etween sobs of joy, "I
heard Corlett shouting to the house for a gun and a fourpenny bit, and
I thought I was never going to see mammy no more. But you did clink,
mammy! You did, though!"

The next time Katherine Cregeen saw Peter Quilliam, he was sitting on
the ridge of rock at the mouth of Ballure Glen, playing doleful strains
on a home-made whistle, and looking the picture of desolation and
despair. His mother was lying near to death. He had left Mrs. Cregeen,
Kath-erine's mother, a good soul getting the name of Grannie, to watch
and tend her while he came out to comfort his simple heart in this lone
spot between the land and the sea.

Katherine's eyes filled at sight of him, and when, without looking up or
speaking, he went on to play his crazy tunes, something took the girl by
the throat and she broke down utterly.

"Never mind, Pete. No--I don't mean that--but don't cry, Pete."

Pete was not crying at all, but only playing away on his whistle and
gazing out to sea with a look of dumb vacancy. Katherine knelt beside
him, put her arms around his neck, and cried for both of them.

Somebody hailed him from the hedge by the water-trough, and he rose,
took off his cap, smoothed his hair with his hand, and walked towards
the house without a word.

Bridget was dying of pleurisy, brought on by a long day's work at hoeing
turnips in a soaking rain. Dr. Mylechreest had poulticed her lungs with
mustard and linseed, but all to no purpose. "It's feeling the same
as the sun on your back at harvest," she murmured, yet the poultices
brought no heat to her frozen chest.

Caesar Cregeen was at her side; John the Clerk, too, called John the
Widow; Kelly, the rural postman, who went by the name of Kelly the
Thief; as well as Black Tom, her father. Caesar was discoursing of
sinners and their latter end. John was remembering how at his election
to the clerkship he had rashly promised to bury the poor for nothing;
Kelly was thinking he would be the first to carry the news to Christian
Balla-whaine; and Black Tom was varying the exercise of pounding
rock-sugar for his bees with that of breaking his playful wit on the
dying woman.

"No use; I'm laving you; I'm going on my long journey," said Bridget,
while Granny used a shovel as a fan to relieve her gusty breathing.

"Got anything in your pocket for the road, woman?" said the thatcher.

"It's not houses of bricks and mortal I'm for calling at now," she
answered.

"Dear heart