"Phwhat is ut?"
"There's somethin' Oi do be bound to say to ye." A pause.
"Can ye keep a secret?"
"Shure, Oi can."
"'Tis turrible."
"Niver ye moind, Oi'll keep ut!" said the loyal other.
Hughey lifted his face to the sweet blowy autumn afternoon, took breath, and increased his pace. "Mother is loike to be doyin' soon. Maybe ye didn't hear o' that. But she cud live a hunderd year if ut wasn't so cruel poor we are. Oi've been a-thinkin' wan reason of ut is she has too many childher. 'Tis good little Rosy is with the saints. Childher all eats and wears clothes, and isn't much use. If mother wasn't ill, there'd be nothin' the matther wid me; we cud go on along, and Oi'd have power to do the beautiful things, Nora dear. Ye'd all be proud as paycocks o' me whin next the cuckoo'll be in the green bush down be the Barrow; only mother wud be undher the ground. So 'tis long before that Oi must be doin' phwhat Oi'm meanin' to do. Now's the toime for her to be cured, and the toime for me to behave the usefullest to her is to-morrow, just afther Oi'm dead."
The younger child was bewildered, over-awed. "May the Lorrud have mercy upon your sowl, Hughey!" she murmured with vague solemnity, taking in the legendary word "dead" and nothing else. Her light feet ran unevenly beside his, up the slope and down the hollow, and over stiles and pasture-walls, bright with their withering vines. She was all ear when her brother began again, irrelevantly and more softly, on his tremendous theme, so old now to his thoughts that he was conscious of no solecism in the abrupt utterance of it. "Whin ye dhrown, ye niver look bad at a wake. A man kilt in the battle looks bad, but not a dhrowned man. 'Tis grand to be a marthyr to your counthry; howsomiver, the guns isn't convanient, and Oi must hould to the wather. The rest Oi can't tell, becaze ye're a woman, and wudn't undhersthand; but there's pounds and pince in ut, and 'tis the foine thing intoirely for mother." He turned upon her his most searching gaze. "Ye'll be constant and koind to her, now? Ye'll be runnin' and bringin' her a chair, and takin' the beef out o' your mouth for her as long as ye live? (Shure Oi forgot there's goin' to be tons o' beef for yez all.) Promus me, Nora." She looked at him, and her wide blue eyes filled; and presently she sank down all in a heap, her face in the grass, her heels in the air. It looked like revolt; but it was regret, or rather the utter helplessness of either. The boy never flinched. "Promus me, Nora." "Oh, Oi do, brother Hughey, Oi do!" she sobbed. He stood by her a moment, then with firmness followed the path out of sight, his slender withdrawing figure significant against the sky.
When he came back, the anxious Nora was on the road, whence she could see far and wide. Little was said as they returned home, through ways thickening with cabs and passers-by. But skirting Dean Swift's dark Cathedral, they heard the treble voices at evensong in the choir, and the grave sweetness of Tallis' old music seemed to thaw Hughey's blood. He drew his sister closer as they walked, and bent his curls over her. He had received a fresh illumination since he spoke last.
"You're what mother needs," he whispered, "and so's Dan, seein' he's no bigger than a fairy. But Oi'd be betther away, and so'd Winny, for the sake o' leavin' plenthy to eat and plenthy o' room. Ye'll give me Winny in her little coat whin Oi ax ye to-noight, will ye, Nora?" The child glanced up mournfully at her ruling genius, without a word, but with a look of supernatural submission. They went up the rickety stairs, arm in arm.