With that all the neighbours thought he was crack'd, and faith, the poor wife herself thought the same when he kem home in the evenin', afther spendin' every rap he had in dhrink, and swaggerin' about the place, and lookin' at his hand every minit.
'Indeed, an' your hand is very dirty, sure enough, Thady jewel,' says the poor wife; and thrue for her, for he rowled into a ditch comin' home. 'You had betther wash it, darlin'.'
'How dar' you say dirty to the greatest hand in Ireland?' says he, going to bate her.
'It is throwin' away my time I have been all my life,' says he; 'livin' with you at all, and stuck at a loom, nothin' but a poor waiver, when it is Saint George or the Dhraggin I ought to be, which is two of the siven champions o' Christendom.'
'Well, suppose they christened him twice as much,' says the wife; 'sure, what's that to uz?'
'Don't put in your prate,' says he; 'you ignorant sthrap,' says he. 'You're vulgar, woman--you're vulgar--mighty vulgar; but I'll have nothin' more to say to any dirty snakin' thrade again--divil a more waivin' I'll do.'
'Oh, Thady dear, and what'll the children do then?'
'That would be but poor feedin' for them, Thady.'
'They shan't want for feedin',' says he; 'for it's a rich man I'll be soon, and a great man too.'
'Usha, but I'm glad to hear it, darlin',--though I dunna how it's to be, but I think you had betther go to bed, Thady.'
'Don't talk to me of any bed but the bed o' glory, woman,' says he, lookin' mortial grand.
'Oh! God send we'll all be in glory yet,' says the wife, crassin' herself; 'but go to sleep, Thady, for this present.'
'I'll sleep with the brave yit,' says he.
'Indeed, an' a brave sleep will do you a power o' good, my darlin','says she.
'And it's I that will be the knight!' says he.
'All night, if you plaze, Thady,' says she.
'None o' your coaxin','says he. 'I'm detarmined on it, and I'll set off immediantly, and be a knight arriant.'
'Lord, be good to me, what's that?' says she.
'A knight arriant is a rale gintleman,' says he; 'going round the world for sport, with a swoord by his side, takin' whatever he plazes for himself; and that's a knight arriant,' says he.
Well, sure enough he wint about among his neighbours the next day, and he got an owld kittle from one, and a saucepan from another; and he took them to the tailor, and he sewed him up a shuit o' tin clothes like any knight arriant and he borrowed a pot lid, and _that_ he was very partic'lar about, bekase it was his shield and he wint to a frind o' his, a painther and glazier, and made him paint an his shield in big letthers--