“What a hurry you’re in!” says Rosy then to him, and she looking up at him with a laugh in her eyes that would coax the birds off of the bushes; “but sure maybe it’s what you’d liefer, to be back with Mr. Heffernan beyant....”
“Is it him?” says Art; “troth, it’s him that’s the quare ould company to spend an evening wid! and no more diversion in him, nor there’s fur on a frog....”
Art was at this time picking the praties out of the sack, and handing them to Rosy according as she’d be ready to cut them. And this was to help on with the work, by the way of; but every time he done that, wouldn’t he double his big fist over her little fingers and hold them tight, the way he’d get her to look up at him; and then they’d both take to go laugh.
“Look at that, for a Murphy!” says Art, holding up a big potato; queer and lumpy and long-shaped it was; “isn’t that the very livin’ image of ould Mickey himself! See here; the big nose ... and the weeny slit eyes, like pig’s eyes ... and the mouth, like nothing so much as a burst slipper ...” and that was all true enough.
“You’ll see likenesses that-a-way often,” says the Widdah Rafferty, checking the wheel to join in the chat; “I remimber to see a head of cabbage wanst, flat Dutch it was, and it as like ould Father Mulhall as could be, the heavens be his bed, I pray! very round-about and fat in the body he was. And that kittle there, hasn’t it the very appearance upon it of ould Tommy the Crab? wid the quare pintey little nose of him? And that puts me in mind ... it’s time to be wettin’ the sup of tay. Off to the well wid the two of yiz....”
Heffernan outside the door heard this, and waited for no more, only slipped off, quiet and easy, afore any of them had put a stir upon themselves. And that gave him no trouble; for Art and Rosy were that taken up with one another, that the Widdah had to chastise them more than once, afore she could get them to go. So Heffernan was able to quit, without being seen by any of them.
He had heard all he wanted; ay, and more than he liked! But divil’s cure to him! what call had he to take and go listen to what wasn’t meant for him! He was all in a flutter and he going off home with himself. He didn’t like being made fun of; and faith! there’s few of us does! But that was the least part of what was working in his mind, like the wind on a field of ripe oats, twisting and turning it hither and over. And the storm that was stirring Heffernan’s thoughts was, the look of Rosy and she sitting there smiling up at Art. That was what had him upset.
Young boys and girls are a bit too ready to forget that a man’s courting days doesn’t be always over, when the grey begins to show in his beard. No, in troth! and so by Heffernan. There was a warm stir about his heart and he stepping along up the boreen, back to his own place, and a feel like the spring sunshine came over him, and he tried to sing a bit of “The Bunch of Green Rushes,” but sure he hadn’t it right, nor couldn’t remember it, he hadn’t heard it those years past.
When he got back to his own place, what should he do, only root out a little cracked looking-glass that had been thrown by since God knows when! He took it down off of the top of the dresser, and he rubbed the dust from it with the sleeve of his old coat, and then he went over to the door with it in his hand, to get the last of the daylight on it, the way he’d see did he look as old all out as he knew himself that he was.
Well, what he seen there was noways encouraging; so he flings the glass back again, and goes over to the chimney-corner, and sits down. It was just the end of the day, as I said; the light was beginning to fail, and still there was too much of it for him to want to shut up the house or go light a candle, or that. And it was too cold for a body to care for being outside, unless they had some business to attend to.