sweet little girl like Nannie Boylan tied for life to a man like Jack Flanagan, who never comes home sober from a fair, an' who has no thought for anythin' only cattle, an' money, an' drink. Father Martin is dead against the match-makin', you know, an' he said he'll marry us if we go to him, runaway or no runaway, consent or no consent."

"Faith, then, by my grandfather's whiskers, Seumas Shanley, if that's the case, I'll see you married—yourself an' Nannie—before Shrove yet, an' that's only this day week!" said the blacksmith, as he flung the hammer he held in his hand into a corner,[Pg 12] and put the bolt on the forge door, so that no one might enter or interrupt their conversation. "I have the plan in my head all day," he added, "an' if it doesn't work out all right the fault won't be Ned M'Grane's."

[Pg 12]

"What's the plan?" asked Seumas, in a tone the eagerness of which he could not conceal, although he made an effort to suppress it. He knew that no man in Ireland could devise a plan or carry it through, better than Ned M'Grane, and the hope that had been ebbing out of his heart as Shrove drew near and the danger of losing his cailin ban became every day more apparent, that hope grew as bright as the glow of the forge fire, and leapt into his kindly, dark eyes as he waited for the blacksmith to speak.

"Well, 'tis a simple plan enough, an' there's no great mystery about it at all," said Ned, "an' if you an' Nannie do your share of the work right I give you my word that it'll be the most complete night-cap ever was put on Old Crusty or any match-makin' miser like him. You know the way he goes nearly mad with that old front tooth of his when it begins to pain him for all his miserly ways an' his trickeries, an' you know as well, I suppose, the pishrogues the women do have about every blacksmith havin' a charm for the cure of the toothache. Well, if Nannie can set Old Crusty's tooth tearin' mad before Sunday—let her give him somethin' real sweet to eat an' it's off—I'll guarantee to take him out of the way for three hours, at any rate, an' any Christian with the head set right on him could very easy be married to the girl of his heart in three hours—couldn't he?"

[Pg 13]

[Pg 13]

"He could, Ned—God bless you!" said Seumas, in a voice that was a wee bit husky, as he grasped the blacksmith's hand in a firm grip. "I was nearly in despair, an' so was Nannie, an' we couldn't think of a plan at all. We'll not forget it to 

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