nder. Sez I to Felix
one wild evenin', when we was argufyin' wid him, that sure the little
loadin' he could be puttin' in her 'ud never be worth losin' his life
for. But sez he to me, the bit of food they'd put in their mouths was
littler agin, and yet they might be losin' their lives for want of it.
And ne'er a word had I to say to that. But one night last winter he was
as nearly lost as anythin' in a squall, and after that his mother would
be tormintin' herself worse than she was before. So she set her heart
entirely on gettin' him to take off to the States, and be out of the way
of fishin' and dhrowndin'. She'd ha' gone wid him herself, on'y they
said she was too ould, and spoilin' his chances she'd be. A long while
it was before he'd hear any talk of it. The whole summer she was
persuadin' him; but at last he made up his mind he would. 'Twas no
notion of his own to be lavin' her, I'll say that for him."

"Whethen now, but that was as curious a plan as ever I heard tell of for
keepin' a person from dhrowndin'," said Ody; "to be sendin' him off over
the rowlin' says, sailin' goodness can tell you how many hunderds and
tousands of miles. What was she dhramin' of at all at all to go do such
a thing?"

"Ah, but sure it's a diff'rint sort of sailin'," said Theresa. "Why,
they say one of them big stamers 'ud carry a couple of our little boats
along wid her, and you'd scarce notice she had them on board. Terrible
safe they must be if they're that size."

"And morebetoken," said Mrs. Brian, "there's such a sight of ships
comin' and goin' between this and the States, wouldn't you think that
agin now they'd ha' got a kind of track line, crossin' over, as if it
was a manner of road they was follyin' that nothin's apt to happen them
on, and not sthrayin' about permisc-yis in the storms?"

"_Thrack?_" said Ody, shrilly. "Bedad, then, its the quare thrack, and
the quare places it brings them into. D'you know that, for one thing,
they go slap through the Bay of Bisky?"'

"And is that an ugly bay?" said Mrs. Brian.

"You may call it that. I wouldn't be sayin' so to herself over there,"
said Ody, with much careful mystery. "For it might be on'y discouragin'
the crathur worse than she is already. But it's the place where the
Seven Oceans of the World meet. Ay, indeed, ma'am--but don't be lettin'
on to her. I was spakin' to a man who had a brother went through it, and
he said the ragin' and tearin' of them all flowin' together 'u