Archie Mason.

211

ARCHIE MASON:

AN IRISH STORY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE COTTAGERS OF GLENCARRAN.' CHAPTER V.-MR MACKIE'S FARM.

RANK and Archie were in high spirits, and enjoyed their drive extremely. The country was new to the latter, who had never been ten miles

away from Loughveagh before. He wondered at the rich country they came to when the lakes and mountains were left behind-fields very different from those old Brian was accustomed to plough. He hoped it might be long before he turned up a sod on his father's farm again, for he was going into the world to seek his fortune. He spent a very pleasant evening in Derry. Mr Frank paid for everything, and he had not had occasion to change the pound-note.

The streets of the old city were in a state of unusual tumult that evening, for it happened to be the day on which the farmers hire their servants for the half year.

The confusion had been much greater earlier in the day: yet when Frank and Archie arrived, there were still a number of disappointed people going about the town -farmers who had failed to find servants to suit them, and boys and girls who had failed in finding places.

Mr Mackie from Ballyogue was spending the night at the inn where the two lads put up, and as they were sitting in the coffee-room, Archie overheard him tell a farmer who sat next him, that he had come to hire a lad, but feared he must go home without one, for the kind of servant he wanted was hard to find.

The boys were all anxious to hire with him, he said; he gave high wages-six pounds the half year; he required a strong, active lad of eighteen or nineteen, able to milk and take care of cattle, and drive his churn into Derry, besides being handy with horses, and ready to do anything he was desired.

You require a good deal, Mr Mackie,' remarked the man addressed.

'Well, the work is tolerably heavy; but I pay my servants well, and feed them better than most of the farmers hereabouts.'

Archie listened to this conversation with great interest. He had no mind to go back to Loughveagh, and thought he could not do better than hire with Mr Mackie; so, long before Frank appeared at breakfast next morning, he had offered himself as an experienced farm-servant, and been engaged.

Frank was very much provoked with him he little thought this was going to be the upshot of his foolish exploit when he persuaded Archie to steal away with him the day before; and he was full of consternation at the idea of his aunt's sorrow and the distress of the Masons.

But Archie had no notion of drawing back. The deed was done, and he told Frank he need not urge him to get off his agreement, for he would do nothing of the kind. Their dispute lasted until they had to take leave at the station. Frank's farewell words were a promise which Archie extracted from him, that he would not tell where he was.

An hour later he and his master were on their way to Ballyogue. It was with feelings of pleasure that the 'back country' lad inspected the rough abundance of the farm. He little knew how hard he should have to work in the cool dairy he admired so much, or how his arms and back would ache before he finished milking Mr Mackie's sixteen sleek cows.

He soon found he must work hard indeed. There

were three masters and two mistresses at Ballyogue—Mr Mackie and his two sons, and Mrs Mackie and her daughter; and they had plenty for Archie to do, from the time he got up till he threw himself on his hard bed, between ten and eleven at night, quite tired out.

Then on churning days he had to get up at five o'clock, and he and poor Nelly Stevin, the girl, toiled away harder than ever.

He was required to do any job his master set him to: whether leading horses in the thrashing-mill, or haymaking, or driving the churn into Derry, and he never knew what it was to have an idle minute, except when he and Nelly sat down before the kitchen fire on the rare nights that Miss Mackie had company in the parlour.

On these occasions he and Nelly told one another something of their respective histories. The girl soon knew the names of Rosy Mason and Willy M'Alister, Jenny, and little Charlie. As to Master Frank, she could have pointed him out in a crowd, from Archie's description. 'You had no call to hire, Archie,' said she, when she found out that John Mason possessed a horse and three cows of his own. 'It was bad enough for me, the oldest of eight weans, an' my father only a cottier, wi' a poor way for us, to come among strangers. Better to hae wrought for your ain, than to slave away for other people. I wonder that you left Loughveagh at all.'

But she got no information on that subject from Archie. He kept his reason for leaving home a dead secret.

'I wish I could work for my father an' mother,' proceeded Nelly, passionately; 'I'd not think long after Miss Rosanna wi' her scolding an' tormenting if I was back in Crowross.'

Archie did not say so; but he was sometimes of her opinion, especially on nights when the fire was taken up, and he could not manage to get his clothes dried. The summer was very wet, and Archie often came in from the fields or from town saturated with rain, to find there was no room for him near the fire; and many a morning