isn't it the cruel thing?"

"My ship sails the day after to-morrow."

She saw surrender in his face, rose quickly, and went to the door.

"Come inside, Moyra, Moyreen! And be putting your cloak on, with the
ribbons that tie beneath your chin. And your dress of muslin that the
lady in Newry gave you. And stockings. And your shoes of leather. And
I'll be putting on my Paisley shawl. And this young boy will be getting
Michael Doyle's horse and trap. Come in, Moyreen, come in and put haste
on you, for it's going to Dundalk we are, this day, this hour, this
minute even!"

Section 8

It occurred to him as he sat in the haggard under the riding moon, not a
pitch shot from the house where his wife was being waked, that nothing
was disturbed because she was dead. It was not strange that the stars
kept on their courses, for the death of neither king nor cardinal nor
the wreck of the greatest ship that ever sailed the seas would not move
them from their accustomed orbit. But not a robin in the hedge was
disturbed, not a rabbit in the field, not a weasel in the lane. Nature
never put off her impenetrable mask. Or did she really not care? And was
a human soul less to her than a worm in the soil?

There was a stir in the house. They would be making tea now for the men
and women who said they were mourners.... The querulous voice of his
wife's mother came to him as some one led her from the heated house into
the coolth of the June night.

"Great sacrifices we made for him, myself and the white love that's
stretched beyond in the room. All we had we gave him, and all she found
was barren death, and I the barren charity of Northern men...."

"Oh, sure, 'tis the pity of the world you are, Pegeen," a neighbor
comforted her.

"On his bended knees he came to her, asking for love," the _cailleach_
went on. "On his bare and bended knees. And her heart melted toward him
as the snow melts on the hills. 'And hadn't you better wait,' said I,
'Moyreen Roe? With the great looks and the grand carriage of you, 'tis
a great match you can make surely. A gentleman from England, maybe,
would have a castle and fine lands, or the pick of the dealing men, and
they going from Belfast to Drogheda and stopping overnight at Ardee. Or
wouldn't it be better for you to marry one of your own kind, would go to
church with you in a kindly way?'

"'But if I don't marry this lad, he'll kill himself,' she says to me.

"'But your faith,' says I, ''avourne