There was a pause. I could hear the old woman packing up her traps, and then the man (upon whom the coffee and whisky seemed to produce a roughening rather than a soothing effect) said coarsely, “You’re a rum lot, you Irish!”
“We are, dear,” replied Biddy, blandly; “and
that’s why we’d be comin’ all the way to Lancashire for the improvement of our manners.” And she threw the sacking round her neck, and lifted the handles of her barrow.
“Good-night, me darlin’!” said she, raising her voice as she moved off. “We’ll meet again, God willing.”
“Safe enough, unless you tumble into the dock,” replied the watchman. “Go steady, missus. I hope you’ll get safe home with that barra o’ yours.”
“God send all safe home that’s far from it!” shouted Biddy, in tones that rose above the rumbling of the wheel and the shuffling of her shoes.
“Haw! haw!” laughed the watchman, and with increased brutalness in his voice he reiterated, “You’re a rum lot, Biddy! and free of most things, blessings and all.”
I was not surprised that the sound of the wheel and the shoes ceased suddenly. Biddy had set down her barrow to retort. But it was with deep gratitude that I found her postpone her own wrath to my safety, and content herself with making her enemy “a prisint of the contimpt of a rogue.”
“And what would I be doing but blessing ye?” she cried, in a voice of such dramatic variety as only quick wits and warm feelings can give, it was so full at once of suppressed rage, humorous triumph, con
temptuous irony, and infinite tenderness. And I need hardly say that it was raised to a ringing pitch that would have reached my ears had they been buried under twenty tarpaulins, “God bless ye for ivermore! Good luck to ye! fine weather to ye! health and strength to ye! May the knaves that would harm ye be made fools for your benefit, and may niver worse luck light on one hair of your head than the best blessings of Biddy Macartney!”