United States or Armenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was Withero. He shook Anna and Jamie in their bed and asked in a loud voice: "What's all this palaver about an' oul throllop what niver earned salt t' 'is pirtas?" "Go on t' yer stone pile, Willie," Anna said, as she sat up in bed; "what ye don't know will save docther's bills."
"Well, t' haave yer bowels think yer throat's cut isn't sauncy!" he said. The fire was low and the kettle cold. "Here, Johnny," Withero said, "jist run over t' Farren's for a ha'p'orth ov turf an' we'll haave a cup o' tay fur these folks who're workin' overtime palaverin' about th' dead! Moses alive, wan corpse is enough fur a week or two don't kill us all entirely!"
After that forced and early rising, the rest of the house had remained awake, but Anne Withero was gifted with an exceptionally strong set of nerves. She had gone back to bed and fallen promptly into a pleasant sleep. And when she wakened all that happened in the night was filmed over and had become dreamlike.
God willing, he would come back to Anne Withero with no more stains on his hands! And that noble, boyish impulse killed the chestnut, for a moment later a stream of fire spouted out, long and thin, from the muzzle of the rifle, and the gelding struck at the end of a stride, like a ship going down in the sea; his limbs seemed to turn to tallow under him, and he crumpled on the ground.
"He has more sense than any of our people." "That's no compliment t' Withero, Anna, but I was jist thinkin' about our case; we've got t' decide somethin' an' we might as well decide it here as aanywhere." "About religion, Jamie?" "Aye." "I've decided." "When?" "At the ant-hill." "Ye cudn't be Withero?" "No, dear, Willie sees only half th' world.
"Anthrim's a purty good place fur pigs an' sich to live in," he told the travelers. "Ye see, pigs is naither Fenians nor Orangemen. I get along purty well m'self bekase I sit on both sides ov th' fence at th' same time." "How do you do it, Misther Withero?" Anna asked demurely.
She saw his face whiten, and then there was a glitter in his eyes, and she knew that the danger was nothing to him. But Anne Withero whipped out of her bed. "Did you hear?" "I tied and gagged him," said Andy, "but he's broken loose, and now he's raising the house on the quiet." For an instant they stood listening, staring at each other. "They they're coming up the hall," whispered the girl.
Jamie was there. He sat between Willie Withero and Ben Baxter. He heard little of what was said and understood less of what he heard. The vicar, Mr. Holmes, presided. There was a vote of thanks, followed by the customary seconding by public men, then "God save the Queen," and I went home to tell Anna about it. Jamie took one arm and Withero clung to the other.
With my boiled linen and my brain stuffed with texts I gradually drew away from the chimney-corner and never again did I help Willie Withero to carry his hammers. Ah, if one could only go back over life and correct the mistakes. Gradually I lost the warm human feeling and substituted for it a theology. I began to look upon my mother as one about whose salvation there was some doubt.
Jamie had grown so deaf that he could only hear when I shouted into his ear. Visitors kept on coming, until the little house was uncomfortably full. "Wouldn't it be fine," I shouted into Jamie's ear, "if Billy O'Hare or Withero could just drop in now?" "God save us all," he said, "th' oul days an' oul faces are gone foriver."
Word Of The Day