to know a man lived at Innislone," said old O'Beirne, "be the
name of Brian English. He come by here of an odd while after the stuff."

"Ay, bedad, and a very dacint ould crathur he was. Meself's one of the
Dermodys--young Christie they call me--but ould Christie that was me
poor father's dead this while back. Thank you kindly, lad," the old man
said to Dan, who now handed him a little delft mug half full of whisky.
"Why, you're nigh as long a fellow as meself. Are you good at the
wrestlin'?"

"Och, I'm no great things whatever," Dan replied with becoming modesty.

"There's not many heavy weights in the parish 'ud care to stand up to
me," said this young Christie, holding the mug in a gaunt tremulous
hand. "Faix, it's noways forrard they've been about it since the time I
come near breakin' Rick Tighe's neck. I've noticed that. Begorrah, now,
ivery sowl thought I had him massacred," he said, with a transient gleam
of genuine complacency. "You might have heard tell of it, belike?"

"It 'ud ha' happint before my recollections, sir, maybe," said Dan,
looking at him perplexedly, "if 'twas apt to ha' been a longish while
ago."

"'Twasn't long to say," said the old man. He drank the spirits
lingeringly, in slow sips, and seemed to sit up straighter as he did so.
Then he set down the empty mug on the table, and said, "_Boys' wages_."

But he had scarcely uttered the words when he perceived that he had
thought aloud irrelevantly, and made haste to cover the slip. "I'd
better be gettin' on wid meself," he said, rising, "Thank you, kindly.
That's an iligant fire you have." He looked at it regretfully, but
turned resolutely towards the door, still open, and framing the broad
dim whiteness out away to the bounding curtain of gloom. "It's a grand
thing," he said defiantly, "to have all the world before you."

The sentiment was not accepted without qualification.

"That depinds," said old O'Beirne. "Somewhiles I question wud you find
anythin' in it better than a warm corner and a pipe of 'baccy, if you
thramped the whole of it. And you might happen on a dale worse. What do
you say, mother?"

She was knocking ashes out of her pipe-bowl against the wall, and nodded
in assent.

"It's no place for people that can keep shut of it," she said.

"If you've ne'er a chance of gettin' into it," said Dan, "I dunno what
great good it does you bein' there afore or behind."

"Or if you knew there was nothin' left in it you wanted to be