with all my heart;' sure, it is only a pleasure postponed for a little,—now mind, Phil."

"Never fear, Sally." And he was off through the crowd, with his head up.

Phil's expedition was to look for Winny Cavana, to whom Emon-a-knock had been engaged for the first dance; and as he knew where the bonnet trimmed with broad blue ribbon could be seen all day, he made for the spot. As he came within a few perches of it, he saw Tom Murdock in seemingly earnest conversation with the object of his search, and he hung back for a few minutes unperceived.

Tom Murdock, we have seen, was not a man to be easily taken aback by circumstances, or to stand self-accused by any apparent consciousness of guilt. Guilty or not, he always braved the matter out, whatever it might be, as an innocent man would, and ought. As the dance was now about to begin, and old Murrin's pipes were getting loud and impatient, Tom made up to Winny. He had watched an opportunity when she was partly disengaged from those around her; and indeed, to do them justice, they "made themselves scarce" as he approached.

"They are going to dance, Winny; will you allow me to lead you out?" he said.

Winny had been pondering in her own mind the possibility of what had now taken place; and after turning and twisting her answer into twenty different shapes, had selected one as the safest and best she could give, with a decided refusal. Now, when the anticipated moment had arrived, and she was obliged to speak, she was almost dumb. Not a single word of any one of the replies she had shaped out—and least of all the one she had rehearsed so often as the best—came to her aid.

"Will you not even answer me, Winny?" he added, after an unusually long pause.

"I heard," she said hesitatingly, "that, as a proof of the good-will which was supposed to exist between the parishes, the Rathcash men were to ask the Shanvilla girls, and Shanvilla the Rathcash."

"That may be carried out too; but surely such an arrangement is not to prohibit a person from the privilege of asking a near neighbor."

"No; but you had better begin, as leader, by setting the example yourself. You were head of the Rathcash men all day, and they will be likely to take pattern by you."

"Well, I shall begin so, Winny; but say that you will dance with me by-and-by."

"No, Tom, I shall not say any such thing, for I do not intend to do so. I don't think I shall dance at all; but if I do, it shall be but once—and that with a Shanvilla man."

"Do you mean to say, Winny, that you came here to-day intending to dance but once?"

"I mean to say," she replied rather haughtily, "that you have no right to do more than ask me to dance. That is a right I can no more deny you than you can deny me the right to refuse. But you have no right to cross-question me."

"If," he continued, "it is in consequence of that unfortunate accident, I protest—"

"Here, father," said Winny, interrupting him and turning from him; "shall we go up toward the piper? I see they are at it."

Tom stood disconcerted, as if riveted to the spot; and as old Ned and his daughter walked away, he saw Phil M'Dermott come toward them. He watched and saw them enter into conversation.

The first question old Ned asked, knowing that Phil had gone a piece of the way home with him, was of course to know how Emon was.

"So much better," said Phil, "that he had a mind to come back in the cart an' look on at the dancin'; but of course we would not let him do so foolish a turn. He then sent me back, afeerd Miss Winny here would be engaged afore I got as far as her. He tould me, Miss Winny, that he was to take you out for the first dance yourself; an' although Phil M'Dermott is a poor excuse for Emon-a-knock in a dance, or anywhere else, for that matther, I hope, Miss Winny, you will dance with me."

"Ceade mille a faltha, Phil, for your own sake as well as for his," said Winny, putting her arm through his, and walking up to where they were "at it," as she had said.

Tom Murdock had kept his eye upon her, and had seen this transaction. Winny, although she did not know it, felt conscious that he was watching her; and it was with a sort of savage triumph she had thrust her arm through Phil M'Dermott's and walked off with him.

"Surely," said Tom to himself, "it is not possible that she's going to dance with Phil M'Dermott, the greatest clout of a fellow in all Shanvilla—and that's a bold word. Nothing but a bellows-blower to his father—a common nailor at the cross-roads. Thank God, I put Emon, as she calls him, from dancing with her, any way. He would be bad enough; but he is always clean at all events, that's one thing—neen han an shin. See! by the devil, there she's out with him, sure enough. I think the girl is mad."

