Affairs were much in this posture, when the widow M'Gurk was one day perplexed by the occurrence of two small incidents. In the first place, as she was starting on an expedition to the Town she saw at a little distance something run across the road which looked uncommonly like the Patmans' black cat Tib. Lisconnel owns no other cats for which she might have mistaken it; still, as she was puzzled to think how the creature should have hidden itself away for more than a fortnight, she concluded that she had been deceived by some fluttering bird or glancing shadow. In the next place, she happened in the Town upon one Larry Donnelly, who in the course of conversation remarked: "So you've that young Patman back wid yous agin. What took him to be leggin' off wid himself that way?" "And what put that in your head at all?" said the widow. "Light nor sight we've seen of him, or a one of them, or likely to. It's off out of the counthry he is belike, and he after robbin' his ould father, that's niver done talkin' foolish about him, and lavin' his innicent child to go starvin' into the Union—bad luck to him." She found a free expression of her sentiments rather refreshing after the restrictions under which she was placed at home. "Well now," said Donnelly, "I'd ha' bet me best brogues I seen that chap a couple of nights ago streelin' along the road down about our place; but 'twas darkish enough, and I might aisy be mistook." The widow pondered much over this statement on her homeward way, but had the forbearance to say nothing about it. She was still undecided whether or no she would communicate it to anybody, when, next morning, on her way for a can of water, she saw the black cat, unmistakable this time, run across the road, and, as on the day before, make off over the bog towards the little river. Widow M'Gurk stood staring after it for a few minutes, and came to a resolution. Then she looked about her, and was aware of Andy Sheridan's What they saw was the figure of a man in a long great-coat, "crooched all of a hape" under the bank. Near him were ranged in a row half a dozen oranges, strikin' up a wonderful golden glow. A small grimy scrap of paper was spread out near them, covered with several piles of shillings and pennies, and a silver thimble. Beside these Tib "Whethen now, Tom Patman," said Ody, "and what might you be doin' wid yourself?" "I'm sittin' here," said Tom. "Och musha, tell us somethin' we don't know then. Sittin' there you are, sure enough, but what the mischief are you after, might I politefully ax? or what you mane by it at all at all?" "I'm sittin' here," said Tom again, "and starvin' I am; and sittin' and starvin' I'll be morebetoken till the ind of me ould life. Sure what else 'ud I be doin', and meself to thank for it, wid niver a sowl left belongin' me in the mortal world, nor a place to be goin' to?" "Well tub-be sure," said Mrs. M'Gurk, "if that talk doesn't bate all that iver I heard! And himself after trapesin' off as permisc-yis as an ould hin that won't sit on her eggs, and lavin' his own flesh and blood behind him as if they "'Twas Tishy—bad cess to her," said Tom. "Och, but it's the mischievious ould divil-skins is Tishy M'Crum, and it's herself stirred up Martha, that wouldn't be too bad altogether if she'd be let alone, till the two of them had me torminted wid tellin' me th' ould man had pots of money he'd niver spend as long as he had us to be livin' on; and that we'd all do a dale better if some of us slipped away aisy widout risin' a row, and left him for a bit, while we'd be sellin' Martha's things, and seein' about gettin' into a dacint little place, instid of the whole of us to be starvin' alive up at Lisconnel, that's nothin' more than a bog bewitched; and he after lettin' us be sold up, they said, and all the while ownin' mints of money, so that we'd no call to be overly partic'lar about lavin' him to make a shift along wid the child, if 'twas a convanience; on'y he'd be risin' a quare whillabaloo, if he knew we were goin' off anywheres. Troth, I couldn't tell you all the gabbin' they had day and night—and showin' me the place he kep' his bag hidden in, and this way and that way. Och bedad themselves 'ud persuade "They might so," said Ody, "supposin' I was great gomeral enough to be mindin' a word they'd say, or the likes of them." In his subsequent reports of the interview, Ody always alleged that he had replied: "Aye, very belike, supposin' it grew on the head of an ass," which was certainly neater. But Ody Rafferty's repartees, like those of other people, are occasionally belated in this way. "So the ind of it was," Tom went on, "nothin' else 'ud suit them except gettin' all readied up for us to be slinkin' out in the evenin' late. Faith, I'd twenty minds in me heart agin quittin' little Katty, and she that bad. Howane'er they swore black and white that me father'd be spendin' all manner of money on her when he got us out of it, and we were to be writin' for them to come after us as soon as we were settled, and iverythin' agreeable—so I went along. But if I did, ma'am, sure when they'd got the bits of furniture sold, the on'y notion they had was to be settin' off to make fortins in the States, and ne'er a word about Katty and th' ould man. Och they had me disthracted; outrageous they were; and "The five shillin's," said the widow. "Och but that one's a caution." "Rael hard-workin' and industhrious she is," observed Andy. Tom resumed his narrative: "'Them two'll do as well inside as out,' sez Tishy. 