"No, dear, it's no use; I want to mind it jist as Jamie and I saw it years an' years ago. I see it here in th' corner jist as plain as I saw it then; forby Antrim wud never get over th' shock of seein' me in a jauntin' car."
"Then I'll tell you of a shorter journey. You have never seen the Steeple. It's the most perfect of all the Round Towers in Ireland and just one mile from this corner. Now don't deny me the joy of taking you there. I'll guide you over the strand and away back of the poorhouse, out at the station, and then it's just a hundred yards or so!"
It took the combined efforts of Jamie, Withero, Mary and me to persuade her, but she was finally persuaded, and dressed in a borrowed black knitted cap and her wee Sunday shawl, she set out with us.
"This is like a weddin'," Jamie said, as he tied the ribbons under her chin.
"Oh, it's worse, dear. It's a circus an' wake in wan, fur I'm about dead an' he's turned clown for a while." In five minutes everybody in Pogue's entry heard the news. They stood at the door waiting to have a look.
Matty McGrath came in to see if there was "aanythin'" she could do.
"Aye," Anna said, smiling, "ye can go over an' tell oul Ann Agnew where I'm goin' so she won't worry herself t' death findin' out!"
"She won't see ye," Jamie said.
"She'd see a fly if it lit within a hundred yards of her!"
We went down the Kill entry and over the rivulet we called "the strand." There were stepping stones in the water and the passage was easy. As we crossed she said: