You Take Me For A Thief; Yet Shure A Thief Would
Have Waited Till You Were All In Bed And Asleep, And Not Stepped In
Forenint You All In This Fashion."
There was both truth and nature in the lad's argument; but Bell,
like an obstinate woman as she was, chose to adhere to her own
opinion.
Nay, she even carried her absurd prejudices so far that
she brought her mattress and laid it down on the floor in my room,
for fear that the Irish vagabond should murder her during the night.
By the break of day she was off; leaving me for the rest of the
winter without a servant. Monaghan did all in his power to supply
her place; he lighted the fires, swept the house, milked the cows,
nursed the baby, and often cooked the dinner for me, and endeavoured
by a thousand little attentions to show the gratitude he really felt
for our kindness. To little Katie he attached himself in an
extraordinary manner. All his spare time he spent in making little
sleighs and toys for her, or in dragging her in the said sleighs up
and down the steep hills in front of the house, wrapped up in a
blanket. Of a night, he cooked her mess of bread and milk, as she
sat by the fire, and his greatest delight was to feed her himself.
After this operation was over, he would carry her round the floor on
his back, and sing her songs in native Irish.
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