'I'll just be countin' the bit of silver,' sez she. But bedad I was fairly past me patience, and up I leps, and I grabbed a hould of the little bag. Och it's a "So away I come wid the best of me haste; och I knocked the quare walkin' out of meself entirely. And I stopped at the last big place I was passin' to get Katty the oranges. And I was thrampin' it all the night after, till just when there was a sthrake of the mornin' over the bog, I come into Lisconnel. But och wirra wirra—the roof's off of the house—och the look of the black "Now, may goodness forgive you," said the widow M'Gurk, "it's a poor case to want the wit. Troth, and yourself's the quare ould child-desertin', mane-spirited, aisy-frighted slieveen of a young bosthoon; but what sort of a conthrivance is it you have on you at all at all be way of a head "And bedad at that hearin'," reports of the occurrence used to proceed from this point, "the lep he gathered himself up wid, and the rate he legged it off—musha, he was over the hill while we were pickin' up his things for him. And as for th' ould cat that he tripped over, it rowled three perch of ground before it got a hould of its four feet." "Sure we were sittin' there as quite as could be consaived"—the conclusion of this precipitate rush was thus recounted—"when all of a suddint we couldn't tell what come bouncin' in at the door, as if it had been shot out of the inds of the Lisconnel's opinion was divided as to whether Tom would actually have stayed and starved in his hiding-place had he not been discovered. Mrs. M'Gurk thought it likely enough. "The cat goin' back and for'ards that way," she said, "gave her an idee there was somethin' amiss in it, and that was why she took Andy along. 'Deed and she got a quare turn when first she spied the chap croochin' under the bank—she couldn't tell but he might ha' been a corp." Brian Kilfoyle's view was: "Divil a much! Sure if he'd had e'er a notion to be doin' anythin' agin himself, there was plinty of deep bog-houles handy for him to sling himself into, and have done wid it." Whereupon Mrs. Sheridan crossed herself and said deprecatingly: "Ah, sure, belike the crathur wouldn't have the wickedness in him to go do such a thing." Her husband didn't know but he might. "Them soft sort of fellers 'ud sometimes stick to anythin' they took into their heads, the same as a dab of morthar agin a wall." On one point, however, the neighbours, Mrs. M'Gurk not excepted, were practically unanimous, the utter flagitiousness, namely, of Tishy M'Crum. There was a tendency to begrudge her the trivial merit of having voluntarily left behind her the five-shilling piece. For this marred that perfect symmetry of iniquity which is so pleasant to the eye when displayed by people of whom we "have no opinion." Only Mrs. Brian said it was a mercy she had that much good nature in her itself. But even she added that the fewer of them kind of folks she saw comin' about the place, the better she'd be pleased, and she hoped they'd got shut of them for good and all. This aspiration seemed the more likely to be fulfilled, when within a week or so the Patmans heard from the family of Tom's first wife, who held out prospects of work for himself, and a home for Katty and his father—a proposal which was gladly accepted. Their departure left as the single trace of their sojourn in Lisconnel, Tib the cat, which remained behind, a somewhat unwelcome It was on a hushed February morning that the Patmans finally departed. The smell of spring was in the air, and filmy silvery mist had begun to float off the dark bogland in vanishing wreaths, soft and dim as the frail sloe-blossom, already stolen out over the writhen black branches up on the ridge. A jewel had been left in the heart of every groundling trefoil and clover-leaf, and the long rays that twinkled to them were still just tinged with rose. Here and there a flake of gold seemed to have lit upon the clump of sombre green furze-bushes, by which neighbours in a small knot stood watching the three generations of Patmans dwindle away down the road with its narrow dewy grass-border, threading the vast sweep of sky-rimmed brown. Father and son walked, while little Katty bobbed along, balanced in a swaying donkey-pannier. The widow M'Gurk, who felt a good deal of concern about the destiny "And I can tell you," said Ody Rafferty, "there's folks goin' about that you'll want all the wits you iver had, and maybe a thrifle tacked on, to get the better of rightly." "Augh, I question will they iver do any great things, goodness help them," said Mrs. Sheridan. "'Twill be much if he keeps them outside the House." "Well, anyway," said Biddy Ryan, "I'd liefer be in their coats, for fortin or no fortin, than like them two ugly-tempered women, settin' off to the dear knows where, after robbin' and plunderin' all before them." "Thrue for you, then, Biddy," said Mrs. Brian, turning away from her wide outlook, "we're none so badly off, when we're stoppin' where we are, instid of streelin' about wid the notion of such |