Pether. Hycy, my man, if you go to look for wool to Tom you'll come home
shorn."

"'Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule
Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown bowl,
That there's wrath and despair--"

Thank you, father--much obliged; you entertain a good opinion of me."

"Do I, faith? Don't be too sure of that."

"I've bought her at any rate," said Hycy--"thirty-five's the figure; but
she's a dead bargain at fifty."

"Bought her!" exclaimed the father; "an' how, in God's name, do you
expect to pay for her?"

"By an order on a very excellent, worthy man and
gentleman-farmer--ycleped James Burke, Esquire--who has the honor
of being father to that ornament of the barony, Hycy Burke, the
accomplished. My worthy sire will fork out."

"If I do, that I may--"

"Silence, poor creature!" said his wife, clapping her hand upon his
mouth--"make no rash or vulgar oaths. Surely, Misther Burke--"

"How often did I bid you not to misther me? Holy scrapers, am I to be
misthered and pesthered this way, an' my name plane Jemmy Burke!"