ards, and shrank always with innate
refinement from everything gross. No one thought of shooting her now.
She had not only lived down her unpopularity, but, by dint of her
natural fearlessness, her cheerful audacity of speech, and quick
comprehension, had won back the fickle hearts of the people, who
weighed her words again superstitiously, and made much of her. The
workmen, with the indolent, inconsequent Irish temperament which makes
it irksome to follow up a task continuously, and easier to do anything
than the work in hand, would break off to amuse her at any time. One
young carpenter--lean, sallow, and sulky--who was working for her
mother, interested her greatly. He was making packing-cases, and the
first one was all wrong, and had to be pulled to pieces; and the way
he swore as he demolished it, ripping out oaths as he ripped up the
boards, impressed Beth as singularly silly.

There was another carpenter at work in the loft, a little wizened old
man. He always brought a peculiar kind of yellow bread, and shared it
with the children, who loved it, and took as much as they wanted
without scruple, so that the poor old man must have had short-commons
himself sometimes. He could draw all kinds of things--fish with
scales, ships in full sail, horses, coaches, people--and Beth often
made him get out his big broad pencil and do designs for her on the
new white boards. When he was within earshot, the people in the yard
were particular about what they said before the children; if they
forgot themselves he called them to order, and silenced them
instantly, which surprised Beth, because he was the smallest man
there. There was one man, however, whom the old carpenter could never
suppress. Beth did not know how this man got his living. He came from
the village to gossip, wore a tweed suit, not like a workman's, nor
was it the national Irish dress. He had a red nose and a wooden leg,
and, after she knew him, for a long time she always expected a man
with a wooden leg to have a red nose, but, somehow, she never expected
a man with a red nose to have a wooden leg. This man was always
cheery, and very voluble. He used the worst language possible in the
pleasantest way, and his impervious good-humour was proof against all
remonstrance. What he said was either blasphemous or obscene as a
rule, but in effect it was not at all like the same thing from the
other men, because, with them, such language was the expression of
anger and e