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'There is the puir Highland creatures frae Glenshee, that cam down for the harvest, and are lying wi' the fever five shillings to them; and half a crown to Bessie MacEvoy, whose coodman, puir creature, died of the frost, being a shairman, for a' the whisky he could drink to keep it out o' his stamoch; and "
This, which would have appeared to most people a very absurd reason for choosing a residence, was entirely satisfactory to Janet MacEvoy. "Och, nae doubt! if it was the land of her fathers, there was nae mair to be said. Put it was queer that her family estate should just lie at the town tail, and covered with houses, where the King's cows Cot bless them, hide and horn used to craze upon.
The yellow dripping had been scooped out like a boghole and the pool under it brought back to his memory the dark turf-coloured water of the bath in Clongowes. The box of pawn tickets at his elbow had just been rifled and he took up idly one after another in his greasy fingers the blue and white dockets, scrawled and sanded and creased and bearing the name of the pledger as Daly or MacEvoy.
One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted the two candles, and bore the table with its contents into the bedroom. The young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he dumbly followed her into the chamber of death, making one of the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children, which filled the little room, and overflowed now outward to the street door.
MacEvoy herself made no moan, and her broad ruddy face was stern in expression rather than sorrowful. When the litter stopped beside her, she laid a hand for an instant on her husband's wet brow, and looked one could have sworn impassively into his staring eyes. Then, still without a word, she waved the bearers toward the door, and led the way herself.
I was more sensible than heretofore, that, like the trade of Pompey in MEASURE FOR MEASURE, it did in some sort pah an ounce of civet, good apothecary! "How do you, Janet?" "Thank ye, good sir," answered my old friend, without looking at me; "but ye might as weel say Mrs. MacEvoy, for she is na a'body's Shanet umph." "You must be MY Janet, though, for all that. Have you forgot me?
I pledge myself to no particular line of subjects, but, on the contrary, say with Burns "Perhaps it may turn out a sang, Perhaps turn out a sermon." I have only to add, by way of postscript to these preliminary chapters, that I have had recourse to Moliere's recipe, and read my manuscript over to my old woman, Janet MacEvoy.
Through this they could see the workmen laying MacEvoy on the bed, and standing awkwardly about thereafter, getting in the way of the wife and old Maggie Quirk as they strove to remove the garments from his crushed limbs.
"No; it was only because MacEvoy was one of our workmen, and really came by his death through father sending him up to trim a tree. Ann MacEvoy will never forgive us that, the longest day she lives. Did you notice her? She wouldn't speak to me.
The genial talk of the priest, with its whimsical anecdote, had in truth passed over his head. His mind still had room for nothing but that novel death-bed scene, with the winged captain of the angelic host, the Baptist, the glorified Fisherman and the Preacher, all being summoned down in the pomp of liturgical Latin to help MacEvoy to die.
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