Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/50

42 him seven years ago: as good a man as ever stepped the earth. To be strung up now for a dirty old sheep." She threw her apron over her head and began to cry softly behind it.

There was no harm in the man," said I to comfort her. "With his bits of nets and traps, they should not have minded him. Sure, he never caught anything, the creature."

'But that did not please her either, women are so contrary.

Is it not catch anything?" she said. "God rest him, sure, I never spent a shilling on meat since I married him, he was that clever with his hands. Ochone! ochone! we never had a cross word between us, and now he is gone for ever."

Come out and bring him home," I said, thinking it would comfort her to see his body and deck it out for the wake. "The soldiers will be gone, and some of the boys of the town will be bringing him here by this"; so they all followed me outside and down the long road, till we got to the turn where the hill was in sight.

'There the women let a screech and went down on their knees praying, for they could see poor Mike swinging, and the boys around him trying