t something as we came along the road."

"I was, indeed," she replied, "for the person that has a son in her
house has a trouble in her heart."

"Do you tell me now--What did he do on you?" and the sergeant bent a
look of grave reprobation on a young lad who was standing against the
wall between two dogs.

"He's a good boy enough in some ways," said she, "but he's too fond
of beasts. He'll go and lie in the kennel along with them two dogs for
hours at a time, petting them and making a lot of them, but if I try
to give him a kiss, or to hug him for a couple of minutes when I do be
tired after the work, he'll wriggle like an eel till I let him out--it
would make a body hate him, so it would. Sure, there's no nature in him,
sir, and I'm his mother."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you young whelp," said the
sergeant very severely.

"And then there's the horse," she continued. "Maybe you met it down the
road a while ago?"

"We did, ma'am," said the sergeant.

"Well, when he came in Tomas went to tie him up, for he's a caution at
getting out and wandering about the road, the way you'd break your neck
over him if you weren't minding. After a while I told the boy to come
in, but he didn't come, so I went out myself, and there was himself and
the horse with their arms round each other's necks looking as if they
were moonstruck."

"Faith, he's the queer lad!" said the sergeant. "What do you be making
love to the horse for, Tomas?"

"It was all I could do to make him come in," she continued, "and then I
said to him, 'Sit down alongside of me here, Tomas, and keep me company
for a little while'--for I do be lonely in the night-time--but he
wouldn't stay quiet at all. One minute he'd say, 'Mother, there's a moth
flying round the candle and it'll be burnt,' and then, 'There was a fly
going into the spider's web in the corner,' and he'd have to save
it, and after that, 'There's a daddy-long-legs hurting himself on the
window-pane,' and he'd have to let it out; but when I try to kiss him he
pushes me away. My heart is tormented, so it is, for what have I in the
world but him?"

"Is his father dead, ma'am?" said the sergeant kindly.

"I'll tell the truth," said she. "I don't know whether he is or not, for
a long time ago, when we used to live in the city of Bla' Cliah, he lost
his work one time and he never came back to me again. He was ashamed to
come home I'm thinking, the poor man, because he had no money; as if