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Clancy did not answer, and McEvoy, more and more anxious to retrieve his former error, waxed eloquent on the subject of Roseen, her beauty, her wealth, and the bounties she lavished all round her. "Look at the way she whipped off your father and mother there," he remarked at last, "and the comfort she keeps them in!
Sure, ye wouldn't marry ugly Mr. Quinn?" he repeated anxiously. "I would not," replied Roseen; "but I don't like me grandfather to be talkin' that way. An' an' his hair isn't that red, Mike," she added reprovingly; "ye have no call to be sayin' it is." "If I never said worse nor you have said yourself often an' often!" retorted the lad. "Many's the time I heard ye at it."
Poor Roseen crept upstairs and sat disconsolately at the window, watching the corner of the haggard where she expected before long to see Mike appear. It had been the custom of the young pair to meet for a few moments every evening, under the shadow of the big hayrick and there converse before Mike returned home. He would surely come, if only to say good-bye. Poor fellow, what would he do?
By-and-by, he would have to go to Monavoe to see his parents, but he would wait for a little while first; he shrank from the meeting with Roseen.
"Aye, indeed," interrupted Roseen, throwing up her head, "it 'ud make that much differ, Mike, that if a girl was fond of a boy before, she'd be apt to be ten times fonder after. Now lookit here, Mike Clancy, I have had enough of this 'pon me word, isn't it too bad for a poor girl to have to go beggin' an' prayin' a fellow this way! Ye ought to be ashamed of yourself!
"Well, the Spider went off wid himself up to the rich man's house, an' what do ye think the poor fellow found when he got there?" Roseen was perfectly aware of the state of affairs which the Spider discovered, knowing as she did every word of the story by heart, but deemed it her duty to shake her head slightly and raise her eyebrows in a manner which denoted that she was absolutely at fault.
Clancy had told Roseen, weeping, that Mike was gone off wid himself. He had come in late, very near distracted, the poor boy, an' he had said "good-bye" to his father an' mother, an' had told them he was goin' to England to try an' make a bit o' money at the potato-harvest, the way they wouldn't have to go to the workhouse when Mr. Rorke turned them out. Gone without a word of farewell to her!
"You are afther forgettin'!" interrupted Roseen, quickly seizing the opportunity of using her tongue, and proceeding with as close an imitation of Pat's manner as she could muster. "In walks the housemaid. 'Och, says she, 'what brings you here at all, ye dirty little spalpeen!" "To be sure," said Pat, "I was near forgettin' that altogether. You infarnal little sckamer, says she."
"That was before I had sense," replied Roseen, a trifle loftily; "ye have no call to be castin' that up at me now. Me an' me grandfather has never fell out since I come here." "Oh, that indeed," said Mike sarcastically; "ye're gettin' altogether too good an' too grand. Hothen indeed, I may as well make up my mind to it ye'll be Mrs. Quinn before the year is out.
Ye'd hear me bawlin' up at the crass roads. Sure I thought it was killed I was! My ancistor couldn't have shouted louder when he had the Earl Strongbow's spear stuck in him. Will I tell ye about that, alanna, to pass the time till herself comes in?" Roseen shook her head discontentedly. "I know that story," she said. "I wisht ye'd tell me about the Spider an' the Gout though, Misther Clancy.
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