“I know. Barney has told me. A Cork man, your husband, wasn’t he? A lazy, drunken, ill-natured rascal of a fellow.”
“That’s him, your honour!”
“Well, you’re quit of him long since. And, as your son’s in New York, and all I have left of Barney is you ——”
“She doesn’t hear you, Dennis.”
I interrupted him, because in his impetuosity he had not noticed that the wandering look had come back over the old woman’s face, and that she sat down on the box, and fumbled among her pockets for Micky’s letter, and then crouched weeping over it.
We stayed a long time with her, but she did not really revive. With infinite patience and tenderness, Dennis knelt beside her, and listened to her ramblings about Micky, and Micky’s hardships, and Micky’s longings for home. Once or twice, I think, she was on the point of telling about her savings, but she glanced uneasily round the room and forbore. Dennis gave the other woman some money, and told her to give Biddy a good meal—to have given money to her would have been useless—and he tried hard to convince the old woman that Micky was quite able to leave America if he wished. At last she seemed to take this in, and it gave her, I fear, undue comfort, from the conviction that, if this were so; he would soon be home.
After we left Biddy we went to seek decent lodgings for the night. For Dennis was anxious to see her again in the morning, and of course I stayed with him.
“Had you ever seen her before?” I asked, as we walked.
“Not to remember her. But, Jack, it wasn’t Barney I saw in that first dream. It was Bridget.”
Dennis was full of plans for getting her home with him to Ireland; but when we went back next day, we found a crowd round the archway that led into the court. Prominent in the group was the woman who “cared for” Biddy. Her baby was crying, her children were crying, and she was crying too. And with every moment that passed the crowd grew larger and larger, as few things but bad news can make a crowd grow.