give
you me word the whole of them at home was runnin' in and out of the
house on Sunday mornin' like so many scared rabbits about a bank. And
ne'er a man-jack of them, you persaive, had the wit to find out where
you was off to till meself riz out of me bed to go look. And now,
man-alive, git up wid yourself and come along, for it's mortal could
here, and there's tons' weight of snow this instiant minyit ready to
dhrop down on our heads. Come along. Sure it's niver disthressin'
yourself you'd be about ould Blake and his wages? Musha sure Norah and
meself was sayin' on'y on Saturday night that there wasn't many
stookawns like me had fathers to be bringin' them home shillin's every
week as regular as the clock, and givin' prisints to the childer, and
all manner. There's little Maggie frettin' woful to be missin' you out
of it. Don't be keepin' me standin' on me feet, there's a good man, for
it's quare and bad I've been, and the doctor was sayin' he couldn't tell
what ruination mightn't be on me if I didn't mind what I was at. And
here's the dacint lad waitin' to show us the road. We're just comin'
along this instant, boyo. Look-a-daddy, 'twas all a mistake, and we'll
settle it up next week, when we're both workin' agin. Very belike Mr.
Blake didn't rightly know what he was sayin'. Wake up and come along....
Daddy darlint, don't you hear what I'm tellin' you? It's raisin' your
wages they'll be after Lent, I wouldn't won'er, raisin' them a shillin'
belike--rael grand it'ill be--God Almighty!"

He stood up suddenly and looked towards Dan, but at neither him nor
anything else. The moon began to shine clearer in a chink between two
straight leaden bars, and the great white bog seemed to grow wider and
stiller under the strengthening light. The very wind had forsaken them,
and gone off keening into the far distance. It seemed to Dan that even a
flake fluttering down would have been some company, but not a single one
was in the air. He felt himself seized by a nameless panic, such as had
not come over him since he was a small child a dozen years ago.

"What's the matter at all?" he said futilely to Ned Dermody, knowing
well enough.

"Gone he is," said Ned, "the life was vexed out of him among us all.
He's gone. And it's follyin' him I'd liefer be, on'y for them crathurs
at home."

But in another moment he came staggering against Dan, and clutched his
arm, saying wildly: "Ah, lend me a hand--for pity's sake--a hand for a
mi