ter
together down the scented loaning while the June moon rode high and the
crickets sang.

O my God! here he was thinking about love, and his wife lay inside and
she dead!

And a new light wonder sprang up and whirled within the big dumb wonder
that was on him: that here was he, a lad not yet twenty-two, with a dead
wife on his hands, while his shipmates were off with the laughter of
young women in their ears after the silent and tense watches of the sea.
His captain had gone home to Newry to where his wife awaited him, the
tall, graceful woman with the hair like black silk and the black eyes
and the black ear-rings and the slim, white, enigmatic hands. And the
first mate had gone to Rostrevor with a blond, giggling girl, and the
crew were at Sally Bishop's in Dundalk, draining the pints of frothy
porter and making crude material love to Sally Bishop's blowsy brown
girls, some chucking their silver out with a laugh--the laugh of men who
had fought hurricanes, and some bargaining shrewdly.... But here he was,
home, with his wife, and her dead. And if she hadn't been dead, she
would have been half loving, half inimical toward him, her arms and
bosom open, but a great stranger.... He couldn't understand. Well, she
was dead, and ... he didn't know....

A bent, fattish figure in a shawl came toward him through the haggard,
his wife's mother. There was the sweetish, acrid odor of whisky.

"Shane _avick_, are you there all alone, mourning for the pleasant,
beautiful one who's gone?"

"I was just sitting down."

"You wouldn't like a wee drop of consolation?"

"Whisky? No, thanks."

"Just the least taste?"

"No, thanks."

"And I after bringing it out to you in a naggin bottle. Just the wetting
of your lips, _agra_, would cheer you up, and you down to the ground."

"No!"

The old woman sat on the stone ditch beside him and began swaying
backward and forward, and the keening note came into her voice:

"Is it gone? Is it gone you are, Moyra _a sthore_? Sure, 't was the
kindly daughter you were to me, and me old and not worth my salt, a
broken _cailleach_ hobbling on a stick. Never did you refuse me the cup
o' tea so strong a mouse could walk on it. And the butcher's meat o'
Christmas, sure your old ma must have a taste, too. And many's the brown
egg you let me have, and they bringing a high price on the Wednesday
market. And the ha'porth o' snuff--sure you never came home without it,
and you at Dundalk fair. Kind