“What use is there in laying out money for cards, and throwing them there to be rotting with damp?” says he.
Back he went across the river to fetch the new deck of cards. But if he was to strive till he died of exhaustion he couldn’t get over the bridge and they in his hand.
“I’ll lay them in under a stone until dawn,” says he. “Maybe whatever is in them will quit before then.”
So he settled his cards in a safe hiding hole, and away with him to his bed.
He rose with the early dawn for to bring out the deck. But there wasn’t a heth to be found where he stowed it away—and the earth by the stone was all burnt into ash.
XV
THE LIFTING OF A CHILD
There was a woman, a short while since, and she lived on a snug little farm convenient to the lough. She went to the byre for to milk, of a May morning, and no person stopped in the house only a young child in the cradle.