Now Tom Murdock's ill-humor and vexation had led him, though only to himself, to give an under-estimate of Phil M'Dermott in more respects than one. In the first place, Phil's father, so far from being a common nailor, was a most excellent smith-of-all-work. He made ploughs, harrows, and all sorts of machinery, and was unequivocally the best horse-shoer in the whole country. People were in the habit of sending their horses five, ay ten, miles to Bryan M'Dermott's forge—"establishment" it might almost be called—and Tom Murdock himself, when he kept the race-mare, had sent her past half-a-dozen forges to get her "properly fitted" at Phil M'Dermott's.

Phil himself had served his time to his father, and was no less an adept in all matters belonging to his trade; and as to "driving a nail," there never was a man wore an apron could put on a shoe so safely. A nail, too, except for the above purpose, was never made in their forge. If sometimes Phil threw up his bare hairy arm to pull down the handle of the bellows, it was only what his father himself would do, if the regular blower was out of the way.

In fact, "Bryan M'Dermott and Son, Smiths," might have very justly figured over their forge-door; but they were so well known that a sign-board of any kind was superfluous.

Then as to being a clout, Phil was the very furthest from it in the world, if it can have any meaning with reference to a man at all. There are nails called clouts; and perhaps as a nailor was uppermost in Tom's cantankerous mind, it had suggested the epithet.

We have now only to deal with the dirt—the neen han an shin of his spite.

That Phil M'Dermott was very often dirty was the necessary result of his calling, at which the excellence of his knowledge kept him constantly employed. But on this occasion, as on all Sundays and holidays, Phil M'Dermott's person could vie with even Tom Murdock's, "or any other man's," in scrupulous cleanliness. Now indeed, if there were some streaks and blotches of blood upon the breast of his shirt, he might thank Tom Murdock's handiwork for that same.

Such as he was, however, bloody shirt and all, Winny Cavana went out to dance with him before the whole assembly of Rathcash boys, speckless as they were.

Kate Mulvey had been endeavoring to carry on her own tactics privately all the morning, and had refused two or three Shanvilla boys, saying that she heard there would be no dance, but that if there was, she would dance with them before it was over. She now accidentally stood not very far from where Tom had been snubbed and turned away from by her bosom friend, Winny Cavana. Tom Murdock saw her, and saw that she was alone as far as a partner was concerned.

Determined to let Winny see that there were "as good fish in the sea as ever were caught," and that she had not the power to upset his enjoyment, Tom made up to Kate, and, assuming the most amiable smile which the wicked confusion of his mind permitted, he asked her to dance.

"How is it that you are not dancing, Kate? Will you allow me to lead you out?"

"I would, Tom, with the greatest possible pleasure; but I heard the Rathcash boys were to dance with the Shanvilla girls, and so by the others with the Rathcash girls."

"That's the old story, Kate. It was thrown up to me just now; but there is no such restriction upon any of us at either side. And I'll tell you what it is, Kate Mulvey—not a Shanvilla girl I'll dance with this day, if I never struck a foot under me!"

Kate was not sorry to find him in this humor. If she could soothe round his feelings on her own account now, all would be right. Under any phase of beauty, Kate's expression of countenance was more amiable than Winny Cavana's, although perhaps not so regularly handsome, and she felt that she was now looking her best.

"Fie, fie, Tom; you should not let that little accident put you through other like that, to be making you angry. I heard that was the rule, and I refused a couple of the Rathcash boys. But if you tell me there is no such rule, sure I'll go out with you, Tom, afore any man in the parish."

"Thank you, Kate; and if you wish to know the truth, there's not a girl in Rathcash, or Shanvilla either, that I'd so soon dance with."

"Ah,na bocklish, Tom; you'll hardly make me b'lieve that."

"Time will tell, Kate dear," said he, and he led her to the ring.

Kate made herself as agreeable as possible; amiable she always was. She rallied her partner upon his ill-humor. "It is a great shame for you, Tom," she said, "to let trifles annoy you—"

"They are not trifles, Kate."

"The way you do, where you have so much to make you happy; plenty of money and property, and everybody fond of you."

"No, not everybody."

"And you can do just as you like."

"No, I can't."

"And there won't be a pin's-worth the matter with young Lennon in a few days; and sure, Tom, every one knows it was an accident."

"No, not every one," thought Tom to himself. The other interruptions were aloud to Kate; but she kept never minding him, and finished what she had to say.

"It is not that all but, Kate," said Tom.

"Oh, I see! I suppose Winny has vexed you; I saw her laying down the law."

"She'd vex a saint, Kate."

"Faix, an' you're not one, Tom, I'm afeerd."

