“It is nice and warm, that milk,” said the old woman. “I wish we had more of it, but at this time of the year the milk runs thin in the cow’s elldurs. But even if we had got enough bread, never mind milk, it would not be so bad.... And there is not one bit for you this morning.... Do you know what the soggarth says, Shemus?”
II
THE husband looked at his wife, and an expression of dread appeared on his face. “What does he say, Mary?”
“He is offering up no prayers for your soul.”
“Mother of God, be good to me!”
“You must pay him that pound at once, he says.”
“But barring what we are saving up for the landlord’s rent, bad scran to him! we have not one white shilling in the house.”
“That does not matter to the priest, the damned old pig!” exclaimed Fergus, who had been looking gloomily at the roof since he had spoken to Norah.
“Fergus!” the three occupants of the house exclaimed in one breath.
“What’s coming over the boy at all?” the mother went on. “It must be the books that Micky’s Jim takes over from Scotland that are bringing ruin to the gasair.”