"Where are they, is it? Where should they be? may be gone down to Ahnamoe."
"But what's come of Barny? The boy was a stout workman, and a good son, though a devil-may-care fellow, too. I remember teaching him the soldier's exercise with this very blessed stick now in my hand; and by the same token, him doubling his fist at me when he wasn't bigger than the turf-kish yonder; aye, and as long as Barny Hogan could turn a sod of turf on my lord's land, I thought his father and mother would never have wanted the bit and sup while the life was in him."
At the mention of her son, the old woman looked up a moment, but immediately hung her head again.
"Barny doesn't work for my lord now," said she.
"And what for, then?"
The old woman seemed reluctant to answer—she hesitated.
"Ye didn't hear, then, how he got into trouble with my lord; and how—myself doesn't know the rights of it—but Barny had always a bit of wild blood about him; and since that day he's taken to bad ways, and the ould man's ruled by him quite entirely; and the one's glum and fierce like—and t'other's bothered; and, oh! bitter's the time I have 'twixt 'em both!"
While the old woman was uttering these broken complaints, she placed the eatables on the table; and Cathleen, who was yet more faint from hunger than subdued by fatigue, was first helped by the good-natured pedlar to the best of what was there: but, just as she was about to taste the food set before her, she chanced to see the eyes of the old woman fixed upon the morsel in her hand with such an envious and famished look, that from a sudden impulse of benevolent feeling, she instantly held it out to her. The woman started, drew back her extended hand, and gazed at her wildly.