'And where did you get the bag of meal, Andy?'
'Ah, that, is it? Troth the Crowner gave it to me. Ye see it was this road. Me an' Mary Anne, that's my wife, was a wee bit happy-'like 't is a fortnight come Sathurday, an' we come to wurrds, an' I just putt her out av the dure an' left her there, an' it sames she caught a could an' niver rightly got the betther ov it. For she died o' Monday. An' the Crowner's jury they sat on her, an' tould me I was a crool husband; but I niver mint no harrum, it was just a bit ov fun. But the Crowner he sint me the bag o' male afther the funeral the day. They-do be say in' that in his house the gray mare's the betther harse, but I know nahthin' about that. On'y he sent me the bag o' male, so he did.'
'Yes, I heard you had lost your wife. That's sad news. You'll miss her greatly, I'm afraid,' I said, seeing that my scruples were wasted, and I needn't trouble to avoid the subject. The poor like to dilate upon their woes.
'Troth will I,' replied Andy with a heavy sigh, 'I don't know what I'll do widout her. She cud boil spuds wid any wumman I iver seen, cud she. An' there's more nor me that will miss her, now I'm tellin' ye; the town will be hard put to it for their washin', I'm thinkin'. Oh deary me, I'll niver git anuther wumman to come up to her, I'll niver git another Mary Anne.'
'I'm afraid not,' I assented, looking at the bent and wizened figure of the old man; then I continued, 'But I hear there's a story about your marriage. What is it?'
'Ah, there's none ava,' he protested, evidently pleased; 'it's nahthin' whatever, but I'll tell it ye. It was in the days when I was young an' soople. Ah, the days whin we was young, the days whin we was young, there's nahthin' to aqual thim. I'd just got me discharge from the militia at Lifford, an' I came prancin' into town fit for anythin' from murther to chuck-farthin'; there was nahthin' I cudn't do. I had a whole pun note in me fist, an' a consate of mesilf that I wudn't ha called the Quane me ant.
'Well, I come clattherin' down the Back Street goin' to buy the town wid me pun note, whin who did I see but Mary Anne Murphy drivin' the cows out ov Mrs. Flanigan's byre. She had no shawl to her head, an' her feet was as bare as the day she was born, an' I won't be sayin',' he added, with a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, 'that she was overly an' above clane. But the red hair of her—Ah, man, it blazed like the whins on all the hills on Bonfire Night!
'An' the notion just tuk me, an' I says to her, says I, "Good morra to ye, Mary Anne Murphy, will ye marry me?"
'"Do ye mane it?" she said.
'"To be sure I do," says I. "Why for no?"