“Good-night, Norah. I’ll see you again to-morrow before you go away.” He released her arms and went out through the gateway. She could hear his footsteps for a long while but never looked after him. A great fear settled on her heart; she was suddenly conscious of having done something terribly wrong, and it seemed as if the very fabric of her life had been torn to shreds. Weeping, she stole back to the shed like a frightened child.
The party was in a great state of excitement. A rat chased by some prowling dog had just run into the shed and passed between the legs of Maire a Glan, who was warming her hands at the fire.
“Mercy be on us! a dirty, big grey rat,” Maire was saying. “It was that long, as the man said.” She stretched a long lean arm out in front of her as she spoke.
“If we caught it we’d put paraffin oil all over it and set fire to its hair,” said Micky’s Jim. “That’s what scares the rats!”
“Ye wouldn’t set fire to a dumb animal, would ye?” asked Brigid Doherty.
“Wouldn’t I? What would yerself do with it?”
“One might kill it in an easier way.”
“Any way at all, for it’s all the same,” said Micky’s Jim. “Last year me and Dermod Flynn killed a lot on yon farm in Rothesay. The farmer gave us a penny a tail and we made lots of tin. How much did we make, Norah Ryan?” he asked. “It’s yerself that has the memory and ye were always concerned about Dermod.” “I don’t remember,” said Norah, who was standing at the door of the shed.
“The old mad farmer was goin’ to cheat us out of a tanner, anyway,” said Micky’s Jim. “But I soon put up my fives to him. ‘Smell them fists,’ I says to him——”
“Ye never stop talkin’ about fights,” said Biddy Wor.