“'I am the Sergeant fell but kind
(Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! );
I only lift but the deaf and blind,
The wearied-out and the rest-inclined.
Many a booty I drive before,
Through the glens, through the glens.'
said the Sergeant Mor.”
Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman the woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, but Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters, putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back.
“I am not so old—so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart—long past the fourscore and still spinning—I am not so old—God of grace—so old—and the flowers——”
A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her voice stopped with a gluck in the throat.
The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the two sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put aside the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put her hand to the clock and stopped it.
“Open the door, open the door!” cried the goodwife, turning round in a hurry and seeing the door still shut.
One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told, to let out the dead one's ghost.
Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his head, was the wright.
He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand.
“So this is the end o't?” he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire on the floor.