They arose as one, all except Withero, and he couldn't, for Jamie gripped him by a leg and held him on the floor just as he sat.
In their good-night expressions the neighbors unconsciously revealed what the lecture and the story meant to them. Summed up it meant, "Sure it's jist wondtherful ye warn't shot!"
When we were alone, alone with Withero, Mary "wet" a pot of tea and warmed up a few farrels of fadges! and we commenced. Little was said, but feeling ran high. It was like a midnight mass. Anna was silent, but there were tears, and as I held her in my arms and kissed them away Jamie was saying to Withero:
"Ye might take 'im fur a dandther out where ye broke whin we first met ye, Willie!"
"Aye," Willie said, "I'm m' own gaffer, I will that."
I slept at Jamie Wallace's that night, and next morning took the "dandther" with Withero up the Dublin road, past "The Mount of Temptation" to the old stone-pile that was no longer a pile, but a hole in the side of the road. It was a sentimental journey that gave Willie a chance to say some things I knew he wanted to say.
"D'ye mind the pirta sack throusers Anna made ye onct?"
"Yes, what of them?"
"Did ye iver think ye cud git used t' aanything if ye wor forced t' haave nothin' else fur a while?"