have brought home
plenty of things on the car, and amongst others a whole boll of meal.'
'You might as well have left it behind you,' said I; 'this morning a
single measure of meal would have been to me of all the assistance in the
world, but I question now if I shall ever want meal again.' They asked
me what had happened to me, and after some time I told them how a
monstrous woman had been to me, and had said an evil prayer over me,
because having no meal in the house I had not given her an alms. 'Come,
mother,' said they, 'get up and help us to unload! never mind the prayer
of the monstrous woman--it is all nonsense.' Well, I got up and helped
them to unload, and cooked them a bit, and sat down with them, and tried
to be merry, but felt that I was no longer the woman that I was. The
next day I didn't seem to care what became of me, or how matters went on,
and though there was now plenty of meal in the house, not a measure did I
fill with it to give away in the shape of alms; and when the bacahs and
the liprous women, and the dark men, and the other unfortunates placed
themselves at the side of the door, and gave me to understand that they
wanted alms, each in his or her particular manner, divil an alms did I
give them, but let them stand and took no heed of them, so that at last
they took themselves off, grumbling and cursing. And little did I care
for their grumblings and cursings. Two days before I wouldn't have had
an unfortunate grumble at me, or curse me, for all the riches below the
sun; but now their grumblings and curses didn't give me the slightest
unasiness, for I had an evil prayer spoken against me in the Shanna
Gailey by the monstrous woman, and I knew that I was blighted in this
world and the next. In a little time I ceased to pay any heed to the
farming business, or to the affairs of the house, so that my sons had no
comfort in their home. And I took to drink and induced my eldest son to
take to drink too--my youngest son, however, did not take to drink, but
conducted himself well, and toiled and laboured like a horse and often
begged me and his brother to consider what we were about, and not to go
on in a way which would bring us all to ruin, but I paid no regard to
what he said, and his brother followed my example, so that at last seeing
things were getting worse every day, and that we should soon be turned
out of house and home, for no rint was paid, every penny that could be
got being consumed