“Why does she pick out the Durrus tomb?” I asked, as much to continue the conversation as for any other reason.
“Glory be to God, miss! How would I know?”—darting at me, however, a look of extreme intelligence, combined with speculation as to the extent of my ignorance. “’Twas she laid out the owld masther afther he dying, whativer—yis, an’ young Mrs. Dominick too. Though, fegs! the sayin’ is, she cried more for her whin she was alive than whin she was dead.”
We were walking slowly along the uneven bog road towards Durrus, my companion trudging sociably beside me, with her hood thrown back from her coarse black hair.
“What do you mean?” I said, hoping to hear at last something of the origin of Moll’s madness.
“There’s many a wan would cry if they got the turn out,” she responded oracularly.
“Why, what was she turned out of?” I asked.
“Out of the big house, sure! ’Twas there she was till the young misthriss came.”
“I suppose she was a servant there?”
She gave a loud laugh. “Och! ’twasn’t thrusting to being a servant at all she was! Mr. Dominick got her wan time to tend the owld masther that was sick three years before he died, and the like o’ that; and ’twas there she stayed till Mr. Dominick got marri’d, and then, faith, she had to quit.”
I was rather puzzled.