“It’s Norah Ryan that’s hungry, and she fainted on the road,” explained the beansho.
“In with her then,” said the man, standing aside. “Maybe the heat of the fire will take her to. Indeed there’s little else that she can get here.”
Inside it was warm and a bright fire blazed on the cabin hearth. In a corner near the door some cows could be heard munching hay, and a dog came sniffing round the beansho’s legs. A feeling of homeliness pervaded the place and the smell of the peat was soothing to the nostrils.
“Leave her down here,” said the woman of the house, a pale, sickly little creature, as she pointed to the dingy bed in the corner of the room near the fire. Several children dressed in rags who were seated warming their hands at the blaze rose hurriedly on the entrance of the strangers and hid behind the cattle near the door.
“Is it the hunger and hardships?” asked the man of the house as he helped the beansho to place the inert body of the little girl on the bed.
“The hunger and hardships, that’s it,” said Maire a Crick, who now entered, followed by the rest of the women.
“Then we’ll try her with this,” said the man, and from behind the rafters of the roof he drew out a black bottle which he uncorked with his fingers. “It’s potheen,” he explained, and emptied some of the contents into a wooden bowl. This he held to the lips of the child who now, partly from the effects of the heat and partly from the effects of the shaking she had received on the beansho’s back, awakened and was staring vacantly around her. The smell of the intoxicant brought her sharply to her senses.
“What are ye doin’?” she cried. “That’s not right, and me havin’ the holy pledge against drink!”
The man crossed himself and withdrew the bowl, whereupon the woman of the house brought some milk from the basin that stood on the dresser, and this being handed to Norah Ryan, the child drank greedily. The beansho gave her a piece of bread when the milk was consumed.
“Where is me purse?” asked Norah suddenly. “It’s lyin’ on the road and the brown penny is in the clabber. Where are we atall?”