the night!"

"Ah, Timmie," sighed the skipper, "what's a gale o' wind t' the snares
o' women!"

"Women!" cried I. "Sure, she'll trouble you no more. You're well rid o'
she."

"But I _isn't_ rid o' she, Davy," he groaned, "an' that's what's
troublin' the twins an' me. I isn't rid o' she, for I've heared tell
she've some l'arnin' an' can write a letter."

"Write!" cried I. "She won't write."

"Ah, Davy," sighed the skipper, his head falling over his breast,
"you've no knowledge o' women. They never gives in, lad, that they're
beat. They never _knows_ they're beat. An' that one, lad, wouldn't know
it if she was told!"

"Leave her write so much as she wants," said I. "'Twill do you no harm."

"No harm?" said he, looking up. "No harm in writin'?"

"No," said I. "Sure, you can't read!"

The twins leaped from the corner-seat and emitted a shrill and joyful
whoop. Skipper Tommy threw back his head, opened his great mouth in
silent laughter, and slapped his thigh with such violence that the noise
was like a pistol shot.

"No more I can," he roared, "an' I'm too old t' l'arn!"

Laughter--a fit of it--seized him. It exploded like a thunder-clap, and
continued, uproariously, interrupted by gasps, when he lost his breath,
and by groans, when a stitch made him wince. There was no resisting it.
The twins doubled up in the corner-seat, miserably screaming, their
heels waving in the air; and Davy Roth collapsed on the floor, gripping
his sides, his eyes staring, his mouth wide open, venting his mirth, the
while, in painful shrieks. Skipper Tommy was himself again--freed o' the
nets o' women--restored to us and to his own good humour--once again
boon comrade of the twins and me! He jumped from his chair; and with a
"Tra-la-la!" and a merry "Hi-tum-ti-iddle-dee-um!" he fell into a
fantastic dance, thumping the boards with his stockinged feet, advancing
and retreating with a flourish, bowing and balancing to an imaginary
partner, all in a fashion so excruciatingly exaggerated that the twins
screamed, "Don't, father!" and Davy Roth moaned, "Oh, stop, zur, please,
zur!" while the crimson, perspiring, light-footed, ridiculously
bow-legged old fellow still went cavorting over the kitchen floor.

* * * * *

But I was a child--only a child--living in the shadow of some great
sorrow, which, though I did not know it, had pressed close upon us.
There flashed before me a vision of my mother lying wan