r that it devolved upon me
to act for the rest; so, summoning my best courage, I said, "Will you
allow us to stay here for the night, since we are strangers, and do not
know where to seek shelter?" She shook her head, not so much with the
air of refusing my request as to convey that I had asked for something
scarce worth the granting.

"We only want a shelter for the night--"

"And a bit to eat," broke in the old man, turning round from his
prayers. "Sanctificatur in sec'la,--if it was only a bit of belly bacon,
and--Tower of Ivory, purtect us--with a pot of praties, and--Matthew^
Mark, Luke, and John--"

"Is he a friar?" said the hag to me, eagerly; "does he belong to an
'ordher'?"

"No," said I;" he's only a good Catholic."

She wrung her hands, as if in disappointment; and then, taking up the
lantern once more, said, "Come along! I 'll show yez where ye can stay."

We followed, I leading the others, up a narrow and rickety stair,
between two walls streaming with damp and patched with mould. When she
reached the landing she searched for a moment for a key, which having
found, she opened the door of a long low room, whose only furniture
was a deal table and a few chairs; a candle stuck in a bottle, and some
drinking-vessels of tin, were on the table, and a piece of newspaper
containing some tobacco.

"There," said she, lighting the candle, "you may stay here; 't is all I
'm able to do for yez, is to give ye shelter."

"And nothing to eat?" ejaculated the old man, sorrowfully.

"Hav' n't you a few potatoes?" said Joe.

"I did n't taste food since yesterday morning," said the hag; "and
that's what's to keep life in me to-morrow!" and as she spoke, she held
out a fragment of blackened sea-biscuit such as Russian sailors call
"rusk."

"Well, by coorse, there's no use in talking," said Joe, who always
seemed the first to see his way clearly. "Tis worse for the girls, for
_we_ can take a draw of the pipe. Lucky for us we have it!"

Meanwhile, the two girls had taken off their cloaks, and were busy
gathering some loose sticks together, to make a fire,--a piece of
practical wisdom I at once lent all aid to.

The hag, apparently moved by the ready compliance to make the best
of matters, went out, and returned with some more wood,--fragments of
ship-timber,--which she offered us, saying, "'T is all I can give yez.
Good night to yez all!"

"Well, father," said Joe, as soon as he had lighted his pipe, and taken