Here his honour looked up sharply, and his reverence, pleased to have a better audience, chattered on:-- "Sure, your honour will remember Biddy McQuilkin, for she served at Knockowen when the little mistress there was born--" "Where's Biddy now?" asked some one. "She was never the same woman after her man died." "Ah, poor Biddy! When your honour parted with her she went to Paris to a situation; but I'm thinking she'd have done better to bide at home. There's many an honest man in these parts would have been glad to meet a decent widow like Biddy. I told her so before she went, but--" Here the fiddler struck up a jig, which cut short the gossip of the priest and made a diversion for his hearers. Some of the young fellows and girls present fell to footing it, and called on Tim and me to join in. But I was too much out of heart even to look on; and as for Tim, he glared as if he would have turned every one of them out of the cottage. In the midst of the noise and the shouts of the dancers and the cheers of the onlookers, I crawled into the corner behind his honour's chair, and dropped asleep, to dream--strange to tell--not of my mother, or of his honour's turnips, or of the _Cigale_, but of Biddy McQuilkin of Kerry Keel, whom till now I had never seen or heard of. When I awoke the daylight was struggling into the cabin, paling the candles that burned low beside my mother's bed. Tim stood where I had left him, sentinel-wise, glaring with sleepless eyes at his father's guests. Father, with his head on his arm, at the foot of the bed, slept a tipsy, sorrowful sleep. A few of the rest, worn-out with the night's revels, slumbered on the floor. Others made love, or quarrelled, or talked drowsily in couples. His honour had escaped from the choking atmosphere of the cabin, and was pacing moodily on the grass outside, casting impatient glances eastward, where lay Kilgorman, and the _Cigale_, and the rising sun. Presently, when with a salute I came out to join him, he said, "'Tis time we started. Waken your father, boy." It was no easy task, and when he was wakened it was hard to make him understand what was afoot. It was only when his honour came in and spoke to him that he seemed to come to his senses. The coffin was closed. The crowd stepped out with a shiver into the cold morning air. The priest took out his book and began to read aloud; and slowly, with Tim and me beside her, and my father in a daze walking in front, we bore her from the cabin down to the boats. There, in our own boat, we laid the coffin, and hoisting sail, shoved off and made for the opposite shore. Father and we two and his honour and the priest sailed together; and after us, in a long straggling procession of boats, came the rest. The light wind was not enough to fill our sail, and we were forced to put out the oars and row. I think the exercise did us good, and warmed our hearts as well as our bodies.