y was
studded with the abodes of Mick's friends, whom he had yet to call
upon. However, at last he really said good-bye, and we accompanied him
in a group to the gate of the farmyard, from which, with a last
distracted wave of his hands, the poor fellow set off, running, as if
he could not trust himself to look back, along the field-path. It was
a dewy May evening after rain, and the hawthorn was all in bloom, and
the leaves shaking out their crumpled flags of tender green. The
blackbird was singing as he only sings after rain, and the fields were
covered with the gold and silver dust of buttercup and daisy. It was
sad to see the poor fellow going away at such a time, and from a place
where every one knew and was kind to him, to an unknown world that
might be very cruel. Once again as we watched him we anathematised the
emigration which has so steadily been bleeding the veins of our poor
country.

We all thought of Mick the next morning, and imagined him on the
various stages of his journey to Queenstown, and the big liner. For a
week or so we did not see Mrs. Sheehy, but heard piteous accounts of
her prostration. The poor woman seemed incapable of taking comfort.
Report said that she could neither eat nor drink, so great was her
grief. We felt rather ashamed of our former judgments of her, and were
very full of good resolutions as to our future treatment of her. Only
Mary, our maid, disbelieved in this excessive grief; but then Mary is
the most profound cynic I have ever known, and we always discount her
judgments.

Anyhow, when Mrs. Sheehy reappeared in our kitchen she looked more
wizened, yellow, and dishevelled than ever, and at the mention of
Mick's name she rocked herself to and fro in such paroxysms of grief
that we were quite alarmed. As for the benevolent ladies interested in
the schemes of emigration, their eyes would have been rudely opened if
they could have heard Mrs. Sheehy's denunciations of them. She called
them the hard-hearted ould maids who had robbed her of her one child,
who had persecuted her boy--her innocent child, and driven him out in
the cold world, who had left her to go down a lone woman to the grave.
Nor was this all, for she was an adept at eloquent Irish curses, and
she sprinkled them generously on the devoted heads of the ladies
aforesaid. It was really rather fine to see Mrs. Sheehy in this tragic
mood, and we were all touched and impressed by her. We comforted her
with the suggestio