"Why then, indeed, not so often. The poor fellow, he was niver much of a hand at the pen. He's movin' about, ye see, gettin' work here an' there."
Sister Louise had moved on, seeing that the pair were likely to make friends; and before ten minutes had elapsed each was in possession of the other's history. Kate's, indeed, was simple enough; her seventeen years in the infirmary being preceded by a quiet life in a very uninteresting neighbourhood; but she "came of decent people," being connected with "the rale ould O'Rorkes," and her father had been "in business"; two circumstances which impressed Mrs. Brady very much, and caused her to unbend towards "Miss Mahony," as she now respectfully called her new acquaintance. The latter was loud in expressions of admiration and sympathy as Mrs. Brady described the splendours of the past; the servant-man and the servant-maid, who, according to her, once formed portion of her establishment; the four beautiful milch cows which her husband kept, besides sheep, and a horse an' car, and "bastes" innumerable; the three little boys they buried, and then Barney—Barney, the jewel, who was now in Amerika.
"The finest little fella ye'd see between this an' County Cork! Over six fut, he is, an' wid a pair o' shoulders on him that ye'd think 'ud hardly get in through that door beyant."
"Lonneys!" said Kate admiringly.
"Aye, indeed, an' ye ought to see the beautiful black curly head of him, an' eyes like sloes, an' cheeks—why I declare"—half raising herself and speaking with great animation, "he's the very moral o' St. Patrick over there! God forgive me for sayin' such a thing, but raly if I was to drop down dead this minute I couldn't but think it! Now I assure ye, Miss Mahony, he's the very image of that blessed statye, 'pon me word!"
Miss Mahony looked appreciatively at the representation of the patron of Ireland, which was remarkable no less for vigour of outline and colouring than for conveying an impression of exceeding cheerfulness, as both the saint himself and the serpent which was wriggling from beneath his feet were smiling in the most affable manner conceivable.
"Mustn't he be the fine boy!" she ejaculated, after a pause. "I'd love to see him—but I'll niver get a chanst o' that, I s'pose. Will he be comin' here to see ye, ma'am?"
"He'll be comin' to take me out of it," returned the mother. "He doesn't raly know I'm in it at all. I'll tell ye now the way it is. When the poor father died—the light o' heaven to him—an' bad times come, and we had to give up our own beautiful little place, Barney brought me to town an' put me with Mrs. Byrne, a very nice respectable woman that was married to a second cousin o' my poor husband's, an' I was to stop with her till he came back from America with his fortune made. Well," pursued Mrs. Brady, drawing in her breath with a sucking sound, which denoted that she had come to an interesting part of her narrative, "well, he kep' sendin' me money, ye know, a pound or maybe thirty shillin' at a time—whenever he could, the poor boy, an' I was able to work the sewin'-machine a little, an' so we made out between us till I took this terrible bad turn. Well, of course troubles niver comes single, an' the last letther I got from my poor little fella had only fifteen shillin' in it, an' he towld me he had the bad luck altogether, but, says he,'My dear mother, ye must on'y howld out the best way ye can. There's no work to be got in this place at all' (New York I think it was). 'But I am goin' out West,' says he, 'to a place where I'm towld there's fortunes made in no time, so I'll be over wid ye soon,' he says, 'wid a power o' money, an' I'm sure Mary Byrne'll be a good friend to ye till then. The worst of it is,' he says, 'it's a terrible wild outlandish place, and I can't be promisin' ye many letthers, for God knows if there'll be a post-office in it at all,' says he; 'but I'll be thinkin' of ye often, an' ye must keep up your heart,' he says. Well," sucking up her breath again, "poor Mrs. Byrne done all she could for me, but of course when it got to be weeks an' months that I was on my back not able to do a hand's turn for meself, an' no money comin' an' no sign o' Barney, what could she do, the crature? One day Dr. Isaacs says to her, 'Mrs. Byrne,' says he, 'why don't ye send poor Mrs. Brady to the Infirmary?' 'What Infirmary, sir?' says she. 'The Union Infirmary,' says he; 'it's the on'y place she's fit for except the Incurables in Dublin,' says he, 'an' I'm afraid there's no chance for there.' 'Oh, docther, don't mention it!' says poor Mrs. Byrne—she was telling me about it aftherwards. 'Is it the Union? I wouldn't name it,' she says, 'to a decent respectable woman like Mrs. Brady. She's a cousin by marriage o' me own,' she says; 'I wouldn't name it to her, I assure ye.' 'Just as you please,' says Docther Isaacs. 'It 'ud be the truest kindness you could do her all the same, for she'd get betther care and nourishment than you could give her.' Well, poor Mrs. Byrne kep' turnin' it over in her mind, but she raly couldn't bring herself to mention it, nor wouldn't, on'y she was druv to it at the end, the crature, with me bein' ill so long, an' the rent comin' so heavy on her an' all. So we settled it between the two of us wan day, an' she passed me her word to bring me Barney's letther—if e'er a wan comes—the very minute she gets it, an' if he comes himself she says she won't let on where I am, all at wanst, but she'll tell him gradual. Sometimes I do be very unaisy in me mind, Miss Mahony, I assure ye, wondherin' what he'll say when he hears. I'm afeared he'll be ready to kill me for bringin' such a disgrace on him."
"Sure, what could ye do?" said Kate, a little tartly, for naturally enough as "an inmate" of many years' standing, she did not quite like her new friend's insistence on this point. "Troth, it's aisy talkin', but it's not so aisy to starve. An' afther all, there's many a one that's worse off nor us here, I can tell ye, especially since the Sisthers come, God bless them, with their holy ways. How'd ye like to be beyant at the —— Union, where the nurses gobbles up all the nourishment that's ordhered for the poor misfortunate cratures that's in it, an leaves thim sthretched from mornin' till night without doin' a hand's turn for them. Aye, an' 'ud go near to kill them if they dar'd let on to the Docther. Sure, don't I know well how it was before the Sisthers was here—we have different times now I can tell ye. Why, that very statye o' St. Pathrick that ye were talkin' of a while ago, wasn't it them brought it? An' there's St. Joseph over in the ward fornenst this, an' St. Elizabeth an' the Holy Mother above. See that now. Isn't it a comfort to be lookin' at them holy things, and to see the blessed Sisthers come walkin' in in the mornin' wid a heavenly smile for every one, an' their holy eyes lookin' into every hole an' corner an' spyin' out what's wrong?"
"Aye, indeed," assented Mrs. Brady, a little faintly though, for however grateful she might be, and comfortable in the main, there was a bitterness in the thought of her "come down" that nothing could alleviate.