Emon was about to speak, or to endeavor to do so; but M'Dermott stopped him.
"Don't be desthroyin' yourself, Emon, strivin' to spake; but let us lift you into the cart—an' hould your tongue."
Emon-a-knock smiled; but it was a happy smile.
Of course there was a crowd round him; and many a whispered observation passed through them as poor Emon was lifted in, fixed in a reclining position, and Jamesy Doyle desired "to go on," while Phil M'Dermott and big Ned Murrican gave him an escort, walking one on each side.
"It was herself sent Jamesy Doyle for the jennit, Judy; I heerd her tellin' him to put plenty of straw into the cart."
"Ay, Peggy, an' I heerd her tellin' him to get a hair-mattress, an' pat it atop of it. Isn't it well for the likes of her that has hair-mattresses to spare?"
"Ay, Nelly Gaffeny, an' didn't I hear her tellin' him to dhrive fur his life!"
"In troth an' you didn't, Nancy; what she said was, 'to make no delay;' wasn't I as near her as I am to you this minute?"
"Whist, girls!" broke in (as Lever would say) a sensible old woman— "it was ould Ned Cavana himself [{817}] sent Jamesy off; wasn't I lookin' at him givin' him the kay of the barn to get the sthraw? Dear me, how pleasant ye all are!"
"Thrue for you, Katty avrone; but wasn't it Winny that put him up to it, an' the tears coming up in her eyes as she axed him? an' be the same token, the hankicher she had in her hand was for all the world the very color of Emon-a-knock's cap an' sleeves."