e of less than ten miles, but it
was the longest journey she ever took--and the shortest, for she had all
the world beside her, and so had Jamie. It was in June, and they had all
the time there was. There was no hurry. They were as care-free as
children and utilized their freedom in full. Between Moira and Antrim
they came to Willie Withero's stone pile. Willie was Antrim's most noted
stone-breaker in those days. He was one of the town's news centers. At
his stone-pile he got the news going and coming. He was a strange
mixture of philosophy and cynicism. He had a rough exterior and spoke in
short, curt, snappish sentences, but behind it all he had a big heart
full of kindly human feeling.

"Anthrim's a purty good place fur pigs an' sich to live in," he told the
travelers. "Ye see, pigs is naither Fenians nor Orangemen. I get along
purty well m'self bekase I sit on both sides ov th' fence at th' same
time."

"How do you do it, Misther Withero?" Anna asked demurely.

"Don't call me 'Misther,'" Willie said; "only quality calls me 'Misther'
an' I don't like it--it doesn't fit an honest stone breaker." The
question was repeated and he said: "I wear a green ribbon on Pathrick's
Day an' an orange cockade on th' Twelfth ov July, an' if th' ax m' why,
I tell thim t' go t' h--l! That's Withero fur ye an' wan ov 'im is
enough fur Anthrim, that's why I niver married, an' that'll save ye the
throuble ov axin' me whither I've got a wife or no!"

"What church d'ye attend, Willie?" Jamie asked.

"Church is it, ye're axin' about? Luk here, me bhoy, step over th'
stile." Willie led the way over into the field.

"Step over here, me girl." Anna followed. A few yards from the hedge
there was an ant-hill.

"See thim ants?"

"Aye."

"Now if Withero thought thim ants hated aych other like th' men ov
Anthrim d'ye know what I'd do?"

"What?"

"I'd pour a kittle ov boilin' wather on thim an' roast th' hides off
ivery mother's son ov thim. Aye, that's what I'd do, shure as gun's
iron!"

"That would be a sure and speedy cure," Anna said, smiling.

"What's this world but an ant-hill?" he asked. "Jist a big ant-hill an'
we're ants begorra an' uncles, but instead ov workin' like these wee
fellas do--help aych other an' shouldther aych other's burdens, an'
build up th' town, an' forage fur fodder, begobs we cut aych other's
throats over th' color ov ribbon or th' kind ov a church we attind! Ugh,
what balderdash!"

The stone-breaker