:

'"I don't take orders from no convic's--' an' then--" Maggie laid her
hand suddenly over her heart as if in pain, '"Take that back, McCann,'
says Mr. Googe--'I'll give you the wan chanct.'--An' then Jim swore an'
said he'd see him an' himself in hell first, an' then, before Jim knew
wot happened, Mr. Googe lit out wid his fist--an' Jim layin' out on the
grass, for Mrs. MacLoughanchan says her man said Mr. Googe picked a soft
place to drop him in; an' Mr. Googe helps Jim to his feet, an' holds out
his hand an' says:

"'Shake hands, McCann, an' we'll start afresh--'

"But, oh, Aileen! Jim wouldn't, an' Mr. Googe turned away sad-like, an'
then Jim comes home, an' widout a word to his wife, says if they don't
strike, because there's a convic' an' a no union man a-workin'
'longside of him in his section, he'll lave an' give up his job
here--an' it's two hundred he's paid down out of his wages, an' me
a-savin' from morn till night on me home--an' 't was to be me very own
because Jim says no man alive can tell when he'll be dead in the
quarries an' the sheds."

She wept afresh and Billy was left unconsoled, for Maggie, wiping her
eyes to look at Aileen and wonder at her silence, saw that she, too, was
weeping; but the tears rolled silently one after another down her
flushed cheeks.

"Och, Aileen, darlin'! Don't ye cry wid me--me burden's heavy enough
widout the weight of wan of your tears--say something to comfort me
heart about Jim."

"I can't, Maggie, I think it's wicked for Jim to say such things to Mr.
Googe--everybody knows what he has been through. And it would serve Jim
McCann but right," she added hotly, "if the time should come when his
Billy should have the same cruel words said to him--"

"Don't--don't--for the love of the Mother of God, don't say such things,
Aileen!" She caught up the sorely perplexed and troubled Billy, and
buried her face in his red curls. "Don't for the sake of the mother I
am, an' only a mother can know how the Mother of God himself felt wid
her crucified Son an' the bitter words he had to hear--ye're not a
mother, Aileen, an' so I won't lay it up too much against ye--"

Aileen interrupted her with exceeding bitterness;

"No, I'm not a mother, Maggie, and I never shall be."

Maggie looked at her in absolute incomprehension. "I thought you was
cryin' for me, an' Jim, an' all our prisent troubles, but I belave yer
cryin' for--"

Mrs. McCann stopped short; she was still staring a