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"You don't know that neither", said Moynehan, "and no matter if it should be ours for no longer than an hour, I am determined to make a free use of it while it belongs to Walk in, good fellow".

me.

The poor man, clapping his hands together, and muttering blessings, staggered forward to the fire-place, still casting a timid eye askance at the lady, as if he could have answered in the language of poor Buff

"I dare not, sir,

For fear of your cur".

Mr. Moynehan having seen the beggar comfortably established by the fire-side, returned to the parlour. Here he began to meditate upon the difference between his own condition and that of the poor mendicant, and found so much that was preferable in the former that he began to recover his spirits.

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"At the worst, my dear", said he, addressing Mrs. Moynehan, we are not so badly off as that poor fellow. We will still have many friends, and we will not, in all probability, be without a house of some kind or another, and at all events we have each of us a decent suit of clothes, which is more than can be said for him. So that 'tis a great comfort to think our case is not so bad but that it might be worse "

Before Mrs. Moynehan could reply, the parlour-door was opened, and a face, distinguished by a gaping mouth and a pair of staring eyes, appeared at the aperture. It was that of Rick or Rickhard Lillis, the faithful groom and valet (not to mention fifty other offices which he filled with equal fidelity and skill) of Mr. Moynehan. He remained for a time in the same position, gaping and gazing as if, like a ghost, he could not speak until some living being had addressed him.

"Well, Rick, what ails you now?" "The poor man, sir!"

"What of him?"

"He wants the priest, sir; I'm in dhread he's dyin'". "Phoo, nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Moynehan, snatching a light and hurrying from the room. Strange as it seemed, he found his servant's story true. The old beggar was lying in the kitchen, on the straw pallet which had been prepared for him, and gasping, as it appeared, almost in the agonies of death. By this the storm had in some degree abated, and Moynehan ordered Rick Lillis to tie a collar on the head of the working mare, and ride off at once for the clergyman and the neighbouring doctor. When both those functionaries had left the house (which was not for a few hours) he paid another visit to his miserable guest. The old man was lying on his back in a feeble condition, and still muttering some incoherent sentences about "robbers" and "down the glen of B

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and of "the storm", and "his own cabin in the west On hearing Mr. Moynehan's voice, he looked fixedly upon him, and seemed making an effort to collect his scattered

reason.

"You will have no raison, sir", he said, "to repent your charity to me. The docthor tells me I can't live; so I must only see and make use o' the time that's left me.

"I was born westwards, near Dingle. My father thought to make a scholar of me, but from a child I never could take to the book. Neither birch nor masther could ever get any good o' me. No one could equal me for michin from school, and while I was there, I'd be at anything but the learnin'. So one day, afther a'most breakin' his heart to thry an' get good o' me, my father kem' out, an' he havin' a book in one hand and a spade in the other.

"Here, Tom', says he, take your choice between these; if you choose the book, you may become a counsellor one time or other--if you take the spade, you'll die as you began'.

"I looked this way and that, and afther considherin' for a while, I took the spade. My father left me nothin' else, but I thought it enough, for I didn't know what it was to have more. I was light and happy; my conscience ga' me no throuble, an' I had no sort o' care upon my mind.

"Well, of a day, a burnin' day in June (I remember it well-it was the worst day to me that ever came out of the skies)—of a little St. John's eve, I was making a drain to clear a bog belongin' to a gentleman that used to gi' me work. I ought to think o' that day well, an' so I do, an' often did before. It was a fine bright day, but it darkened my mind for ever afther. The sun was shinin' all around, the birds were singin' in the little bushes, the cuckoo was cooin' at a distance in the wood, an' the young foals were gallopin' about upon the green fields like kittens at play. 'Twas a fine day to man an' beast, but 'twas a woful day to me. It was just then, as I was whistling an working in the thrench, I threw up somethin' upon the bank that sounded as it hit agin' a stone. took it up an' looked at it. It was like a collar that would be round a person's neck, an' I was told aftherwards, that it was a kind o' collar the ould Irish knights or kings, or people o' that sort, used to wear as an ornament in former times. I scraped it a little, an' it was yellow inside; I took it to the docthor that lived in the same place, to see could he make anything of it. He dipped the top of a quill in a little bottle he had, an' touched it where I scraped it, an' afther lookin' at it again, he wiped it an' handed it back to me, an' tould me it was raal goold.