"Nor never will, I'm afeerd," said he, forgetting his manners, and pronouncing the last word as she had done, although he knew better.

She saw he was greatly vexed, but she did not mind it.

"If I were you, Tom," she continued, "I would not be losing my time and my thoughts on the likes of her."

This last expression was not very complimentary to her friend; but Kate knew she would excuse it (for she intended to tell her), as it was only helping her out.

"You are her bosom friend, Kate," he went on, "and could tell me a great deal about her, if you liked."

"I don't like, then; and the sorra word I'll tell you, Tom. If you're not able to find out all you want yourself, what good's in you?"

"Well, keep it to yourself, Kate; I think I know enough about her already."

"See that, now; an' you strivin' to pick more out of me! This much I'll tell you, any way, for you're apt to find it out yourself—that she's as stubborn a lass as any in the province of Connaught What she says she won't do, she won't."

"And what I say I will do, I will; and I'll take that one's pride down a peg or two, as sure as my name is Tom Murdock, and that before Easter Monday."

"Whist, Tom agra; she's not worth putting yourself in a passion about: and she's likely enough to bring her own pride low enough. But betune you an' me, I don't think she has very much. Whisper me this, Tom; did she ever let on to you?"

"Never, Kate; I won't belie her."

"Answer me another question now, Tom; did she ever do th' other thing?'

"You are sifting me very close, Kate. Do you mean did she ever refuse me?"

"I do, just; and what I'm saying to you, Tom, is for your good. I'm afeerd it's for her money you care, and not much for herself. Now, Thomas Murdock, I always thought, an' more than myself thought the same thing, that the joining of them two farms in holy wedlock was a bad plan, and that one of you would find it a dear bargain in the end."

"Which of us, Kate?"

"Not a word you'll tell, Tom avic. There's the floore idle; come out for another dance;" and she gave him one of her most beautiful looks. He was glad, however, that her volubility prevented her from observing that he had not answered her other question.

Kate succeeded during this second dance in putting Tom into somewhat better humor with himself. He had never thought her so handsome before, nor had he until now ever drawn a comparison between herself and Winny Cavana as to beauty of either face or figure, neither of which it now struck him were much, if at all, inferior to that celebrated beauty; and he certainly never found her so agreeable. He listened with a new pleasure to her full rich voice, and looked occasionally, unperceived (as he thought) into her soft swimming eyes, and were it not for pure spite toward "that whelp Lennon," and indeed toward that "proud hussy" Winny Cavana herself he would, after that second dance, have transferred his whole mind and body to the said Kate Mulvey on the spot. He considered, at all events, that he had Kate Mulvey hooked, however slightly it might be. But he would play her gently, not handle her too roughly, and thus keep her on his line in case he might find it desirable to put the landing-net under her at any time. He never thought she was so fine a girl.

But then he thought again: to be cut out, and hunted out of the field, with all his money, by such a fellow as that, a common day-laborer, was what he could not reconcile himself to. As for any real love for Winny Cavana, if it had ever existed in his heart toward her, it had that day been crushed, and for ever; yet notwithstanding the favorably circumstances for its growth, it had not yet quite sprung up for another. A firm resolve, then, to see his spite out, at any cost to himself, to her, and to "that whelp," was the final determination of his heart after the day closed.

Winny Cavana, having danced with Phil M'Dermott until they were both tired, sat down beside her father on a furrum. Several of the Shanvilla, and some of the Rathcash, boys "made up" to her, but she refused to dance any more, pleading fatigue, which by-the-bye none of them believed, for it was not easy to tire the same Winny Cavana dancing. After sitting some time to cool, and look on at the neighbors "footing it," she proposed to her father to go home; and he, poor old man, thought "it was an angel spoke." He would have proposed it to Winny himself long before, but that he did not wish to interfere with her enjoyment. He thought she would have danced more, but was now glad of the reprieve; for to say the truth it was one to him. He, and Winny, and Bully-dhu, who had been curled up at his feet all day, then stood up, and went down the boreen together; Bully careering and barking round them with his usual activity.

We need not remain much longer at the dance ourselves. In another half hour it was "getting late," the beer was all out, Murrin's pipes were getting confused, and Rathcash and Shanvilla were seen straggling over the hills in twos and threes and small parties toward their respective homes.

We cannot do better than end this chapter with a hearty Irish wish— "God send them safe!"