There were two chairs, a bed, and a table in the room. The Philosopher and his attendants sat on the bed. The sergeant sat on the table, the fourth man took a chair, and the woman dropped wearily into the remaining chair from which she looked with pity at the prisoner. “What are you taking the poor man away for?” she asked. “He’s a bad one, ma’am,” said the sergeant. “He killed a man and a woman that were staying with him and he buried their corpses underneath the hearthstone of his house. He’s a real malefactor, mind you.” “Is it hanging him you’ll be, God help us?” “You never know, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it came to that. But you were in trouble yourself, ma’am, for we heard your voice lamenting about something as we came along the road.” “I was, indeed,” she replied, “for the person that has a son in her house has a trouble in her heart.” “Do you tell me now—What did he do on you?” and the sergeant bent a look of grave reprobation on a young lad who was standing against the wall between two dogs. “He’s a good boy enough in some ways,” said she, “but he’s too fond of beasts. He’ll go and lie in the kennel along with them two dogs for hours at a time, petting them and making a lot of them, but if I try to give him a kiss, or to hug him for a couple of minutes when I do be tired after the work, he’ll wriggle like an eel till I let him out—it would make a body hate him, so it would. Sure, there’s no nature in him, sir, and I’m his mother.” “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you young whelp,” said the sergeant very severely. “And then there’s the horse,” she continued. “Maybe you met it down the road a while ago?” “We did, ma’am,” said the sergeant. “Well, when he came in Tomas went to tie him up, for he’s a caution at getting out and wandering about the road, the way you’d break your neck over him if you weren’t minding. After a while I told the boy to come in, but he didn’t come, so I went out myself, and there was himself and the horse with their arms round each other’s necks looking as if they were moonstruck.” “Faith, he’s the queer lad!” said the sergeant. “What do you be making love to the horse for, Tomas?” “It was all I could do to make him come in,” she continued, “and then I said to him, ‘Sit down alongside of me here, Tomas, and keep me company for a little while’—for I do be lonely in the night time—but he wouldn’t stay quiet at all. One minute he’d say, ‘Mother, there’s a moth flying round the candle and it’ll be burnt,’ and then, ‘There was a fly going into the spider’s web in the corner,’ and he’d have to save it, and after that, ‘There’s a daddy-long-legs hurting himself on the window-pane,’ and he’d have to let it out; but when I try to kiss him he pushes me away. My heart is tormented, so it is, for what have I in the world but him?” “Is his father dead, ma’am?” said the sergeant kindly.