next
quarter-day the Joyces received notice to quit, and their landlord
determined to keep the vacated holding in his own hands; those new sheds
were just the thing for his young stock. Andy, in fact, had done his
best to improve himself off the face of the earth, and he should
therefore have been thankful to retain a foothold, even in a
loose-jointed, rush-roofed cabin away at stony Lisconnel. Whether
thankful or no, there, at any rate, he presently found himself
established with all his family, and the meagre remnant of his hastily
sold-off gear, and the black doors of the "house" seeming to loom ahead
whenever he looked into the murky future.

The first weeks and months of their new adversity passed slowly and
heavily for the transplanted household, more especially for Andy and his
wife, who had outgrown a love of paddling in bogholes, and had acquired
a habit of wondering "what at all 'ud become of the childer, the
crathurs." One shrill-blasted March morning Andy trudged off to the fair
down below at Duffclane--not that he had any business to transact there,
unless we reckon as such a desire to gain a respite from regretful
boredom. He but partially succeeded in doing this, and returned at dusk
so fagged and dispirited that he had not energy to relate his scraps of
news until he was half through his plate of stirabout. Then he observed
"I seen a couple of boys from home in it."

"Whethen now, to think of that," said Mrs. Joyce with mournful interest,
"which of them was it?"

"The one of them was Terence Kilfoyle," said Andy.

Mrs. Joyce's interest flagged, for young Kilfoyle was merely a
good-looking lad with the name of being rather wild. "Ah sure _he_ might
as well be in one place as another," she said indifferently. "Bessy,
honey, as you're done, just throw the scraps to the white hin where
she's sittin'."

"He sez he's thinkin' to settle hereabouts," said Andy; "I tould him
he'd a right to go thry his fortin somewhere outlandish, but he didn't
seem to fancy the idee, and small blame to him. A man's bound to get his
heart broke one way or the other anywheres, as far as I can see. I met
Jerry Dunne too."

"Och and did you indeed?" said Mrs. Joyce, kindling into eagerness
again.

Jerry had been absent from Clonmena at the time of their flitting, and
they had heard nothing of him since; but she still cherished a flicker
of hope in his connection, which the tidings of his appearance in the
neighbourhood fan