pitying his
hard-driven Bridget--just because Bridget had not his beautiful manners.
Presently, as his mouth ceased to fill and empty itself so wonderfully
expeditiously, Boyd began to talk.

"As to what fetched me, Miss Irma," he said, in answer to questions,
"faith, I walked all the road, taking many a house on the way where
kenned folk dwelt. Here were pigs to kill and cure. And I killed and
cured them. Farther on there were floors to lay, and I laid them, or
fish-hooks to busk, and I busked them."

I put a question here.

"Oh, Bridget," he said, shrugging his shoulders with a wearied air,
"Bridget doesn't know when she's well off. Och, the craitur! It began
with the night of the September Fair. Now, it is known to all the
countryside that Boyd Connoway is no drinker. He will sit and talk, as
is just and sociable, but nothing more. No, Miss Irma. And so I told
Bridget. But it so chanced that Fair Monday was a stormy day, which is
the most temptatious for poor lads in from the country, with only two
holidays in the year, most of them. And what with the new watch and the
councilmen being so strict against disorder--why, I could not let a dog
get into trouble if I could help it. So I spent the most of the night
seeing them home out of harm's way--and if ever there was a work of
necessity and mercy, that was.

"But Bridget, she thought different, and declared that I had never so
much as thought of her and the childer all day, but left her at the
wash-tub, while they, the poor craiturs, were poppin' out and in of the
stalls and crawlin' under the slatting canvas of the shows, as happy as
larks, having their fun all for nothing, and double rations of it when
they were caught, cuffed, and chased out. Well, Bridget kept it up on me
so long and got so worked up that she would not have a bite ready for me
when I came home tired and weary, bidding me go and eat my meat where I
had worked my work. So it seemed a good time for me to be off somewhere
for my health. But--such was my consideration, that not to leave Bridget
in distress I went asking about till I got her the washin' at General
Johnstone's--the minister's she had before--so there was Bridget well
provided for, Miss Irma--and here am I, Boyd Connoway, a free man on my
travels!"

We asked news of friends and acquaintances--the usual Galloway round of
questions.

"Faith," said Boyd, "but there's just one cry among them--when are ye
coming down to let us have a lo