Part 40 (1/2)

He got himself back to the same spot, near the calves, to see what would happen. After a time, he saw Heffernan coming back, and little Barney Maguire with him. A very decent boy Barney was, quiet and agreeable; never too anxious for work, but very knowledgable about how things should be done, from a wake to a sheep-shearing. Heffernan always liked to have Barney with him at a fair.

The two of them stood near the calves, careless-like, as if they took no interest in them at all.

A dealer came up.

”How much for them calves? Not that I'm in need of the like,” says he.

”n.o.body wants you to take them, so,” says Barney, ”but the price is three pounds ... or was it guineas you're after saying, Mr. Heffernan?”

Heffernan said nothing, and the dealer spoke up very fierce; ”Three pounds! Put thirty s.h.i.+llings on them, and I'll be talking to ye!”

Mickey again only looked at his adviser, and says Barney, ”Thirty s.h.i.+llings! 'Tis you that's bidding wide, this day! May the Lord forgive you! Is it wanting a present you are of the finest calves in Ardenoo?”

Heffernan swelled out with delight at that; as if Barney's word could make his calves either better or worse.

”Wasn't it fifty-seven and sixpence you're after telling me you were offered only yesterday, Mr. Heffernan,” says Barney, ”just for the small ones of the lot?”

”Och! I dare say! don't you?” says the dealer; ”the woman that owns you it was that made you that bid, to save your word!”

Poor Mickey! and he hadn't a woman at all! The dealer of course being strange couldn't know that, nor why Hughie gave a laugh out of him.

But that didn't matter. Mickey took no notice. A man that's a bit ”thick” escapes many a prod that another would feel sharp. So in all things you can see how them that are afflicted are looked after in some little way we don't know.

The dealer looked at the calves again.

”Troth, I'm thinking it's the wrong ones yous have here! Yous must have forgotten them fine three-pound calves at home!”

And Mickey began looking very anxiously at them, as he thought maybe he had made some mistake.

”Them calves,” says the dealer, slowly, ”isn't like a pretty girl, that everyone will be looking to get! And, besides, they're no size! A terrible small calf they are!”

”Small!” said Barney, ”It's too big they are! And if they're little itself, what harm! Isn't a mouse the prettiest animal you might ask to see?”

”Ay, it is,” says the dealer, ”but it'll take a power of mice to stock a farm!” and off with him in a real pa.s.sion--by the way of.

But Barney knew better than to mind. The dealer came back, and at long last the calves were sold and paid for. Then the lucky-penny had to be given. Hard-set Barney was to get Heffernan to do that. In the end Mickey was so bothered over it that he dropped a s.h.i.+lling just where Hughie was standing leaning his weight on the one crutch as usual.

As quick as a flash, he had the other up, and made a kind of a lurch forward, as if to look for the money. But he managed to get the second crutch down upon the s.h.i.+lling, to hide it; and then he looked round about the ground as innocent as a child, as if he was striving his best to find the money for Mickey.

”Where should it be, at all, at all?” says Mickey; ”bewitched it should be, to say it's gone like that!”

And Heffernan, standing there with his mouth open, looked as if he had lost all belonging to him. Then he began searching about a good piece off from where the s.h.i.+lling fell.

”It's not there you'll get it!” said Barney, ”sure you ought always look for a thing where you lost it!”

He went over to Hughie.

”None of your tricks, now! It's you has Mr. Heffernan's money, and let you give it up to him!”

”Is it me have it? Sure if I had, what would I do, only hand it over to the man that owns it!” says Hughie.