and I'll drive my hanger into your weasand. Recollect, I stood to
you when I was eleven years old. I'm your match now, and, by Jove,
provoke me, and I'll beat you like--like your younger brother always
did.' That was a home-cut, and I saw Mick turn blue with fury.

'This is a pretty way to recommend yourself to the family,' said
Fagan, in a soothing tone.

'The girl's old enough to be his mother,' growled Mick.

'Old or not,' I replied: 'you listen to this, Mick Brady' (and I
swore a tremendous oath, that need not be put down here): 'the man
that marries Nora Brady must first kill me--do you mind that?'

'Pooh, sir,' said Mick, turning away, 'kill you--flog you, you mean!
I'll send for Nick the huntsman to do it;' and so he went off.

Captain Fagan now came up, and taking me kindly by the hand, said I
was a gallant lad, and he liked my spirit. 'But what Brady says is
true,' continued he; 'it's a hard thing to give a lad counsel who is
in such a far-gone state as you; but, believe me, I know the world,
and if you will but follow my advice, you won't regret having taken
it. Nora Brady has not a penny; you are not a whit richer. You are
but fifteen, and she's four-and-twenty. In ten years, when you're
old enough to marry, she will be an old woman; and, my poor boy,
don't you see--though it's a hard matter to see--that she's a flirt,
and does not care a pin for you or Quin either?'

But who in love (or in any other point, for the matter of that)
listens to advice? I never did, and I told Captain Fagan fairly,