"Murdher alive, ay, sure enough! Faith, I didn't think o' that!"

"Well, go up now an' spake to Misther Eccles about the land; maybe
somebody else 'ud slip in afore us, an' that wouldn't be pleasant.
Here's your brave big coat, put it an; faix, it makes a man of
you--gives you a bodagh* look entirely; but that's little to what you'll
be yet, wid a blessin'--a Half-Sir, any way."

* This word is used in Ireland sometimes in a good and
sometimes in a bad sense. For instance, the peasantry
will often say in allusion to some individual who may
happen to be talked of, "Hut! he's a dirty bodagh;" but
again, you may hear them use it in a sense directly the
reverse of this; for instance, "He's a very dacent
man, and looks the bodagh entirely." As to the "Half
sir," he stands about half-way between the bodagh and
the gentleman, Bodagh--signifying churl--was applied
originally as a term of reproach to the English
settlers.

In fact, Ellish's industry had already gained a character for both
herself and her husband. He got credit for the assiduity and activity to
which she trained him: and both were respected for their cleverness in
advancing themselves from so poor a beginning to the humble state of
independence they had then reached. The farm which Ellish was so anxious
to secure was the property of the gentleman from whom they held the
other. Being a man of sense and penetration, he fortunately saw--what,
indeed, was generally well known--that Peter and Ellish were rising in
the world, and that their elevation was the consequence of their own