in Dublin with him brought back, was no great
things. A poor-looking little scollop of a thing, they tell me she is;
and like as if she'd have about as much iday of taking butter off a
churn, or spinning a hank of yarn, as a pig would have of a holiday!
What opinion could any sensible body have of that kind of a wedding,
without even a match-maker to inquire into the thing, to see was it
anyways suitable or not! Och, Art! Art! it's little I thought, this day
five-and-twenty years, the way the thing would be now!"

CHAPTER II

THE STABLE

While poor Mrs. Moloney was fretting like this, and it Christmas Eve and
all, Big Michael was making his way through the wind and the sleety rain
to where he had his stable, a piece off from the house. It was
pitch-dark, so that he couldn't see his hand before his eyes, if he held
it up; but he had his lantern, and anyway he knew his way about
blindfold. But even in daylight you might pass by that stable ready,
unless you knew it was there. For it was very little, and being roofed
with heather it looked only like a bit of the bog that had humped itself
up a bit higher than the rest.

Poor-looking and small as it was, Big Michael was very proud of that
stable. He and Art had built it together, just before Art leaving home.
It was wanted to keep the little wad of hay or straw safe from the
weather, as well as to shelter the cow of a hard night. And after Art
had gone off to the Big Smoke, and for no other reason only getting
restless, as young hearts often do, many and many a time Michael would
slope off to the stable, and sit down there to take a draw of the pipe
and to wish he had his pleasant, active young boy back at home again. He
missed Art full as much as the mother, and maybe more.

In fact, it was getting into a habit with Michael to go off to the
stable. He had the best of a wife, but still there were times when he'd
wish to be with himself somewhere, so that he could take his ease, and
still not be feeling himself an annoyance to a busy woman. Big Michael
himself, the people said, always looked as if he thought to-morrow would
do. But the Woman that owned him was of a different way of thinking,
always going at something. So he got the fashion of keeping out of her
way.

When he got to the stable this night, a bit out of breath with the great
wind, he took notice first of the cow, and he saw that she