The Argosy — page 142: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

128 The Knight of the Trowel. pare tle ‘¢ Menander,” we suggested. ‘Vis, yis, dear; Menander it was, sure enough. (Och! what it 1s to have a head, and plenty in it!) Well, sizhe, ‘a good woman, and a butyful wan,’ siz he, ‘is the very exchequer of the virtues.’ But,” added Robin, slyly, “‘ where are these exchequers to be found ?” ‘Oh! out upon you, Robin!” cried we, in affected displeasure. “ In the name of the sex, we'll leave you. We wouldn't talk to such a man 1 “Stay, stay !’” now cried he, in alarm at the idea of losing a respect- able auditor, for Robin had that universal passion of the Insh peasantry, a passion for getting into genteel society, and ‘‘ discoorsin’ their betters,” —‘‘ holding sweet converse,” Robin called it. ‘ Let beauty play the - weary as it likes (and does),” he added, ‘youand me'll not fall out, anyway. We have always been friends, have we not?” “ Oh! always, Robin,” we replied, coming back. ‘‘ Shure we always have,” said Robin, musingly. ‘Ever since the time when you used to come and write the letters for us to her as was far away across the say; and by the same token, how the old woman used to burst out and fill her apron with cries, when all was finished, and jist ready to fould up, to think how butyful and how affectionate her words looked on paper. ‘Whisht, ye divil!’ siz I to her, ‘and don’t make a behay of yourself. Shure, it’s not your words at all at all, nor writin’ nor inditin” ayther, that’s doin’ it ;’ but Margaret I always knew to be a woman void. of understandin’. Och, but I say, d’ye mind the day that you kem up the road to our house, and you met me returnin’ from Cootehill fair, whither I had gone to buy two small swine? I didn’t get them, bekase I was too poor and they too dear for my money, and I was returnin’ dis- appointed ; but the evenin’ was butyful-—it was in the spring-time— and I rejoiced in the light of the sun and in the sweet odeur of the haw- thorn, and in the aspect of the ditches covered with violets and wee wild blossoms, and the hills with their tender grass; and the time of the singin’ of birds was come, and the voice of the thrushes and blackbirds was heard in the land, and I lifted up my soul in psalms and hymns, and repeated comfortable passages and grand texts to meself, and forgot all about bein’ an hungered, and the small swine, and such mane affairs, and I walked the roads like any Christian man and gentleman ; and then up you comes, and I feels more like a gentleman nor ever, for you turns and walks back with me, and, ‘ Robin,’ siz you, ‘there’s a job at the house,’ siz you, ‘and you’re wanted to do it’ ‘ Very well, then,’ siz I, ‘I’m yer man,’ siz I, ‘and a willin’ one, too,’ for I always liked to work at your house, bekase I was always trated shuparyor, and got liber- ties, and wasn’t kept out like another, and, in coorse, I should’nt ayther, seein’ the long friendship and respect and trust as was between the master and me.” If Robin had one weakness greater than another, it was for delivering ECOMicoOolkxs.cO©