he
threw the sacking round her neck, and lifted the handles of her barrow.

"Good-night, me darlin'!" said she, raising her voice as she moved off.
"_We'll meet again_, GOD willing."

"Safe enough, unless you tumble into the dock," replied the watchman.
"Go steady, missus. I hope you'll get safe home with that barra o'
yours."

"GOD send all safe home that's far from it!" shouted Biddy, in tones
that rose above the rumbling of the wheel and the shuffling of her
shoes.

"Haw! haw!" laughed the watchman, and with increased brutalness in his
voice he reiterated, "You're a rum lot, Biddy! and free of most things,
blessings and all."

I was not surprised that the sound of the wheel and the shoes ceased
suddenly. Biddy had set down her barrow to retort. But it was with deep
gratitude that I found her postpone her own wrath to my safety, and
content herself with making her enemy "a prisint of the contimpt of a
rogue."

"And what would I be doing but blessing ye?" she cried, in a voice of
such dramatic variety as only quick wits and warm feelings can give, it
was so full at once of suppressed rage, humorous triumph, contemptuous
irony, and infinite tenderness. And I need hardly say that it was raised
to a ringing pitch that would have reached my ears had they been buried
under twenty tarpaulins, "GOD bless ye for ivermore! Good luck to ye!
fine weather to ye! health and strength to ye! May the knaves that would
harm ye be made fools for your benefit, and may niver worse luck light
on one hair of your head than the best blessings of Biddy Macartney!"

Something peculiar in the sound of Biddy's retreating movements made me
risk another glance from an angle of the tarpaulin.

And upon my honour it is strictly true that I saw the old Irish woman
drive her barrow down the dock till she passed out of sight, and that
she went neither walking nor running, but _dancing_; and a good high
stepping dance too, that showed her stockings, and shook the
handkerchief on her head. And when she reached the end of the wharf she
snapped her fingers in the air.

Then I drew my head back, and I could hear the watchman guffaw as if he
would have split his sides. And even after he began to tramp up and down
I could hear him still chuckling as he paced by.

And if I did not hear Biddy chuckle, it was perhaps because the joke on
her side lay deeper down.

CHAPTER III.

"The mariners shout,