“That’s the good thought!” he said; “if I get anyways chilled, the pain does be bad on me!”
“The nights do be cold enough,” said Marg.
She put the reins into his hand, and still he did not move, only sat there, looking very helplessly down at Marg, as she stood beside him.
“Them calves of yours is doing lovely, with me at the Furry Farm!” he said then.
“I’m proud to hear it, and very thankful to you, Mr. Heffernan!”
“Ora, what about it! but I’m thinking, this len’th of time, that ye might do worse than to come and be looking after them yourself ...” and then he dropped the stick again.
“I’m sorry to be troublesome to ye, about them, for so long,” said Marg, picking up the stick again for him, “but if only I....”
“... If you’d come, for good and all,” said Mickey, “to mind them calves ... and ... and everything else about the place, that’s going to rack and ruin ... all for the want of a woman there.... So ... I’m middling old now, but, sure, I can wait a bit ... maybe you couldn’t bring your mind to take me at all ... only if you’d turn it over in your mind....”
Margaret started at that, as if a shot had been fired off, close to her ear. She turned red. At last she understood what he was driving at. Then she grew white, and dizzy....
But her mind flew over everything! her home gone, and she left, lonely and desolate, without a soul she cared for, to be looking after and working for.