“Wisha, Shawn, achora, what else’d I be but fond av you?”
“I thought, Nancy, you couldn’t care for a divil that thrated you so bad.”
“Och, Shawn, Shawn, don’t talk that way to me. Sure, I thought my heart was broke when I see you sthretched there ‘idout a stir in you.”
“An’ you left your shawl in pledge again to get this for me?”
“To be sure I did; an’ a good right I had; an’ sorry I’d be to see you in want of a dhrop of nourishment.”
“I was a baste, Nancy. But if I was, this is what made a baste av me.”
And Shawn Gow fixed his eyes upon the bottle with a look in which hatred and fascination were strangely blended. He turned quickly to his wife.
“Will you give in it was a blackbird?” he said.
“A blackbird,” she repeated, irresolutely.
“Yes, a blackbird. Will you give in it was a blackbird?”