Ay, and there wouldn't be a hut in which there would be no sorrow, when our young hero went to sea.
By the way, I may mention just one thing to prove the genuineness of the old hermit's kindness.
Archie had a brother called Rory, a tall yellow-haired sturdy young fellow, but somewhat of a doll. The father was dead, the two boys tilled the small croft and tended the cows; but somehow Rory took it into his head to enlist. Some recruiters came marching through the parish with kilts and plumes and ribbons fluttering in the wind, and they marched off with Rory and some other young fellows too.
Well, that same evening Archie met Creggan near the manse.
His eyelashes were wet with tears.
"Oh, man!" he cried, "what will we do? Rory has gone off with the soldiers. Oh, come and see poor mother!"
Creggan went at once, and entered the hut. Such grief he had never witnessed before. Among the ashes by the fireside, with little on save a petticoat, sat Rory's distracted mother, her gray hair hanging dishevelled over her shoulders, and her body swaying to and fro constantly in the agony of her sorrow. She was mourning in the Gaelic.
"Oh, my son, my son! Oh, Rory, Rory, love of my heart, my Rory! Oh, heaven look down and help me! Rory, Rory, will I never never see you more!"
Her face was wet with tears and covered with ashes.
She was still sitting there when Creggan left at eight o'clock, still swaying her body, still mourning, mourning, and mourning.