“‘But sure what way can they find him in Poulleen-a-férla? I know well there’s thirty feet o’ wather in it. Maybe they’d see him down through the wather to-day, it’s that clear. God knows ’tis quare weather. The air’s like it ’d be comin’ up out o’ the ground, and no breeze in it at all! I’m thinkin’ it’s the weather as well as another that’s puttin’ the people asthray in their heads.’
“Rick paused here to take breath, and turned to Nurse Davin, who was peeling potatoes, and groaning at suitable intervals.
“‘Nurse, did ye ever hear tell o’ puttin’ a shave (sheaf) o’ oats on the wather where ye’d think a pairson ’d be dhrowned, an’ it ’ll stand up whin it ’d be over the place where he’s lyin’? They have a shave beyant, but it’s lyin’ on the wather always. I wouldn’t believe that at all.’
“Nurse Davin uttered a non-committal invocation of her favourite saint, but offered no opinion.
“‘Sure it was that that they coaxed him to do at the chapel that preyed on him entirely.’
“‘Lord ha’ mercy on him!’ said Nurse, wiping her eyes.
“‘When he knew then what he done,’ Rick resumed, turning to me again, ‘sorra Mass he’d ever go to again, and they knew by him he was watchin’ his shance to make off. They follied him a few days back, when they seen him sneakin’ off down through the wood, but sorra bit but he felt them afther him and he turned back.
“‘’Twas on Stephenses Day he wint cuttin’ a rope o’ ferns with his brother, and faith when the brother was talkin’ to a man that was in it, he shlipped away. The brother thought it was home he wint, till he got the rope o’ ferns threwn afther him on the ground.
“‘An’ that, now, was the time he got the shance.’
“Nurse Davin, who is the very salt of the earth, has felt it all very deeply. I cheered her by giving her your Christmas messages. She was overwhelmed with gratitude. ‘And would ye be pleased to wish her every sort of good luck and happiness, and the blessing o’ God on her! The crature! Indeed she was good, and clane, and quiet, and sensible! And her little dog—so nice and so clever!’” (This was the Puppet.) “‘She cried afther him, the crature! She could do no more.’”