Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/54

46 never be done nagging at me for getting hanged."

I'd not breathe a word about it," she cried, going down on her knees before him. "Don't leave me, Mike."

Would you ever cast it up to me that I was only half hanged, or ought to have been hanged, or talk of the gallows to me at all, making my life a misery?" says he, his eyes growing soft and he looking like a man who had won a hurley match.

Never," says she, "never as long as sun has light and earth has graves, I swear it you before them all, never a word will I say about what happened to you to-day."

'Well, the end of it was we left them there cooing and courting as if it was their wedding day. I had no business their side of the town for a month or so, and saw nothing of the O'Dwyers till then.

'One evening I slipped into their cottage unbeknownst to them, or if they saw they were too busy quarrelling to pay any attention to me.

It was a bad day for me when I met you," said he; "if I could work as fast as you talk," says he, "I'd be a rich man this day."