was
comfortable, plenty of straw to lie upon, and plenty of fodder before
her. So then he bethought him of the little ass that was outside under
the dray yet.

"I'll put her in too!" he thought. "Destroyed she is and quite weakly
with the wet, like all donkeys, God help them! let alone the mud and
gutter she's after travelling through, all that long ways from the shop!
And carrit the things we were in need of, too! I'll let her stand here
near the cow. A good dry bed I'll put under her, and give her a grain of
oats to pet her heart. It'll not go astray with her, and she has it well
earned, the creature!"

So he unyoked the ass and led her into the stable, and rubbed down her
shaggy coat, all dripping like his own clothes, and fed her, and watched
with a curious satisfaction the nice way, like a lady, that she took the
feed he put before her.

"Poor Winny!" he said, rubbing a finger up and down her soft ears;
"many's the time Art laughed at you, and said it was only one remove
from a wheel-barra to be driving you! Ling-gerin' Death is what he used
to call you! But sure you do your best! and if you were the fastest
horse ever won the Grand National, you could do no more!"

He looked round then, with a very satisfied feeling. There he had them,
the two poor animals that depended out of him, but that served him and
his so well, too; had them safe and warm from the storm and rain
outside. He swung the lantern to and fro, so that he could see
everything that was in the stable. One end of it was filled with hay and
straw. The light gleamed here, gleamed there upon the kind, homely
plenty he had stored. Then it fell upon a heap of something else;
something that glistened from many points, green and cheerful.

"The holly'n'ivy," Big Michael thought, "that I cut this morning, and
has it here, the way it would be handy to do out the place in greenery
against Art and the wife would be here! Well, well! I wouldn't wish to
go against Herself, and she so fretted; but sure I might as well not
have cut it at all!"

He stood and stared at it, very mournful in himself. For the best part
of the Christmas to Michael was not the good feeding Herself always
provided, though he could take his share of that, as well as another;
no, but the holly and ivy and the Candle and the Crib; and now she had
set her face against them all. And it wouldn't be Christmas at all, he
thought, without them!

A sudden thought came into his mind.

"Why