Chapter Twenty Four.
The Dogs and the Snow—The Sledge-Dog—Training Caribou—A Dinner-Party Interrupted—The Race for Life.
“What’s ‘agley’?” asked Rory of Allan, on the morning after the great snowfall.
“What is what?” Allan replied, looking at his friend in some surprise.
“What’s ‘agley’?” repeated Rory. “Sure, now, can’t you speak your own language?”
“Oh yes,” said Allan; “but I don’t know that anything in particular is agley this morning. Is there anything agley with you?”
“Be easy with a poor boy,” said Rory. “Troth, it is the meaning of the word I’d be after getting hold of.”
“Ah! now I see,” said Allan. “Well, ‘agley’ means ‘deviation from a straight line;’ ‘out of the plumb,’ in other words.”
“I thought as much,” Rory remarked in a thoughtful manner, “and it is your own darling poet that says,—