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"Still crying, are ye, Nan Byrne, for Henry Shannon that's dead and gone?"

This was a sore cut, but it was because of its severity that it had been given. Marse Prendergast's method was to attack the person from whom she desired an alms instead of making an approach in fear and trembling.

"Well, what's the use in regretting now that he didn't marry ye after all?... Maybe you could give me a bit of Ned's tobacco for me little pipe, or a few coppers to buy some."

"I will in troth," she said, searching her apron pocket, only to discover that Ned had taken all her spare coppers. She communicated her regrets to the old woman, but her words fell upon ears that doubted.

"Ah-ha, the lie is on your lip yet, Nan Byrne, just as it was there for your poor husband the day he married you, God save us all from harm—you who were what you were before you went away to England. And now the cheek you have to go refuse me the few coppers. Ye think ye're a great one, don't you, with your son at college, and he going on to be a priest. Well, let me tell you that a priest he'll never be, your grand son, John. Ye have the quare nerve to imagine it indeed if you ever think of what happened to your other little son.... Maybe 'tis what ye don't remember that, Nan Bryne.... The poor little thing screeching in the night-time, and some one carrying a box out into the garden in the moonlight, and them digging the hole.... Ah, 'tis well I know all that, Nan Byrne, although you may think yourself very clever and mysterious. And 'tis maybe I'll see you swing for it yet with your refusals and the great annoyance you put me to for the means of a smoke, and I a real ould woman and all. But listen here to me, Nan Byrne! 'Tis maybe to your grand son, John Brennan, I'll be telling the whole story some day!"