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"But I can tell you how she thravelled a good step of the way home," Ody now continued, "for she tould me herself. The Tinkers gave her a lift in their ould cart. Somewheres beyant Rosbride she met wid them; glory be to goodness 'twasn't any nearer here they were, the ould thieves of sin. Howane'er, Mrs. M'Gurk belike 'ud be wishful to see thim comin' along.
Only for some stormy days the wrecked and sodden banks of the Rosbride river were haunted by a forlorn-looking object of a lame tramp, who sought vainly what his despair hoped to find. As he roamed about in it, he had just one spell of consolation, which he was often muttering over to himself. It was something he called, "The best turn, anyway, I iver done the crathur in her life.
Ay, glory be to God, 'twas the best good turn iver I done her." Just at the time when Thady the Tinker was making these reflections while the firelight flickered and the waters fleeted under Rosbride bridge, some mile or so higher up the stream, where the long mountain slopes are folded closer and steeper about it, a great turmoil had arisen in a deep hollow among walls of the bare rock.
Here the Rosbride river comes jostling its way down a rocky ravine spanned at the mouth by a bridge, past which the swift, brown stream darts along in a more spacious and smoother channel, bound for Rosbride Bay. Judy stood for a while and looked down over the parapet at the swirls of creamy foam that swept under the arch.
Perhaps there was not under Irish skies that December day, a more miserable woman than Judy Quinlan as she stood all alone in the world on Rosbride bridge, while a black mountain rampart lifted itself slowly against the shrouded west, and the dusk thickened on the long, shelterless road, whence eager blasts whistled a summons to her, nearer and nearer, till they fluttered her rags, and keened about her ears, and chilled her to the bone.
The sound of it, dulled into a moan, came through Rosbride bridge, and Thady, who had grown very drowsy, thought to himself that the wind was getting up, and that they couldn't have done better than stop where they were, instead of to be setting off tramping on such a dirty wild night. God knew where they might have got to.
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