ed my
way into the cabin, in which were stifling heat and smoke and the fumes
of whisky. There, on the bed in the corner, where I had seen her last,
but now lit up with a glare of candles, lay my poor mother, with her
eyes closed and her hands folded across her breast. At the foot of the
bed sat my father, haggard and wretched, holding a glass of whisky in
his hand, which now and again he put to his lips to give him the Dutch
courage he needed. At the bedside stood Tim with a scowl on his face as
he glared, first, on the noisy mourners, and then looked down on the
white face on the pillow. At the fireplace sat his honour, buried in
thought, and not heeding the talk of the jovial priest who sat and
stirred his cup beside him. There, too, among the crowd of dirge-
singing, laughing, whisky-drinking neighbours, I could see the
outlandish-looking skipper of the _Cigale_.

It was a weird, woeful spectacle, and made me long more than ever for
the pure, fresh breezes of the lonely headland. But Tim looked round as
I entered, and his face, till now so black and sullen, lit up as he saw
me, and he beckoned me to him. When last we parted it had been in anger
and shame; now, over the body of our dead mother, we met in peace and
brotherly love, and felt stronger each of us by the presence of the
other.

My father, half-stupid with sorrow and whisky, roused himself and called
out my name.

"Arrah, Barry, my son, are you there? Faith, it's a sore day for the
motherless lad. Howl, boys!"

And the company set up a loud wail in my honour, and pressed round me,
to pat me on the head or back and say some word of consolation.

Presently his honour motioned me to him.

"Well?" said he inquiringly.

"All right, sir," said I.

"That's a man," said he. "Your mother was dead before I reached her
yesterday."

"She was English," said the garrulous priest, who stood by, lifting his
voice above the general clamour. "She never took root among us. Sure,
your honour will remember her when she was my lady's-maid at Kilgorman.
Ochone, that was a sad business!"

His honour did not attend to his reverence, but continued to look hard
at me in that strange way of his.

"A sad business," continued the priest, turning round for some more
attentive listener. "It was at Kilgorman that Barry and Tim were born--
mercy on them!--the night that Terence Gorman, his honour's brother, was
murdered on the mountain. I mind the night well. D