beggin' an' cryin'.
Then she got sick on him, wid her headache, an' wint to bed, an' whin Finn
was about she'd wondher out loud phat she was iver born for an' why she
cudn't die. Then she'd pray, so as Finn 'ud hear her, to all the saints to
watch over her big gossoon av a husband an' not forget him just bekase he
was a baste, an' if Finn 'ud thry to quiet her, she'd pray all the louder,
an' tell him it didn't matther, she was dyin' an' 'ud soon be rid av him
an' his brutal ways, so as Finn got half crazy wid her an' was ready to do
annything in the worruld for to get her quiet.

[Illustration: "Finn gave in an' wint to work wid a pick an' sphade"]

"Afther about a week av this thratemint, Finn give in an' wint to work wid
a pick an' shpade on the Gray Man's Path. But thim that says he made it in
wan night is ignerant, for I belave it tuk him a month at laste; if not
more. So that's the thrue shtory av the Gray Man's Path, as me grandfather
towld it, an' shows that a giont's size isn't a taste av help to him in a
contist wid a woman's jaw.

"But to be fair wid her, I belave the onliest fault Finn's wife had was,
she was possist be the divil, an' there's thim that thinks that's enough.
I mind me av a young felly wan time that was in love, an' so to be
axcused, that wished he'd a hunderd tongues so to do justice to his
swateheart. So afther that he marr'd her, an' whin they'd been marr'd a
while an' she'd got him undher her fisht, says they to him, 'An' how about
yer hunderd tongues?' 'Begorra,' says he to thim agin, 'wid a hunderd I'd
get along betther av coorse than wid wan, but to be ayquel to the waggin'
av her jaw I'd nade a hunderd t'ousand.'

"So it's a consate I have that Missis Finn was not a haporth worse nor the
rest o' thim, an' that's phat me grandfather said too, that had been
marr'd twict, an' so knewn phat he was talkin' about. An' whin he towld
the shtory av the Gray Man, he'd always end it wid a bit av poethry:--

"'The first rib did bring in ruin
As the rest have since been doin';
Some be wan way, some another,
Woman shtill is mischief's mother.

"'Be she good or be she avil,
Be she saint or be she divil,
Shtill unaisey is his life
That is marr'd wid a wife.'"

SATAN AS A SCULPTOR.

[Illustration: Initial: "Satan as a Sculptor"]

Near one of the fishing villages which abound on the Clare coast, a narrow
valley runs back from the sea into the mountains,