“For God's sake do, Owen; sure my heart's crushed to see them—my own childhre, that I could lay down my life for—beggin' from door to door. Och, do something for them that way, Owen, an' you'll relieve the heart that loves them. It's a sore sight to a mother's eye, Owen, to see her childhre beggin' their morsel.”
“It is darlin'—it is; we'll hire out the three eldest—Brian, an' Owen, an' Pether, to herd cows; an' we may get Peggy into some farmer's house to do loose jobs an' run of messages. Then we'd have only little Kathleen an' poor Ned along wid us. I'll try any way, an' if I can get them places, who knows what may happen? I have a plan in my head that I'll tell you, thin.”
“Arrah, what is it, Owen, jewel. Sure if I know it, maybe when I'm sorrowful, that thinkin' of it, an' lookin' forrid to it will make me happier. An' I'm sure, acushla, you would like that.”
“But maybe, Kathleen, if it wouldn't come to pass, that the disappointment 'ud be heavy on you?”
“How could it, Owen? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, whatever happens?”
“Thrue enough, indeed, I forgot that; an' yet we might, Kathleen. Sure we'd be worse, if we or the childhre had bad health.”
“God forgive me thin, for what I said! We might be worse. Well, but what is the plan, Owen?”
“Why, when we got the childhre places, I'll sthrive to take a little house, an' work as a cottar. Then, Kathleen, we'd have a home of our own. I'd work from light to light; I'd work before hours an' afther hours; ay, nine days in the week, or we'd be comfortable in our own little home. We might be poor, Kathleen, I know that, an' hard pressed too; but then, as I said, we'd have our own home, an' our own hearth; our morsel, if it 'ud be homely, would be sweet, for it would be the fruits of our own labor.”
“Now, Owen, do you think you could manage to get that?”
“Wait, acushla, till we get the childhre settled. Then I'll thry the other plan, for it's good to thry anything that could take us out of this disgraceful life.”