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His demeanour was fierce and repulsive, but my eagerness to learn some particulars of my father's untimely death in Candia prompted me to cultivate his acquaintance, and I played with him the game of Morra, forgave his losses, and paid for his wine.
Under a wide-spreading sycamore a vendor of eatables, spirituous drinks, and acids for cooling the water, had set up his stall, and close to him, a crowd of boatmen, and drivers shouted and disputed as they passed the time in eager games at morra. A game still constantly played in the south of Europe, and frequently represented by the Egyptians.
At the end of the Monarchical Period, during the Manchu dynasty, we find those most in use to be foot-shuttlecock, lifting of beams headed with heavy stones dumb-bells four feet long and weighing thirty or forty pounds kite-flying, quail-fighting, cricket-fighting, sending birds after seeds thrown into the air, sauntering through fields, playing chess or 'morra, or gambling with cards, dice, or over the cricket- and quail-fights or seed-catching birds.
Eager groups were gathered under the various signs upon the walls and pillars, apparently playing the Italian game of morra, to judge by the quick gestures of their restless fingers. Some were scribbling cabalistic signs on little bits of paper, and almost all were howling like maniacs or wild beasts half starved.
He had just returned from his vigil as night watchman at the Greens and was going the longest way around to his home. He leaned his gun against the house side and lit his pipe. Then he opened the sty door, softly, and said: "Morra, Hughie." "Morra, Con," came the answer, in calliope tones from our guest. "Haave ye a good stock ov tubacca?" Con asked Hughie.
"Aye, ye kin bate a pair ov oul boots there is!" "What will th' ants do wi' th' fly?" Jamie asked. "Huh!" he grunted with an air of authority, "they'll haave rump steaks fur tay and fly broth fur breakvist th' morra!" "Th' don't need praychers down there, do th', Willie?" "Don't need thim up here!" he said.
At night I jist say, 'Thank ye, Father! In th' mornin' I say 'Morra, Father, how's all up aroun' th' throne this mornin'?" "An' does He spake t' ye back?" "Ov coorse, d'ye think He's got worse manners nor me? He says, 'Hello, Willie, says He. 'How's it wi' ye this fine mornin'? 'Purty fine, Father, purty fine, says I. But tell me, bhoy, was there a girl aroun' whin that feelin' struck ye?"
A little maid led out her snowy lamb to graze among the woods, and children played at "morra" beside the river, which ran at peace, lapping the silver sand. A cloud gathers behind the mountains yonder, where they come interlacing down, narrowing the valley. It is a little cloud, no one observes it; yet it gathers and spreads and blackens, until the sky is veiled. The sun grows pale.
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