Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/59

Rh .—That is exactly what was surprising all the neighbours, Sheila. They noticed Shiana altering very much in his disposition and mind. He seldom used to speak except when he was spoken to, and he hardly ever laughed. He dropped his humming altogether. People could not remember when they had heard the "bristly hag" dispraised. When he used to be working with the men, there was nothing to be heard from him from morning till night but his long heavy breathing, the tapping of the little hammer, and the drawing and tightening of the waxed thread. The men thought it was greed for money that moved him, seeing that he used to work so hard. But then they would wonder that he used to part with it so easily, lending it to people who had no chance of ever paying it back, and giving it to them without security or bond. When he used not to speak, neither did they speak, and there was nothing to be heard from them but the long heavy breathing and the tapping of the little hammers and the drawing and the tightening of the waxed thread. You would think if you saw them that they were working for a wager. When people used to pass by the house they used to stop and listen to the sounds of the work. And then, when they went on their way they used to say to each other, "It's little wonder Shiana has money! We never saw workmen working so hard. He feeds them well and he pays them well, but indeed he gets the work out of them, if ever anybody did!"

But both the workmen and the neighbours failed completely to reconcile the two sides of the story, or to answer the question: What caused Shiana to work so hard to make money, and then to part with it so readily?