Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/49

Rh wits at any time, but Moll 'Dwyer was the dullest to take a wink I ever saw. So as Mike was more used to her than myself, I thought I would let him do the telling. I just rose to my feet and took a long pull of the pipe.

Come out, and I'll take you to him," I said. "He's beyont on the hill."

And is that the long journey he has gone to, Dan M$c$Loughlin?" she cried, turning on me like a flash; but something she saw in my face at last stopped her. She stood, her mouth open with the last shrill word, till it shut on her gasp of "dead!"

"Dead as a dog," I said, and the old terrier looked at me and banged the floor with his tail. So before I thought I changed my words, and said, "Dead as mutton." And when I said it the word seemed to tell her all.

For sheep-stealing?"

'I nodded, for I was sorry, she got so white. She stopped a moment without saying a word, and then fell to screeching and crying so the neighbours came in crowds to the door to see what had happened. "Vo, vo," she cried "he never gave me an hour of trouble since I married