the night's comin' on so hard and stormy, I'll accept your kind offer;
a mouthful of any thing will do me, an' a dry sate at your hearth till
mornin'."

"Unfortunately, as I said," replied Sullivan, "it's but poor an' humble
treatment I can give you; but if it was betther you should be jist as
welcome to it, an' what more can I say?"

"What more can you say, indeed! I know your good heart, Jerry, as who
doesn't? Dear me, how it's poorin' over there towards the south--ha,
there it is again, that thundher! Well, thank goodness, we haven't far
to go, at any rate, an' the shower hasn't come round this far yet. In
the mean time let us step out an' thry to escape it if we can."

"Let us cross the fields, then," said Sullivan, "an' get up home by the
Slang, an' then behind our garden: to be sure, the ground is in a sad
plash, but then it will save a long twist round the road, an' as you
say, we may escape the rain yet."

Both accordingly struck off the highway, and took a short path across
the fields, while at every step the water spurted up out of the spongy
soil, so that they were soon wet nearly to their knees, so thoroughly
saturated was the ground with the rain which had incessantly fallen.
After toiling thro' plashy fields, they at length went up, as Sullivan
had said, by an old unfrequented footpath, that ran behind his garden,
the back of which consisted of a thick elder hedge, through which
scarcely the heaviest rain could penetrate. At one end of this garden,
through a small angle, forming a _cul de sac_, or point, where the
hedge was joined by one of white thorn, ran the little obsolete pathway
alluded to, and as another angle brought them at once upon the spot we