ear, oh! Every
light in Kilgorman went out that night. The news of the murder killed
the lady and her little babe. I mind the time well, for I was called to
christen the babe. Do you mind Larry McQuilkin of Kerry Keel, O'Brady?
It was his wife as was nursing-woman to the child--as decent a woman as
ever lived. She--"

Here his honour looked up sharply, and his reverence, pleased to have a
better audience, chattered on:--

"Sure, your honour will remember Biddy McQuilkin, for she served at
Knockowen when the little mistress there was born--"

"Where's Biddy now?" asked some one. "She was never the same woman
after her man died."

"Ah, poor Biddy! When your honour parted with her she went to Paris to
a situation; but I'm thinking she'd have done better to bide at home.
There's many an honest man in these parts would have been glad to meet a
decent widow like Biddy. I told her so before she went, but--"

Here the fiddler struck up a jig, which cut short the gossip of the
priest and made a diversion for his hearers. Some of the young fellows
and girls present fell to footing it, and called on Tim and me to join
in. But I was too much out of heart even to look on; and as for Tim, he
glared as if he would have turned every one of them out of the cottage.

In the midst of the noise and the shouts of the dancers and the cheers
of the onlookers, I crawled into the corner behind his honour's chair,
and dropped asleep, to dream--strange to tell--not of my mother, or of
his honour's turnips, or of the _Cigale_, but of Biddy McQuilkin of
Kerry Keel, whom till now I had never seen or heard of.

When I awoke the daylight was struggling into the cabin, paling the
candles that burned low beside my mother's bed. Tim stood where I had
left him, sentinel-wise, glaring with sleepless eyes at his father's
guests. Father, with his head on his arm, at the foot of the bed, slept
a tipsy, sorrowful sleep. A few of the rest, worn-out with the night's
revels, slumbered on the floor. Others made love, or quarrelled, or
talked drowsily in couples.

His honour had escaped from the choking atmosphere of the cabin, and was
pacing moodily on the grass outside, casting impatient glances eastward,
where lay Kilgorman, and the _Cigale_, and the rising sun.

Presently, when with a salute I came out to join him, he said, "'Tis
time we started. Waken your father, boy."

It was no easy task, and when he was wakened it was hard to make