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"Until that time the thoughts o' riches, nor money, nor anything o' the kind ever ga' me a day's unaisiness. I had my hire from one day to another, an' I had health, an' I cared for no more. But the minute he tould me it was raal goold, I felt as if my whole mind was changed within

me at once; I took home the goold, an' put it under my head that night an' slep' upon it, an' in the mornin' I went off to town, where I took it through all the gooldsmiths' shops to see what they'd gi' me for it, and I sould it at last for seven pounds, which was twelve times more money than ever I had in my life before. From that day out, I never knew an hour's pace o' mind; and for eighty-seven years afther, that's to this present time, my whole end and aim was to add as much as I could to the price of what I found. I stinted my food, I stinted my clothin'; I never laid out as much as one ha'penny in sport. I never yet since that day, gave so much as one farthin' to a fellow crathur-an' now I must part it all".

Here the unfortunate old man heaved a deep groan, and his ghastly eyes rolled in their sockets with the agony.

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'Bring witnesses if you have 'em", said he, in a feeble tone, "so that the law can't come between my words and their meaning afther I am gone".

Mr. Moynehan complied, and summoned Rick Lillis and another servant to the mendicant's bedside.

"Ye are witnesses", said the old man, faintly, "that out o' thanks to this gentleman for his charity to me, an' having no kith nor kindred o' my own, an' bein' sure he'll make a betther use o' what I have, than any body else I know, I lave him my outside coat an' its contents, an' all I have in the world besides".

The servants then retired, and the mendicant, taking a small and rusty key from his bosom, where it was tied fast with a piece of hempen twine, handed it to Moynehan, and said:

"There's a small cabin without a stick o' furniture, on the side of a hill by the ould bridge near Dingle. Any body will tell you where Garret Casey, the miser, lives when he's at home. There's a padlock on the doore, an' Whisper hether. When I'm gone,

this is the key of it. go to that house, an'

search in the corner near the cup

board in the inner room, an' rise up a brick that's there, an' have what's undher it-but-but-not till I'm gone, you know", the old man added, with a sudden expression of alarm; "the mother never loved her child, nor the wife her husband, nor the glutton his food, nor the drunkard his glass, as I loved what's undher that stone; an' what good is it for me now? I fasted for it-I watched for it-I hungered and thirsted for it-and I bore the heat and the cold, an' thought nothing of any kind o' labour that could add the smallest trifle to it; an' now I must part it all. If I suffered as much for my sins, this would be a happy night to me. Many a mile I walked barefoot on many a flinty road, to add a little to it; an' all for you. If I loved the law o' God as well as I loved what's undher that brick, what a saint I'd be to night".

Soon after he began to rave in a distracted manner about robbers, and felt for his key, and missing it, burst, into feeble lamentations, and complained that he was undone, and that his house was plundered. Before morning he expired, after recovering his reason sufficiently to request that his remains might be conveyed to his own parish. On examining his garments, they were found quilted with coins of every description, from gold to humble copper; guineas, dollars, shillings, pence, and halfpence, being stitched in indiscriminately between the lining and the cloth, to the amount of more than thirty pounds.

Mr. Moynehan complied with the last wishes of the dying man. He had the remains conveyed to the mendicant's native parish, and having found the cabin, waited until night in order to examine it. He then went, accompanied by Rick Lillis, and bearing a dark lantern in his hand, to the miser's wretched dwelling. It was a hovel of the very vilest kind. A round stone near the chimney corner served for a seat. There was no appearance of firing, no ashes on the hearth, nor even the

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