John Brennan was still in his agony as he saw the long-tongued shuiler coming towards him down the road. She was making little journeys into the ditches as she came along. She was gathering material for a fire although every bush was green.... She was always shivering at the fall of night. The appearance of the children had filled him with speculations as to where he might look for some comfort.... Could it be derived from the precepts of religion translated into acts of human kindness? Momentarily he was confused as he attempted to realize some act of goodness to be done here and now. He was unable to see.
Old Marse Prendergast, coming towards him slowly, was the solitary link connecting his mind with any thought. To him she appeared the poor old woman in need of pity who was gathering green sticks from the hedge-rows to make her a fire which would not kindle. He remembered that morning, now some time distant, when he had helped her carry home a bundle of her sticks on his way from Mass. It had appeared to him then, as it did now, a Christ-like action, but his mother had rebuked him for it. Yet he had always wished his mother to take the place of Mary when he tried to snatch some comfort from the Gospel story. Soon he was by her side speaking as kindly as he could.... Great fear was already upon him.
"God bless you, me little Johneen, me little son; sure 'tis yourself has the decent, kind heart to be taking pity upon the old. Arrah now! You're alone and lonely this evening, I notice, for your friend is gone from you. It bees lonely when one loses one's comrade. Ah, 'tis many a year and more since I lost me comrade through the valley of life. Since Marks Prendergast, the good husband of me heart and the father of me children, was lost on me. Sure he was murdered on me one St. Patrick's Day fair in Garradrimna. He was ripped open with a knife and left there upon the street in his blood for me to see.... That's the way, that's the way, me sweet gosoon; some die clean and quiet, and some go away in their blood like the way they came."
Had she devoted much time and skill to it she could not have produced a more dire effect upon John than by this accidental turn of her talk.... The scene by the lakeside swam clearly into his eyes again.
"I suppose your good comrade is gone away?"
"Whom, what?"
"Ulick Shannon, to be sure. I suppose he's after slipping away be this time anyway."
"Aye, he's gone away."
"That was what you might call the nice lad. And it was no wonder at all that you were so much attached to one another. Never a bit of wonder at all.... Sure you were like brothers."
John was so solicitous in maintaining his silence that he did not notice the old woman's terrible sententiousness.... He went on pulling green sticks from the hedge and placing them very carefully by the side of those she had already gathered.