“And who at all was talkin’ of the cow follyin’? It’s ould Biddy Duggan down below that nivir has her tongue off of me, nagglin’ at me for lettin’ the poor crathur pick her bit along the beach, and it a strip of the finest grass in the townland, when it’s above wather, just goin’ to loss. A couple of pints differ extry it does be makin’ in the milkin’ of a day she’s grazed there. But it’s threatenin’ dhrowndin’ and disthruction over it th’ ould banshee is this great while; and plased she’ll be, rale plased and sot up. Sure, that’s what goes agin’ me, to be so far gratifyin’ her, and herself as mischevious, harm-hopin’ an ould toad as iver I hated the sight of--Och, bejabers, didn’t I tell you so? It’s herself comin’ gabble-gobblin’ up.” As he spoke, a very small, meagre, raggged old woman emerged swiftly from the lane, accompanied by one younger and stouter and less nimble of foot, her temporary neighbour, Mrs. Gatheremup. Mrs. Duggan seemed to bear out Joe’s character of her; for now, like Spenser’s hag Occasion, “ever as she went her tongue did walk,” and the path it took was not one of peace. “Maybe, after this happenin’, some she could name might have the wit to believe what other people tould thim, who knew bitter than to be thinkin’ to feed a misfortnit crathur of an ould cow on sand and sayweed as if she was a sayl or a saygull, and it a scandal to the place to behould her foostherin’ along down there wid the waves’ edges slitherin’ up to her nose, and she sthrivin’ to graze, and the slippery stones fit to break her neck.” Such was the purport of Mrs. Duggan’s remarks, which were punctuated by Joe McEvoy’s peremptory requests that she would lave gabbin’ and givin’ impidence, and his appeals to the others to inform him whether they weren’t all to be pitied for havin’ to put up wid the ould screech-owl’s foolish talk. “Sure, that’s the way they do be keepin’ it up continial, Micky lad,” Mrs. Fottrel called to him, shrilly, as if athwart gusts of high wind. “I’ll pass yon me word the two of thim ’ll stand at their doors of an evenin” and give bad langwidge to aich other across the breadth of the road till they have us all fairly moidhered wid the bawls of thim, and I on’y wonder the thatch doesn’t take and slip down on their ould heads.” “Belike it’s lave of the likes of _you_ I ought to be axin’ where I’m to git grazin’ for me own cattle?” a growl of sarcastic thunder was just then observing, to which flashed a scathing response: “And, bedad, then, it’s lave you had a right to be axin’ afore you sent off me poor son Hughey’s bit of a Pat, to be wastin’ his time mindin’ your ould scarecrow and gettin’ himself dhrownded in the tide. It’s no thanks to you if the innicent child isn’t as like as not lyin’ this minute under six fut of could wather, instead of fetchin’ me in the full of me kettle that I’m roarin’ to him for this half-hour, and niver a livin’ sinner widin sight or--”