Cæsar Cregeen was at her side; John the Clerk, too, called John the Widow; Kelly, the rural postman, who went by the name of Kelly the Thief; as well as Black Tom, her father. Cæsar was discoursing of sinners and their latter end. John was remembering how at his election to the clerkship he had rashly promised to bury the poor for nothing; Kelly was thinking he would be the first to carry the news to Christian Balla-whaine; and Black Tom was varying the exercise of pounding rock-sugar for his bees with that of breaking his playful wit on the dying woman. “No use; I'm laving you; I'm going on my long journey,” said Bridget, while Granny used a shovel as a fan to relieve her gusty breathing. “Got anything in your pocket for the road, woman?” said the thatcher. “It's not houses of bricks and mortal I'm for calling at now,” she answered. “Dear heart! Put up a bit of a prayer,” whispered Grannie to her husband; and Cæsar took a pinch of snuff out of his waistcoat pocket, and fell to “wrastling with the Lord.” Bridget seemed to be comforted. “I see the jasper gates,” she panted, fixing her hazy eyes on the scraas under the thatch, from which broken spiders' webs hung down like rats' tails. Then she called for Pete. She had something to give him. It was the stocking foot with the eighty greasy Manx banknotes which his father, Peter Christian, had paid her fifteen years before. Pete lit the candle and steadied it while Grannie cut the stocking from the wall side of the bed-ticking. Black Tom dropped the sugar-pounder and exposed his broken teeth in his surprise at so much wealth; John the Widow blinked; and Kelly the Thief poked his head forward until the peak of his postman's cap fell on to the bridge of his nose. A sea-fog lay over the land that morning, and when it lifted Bridget's soul went up as well. “Poor thing! Poor thing!” said Grannie. “The ways were cold for her--cold, cold!” “A dacent lass,” said John the Clerk; “and oughtn't to be buried with the common trash, seeing she's left money.” “A hard-working woman, too, and on her feet for ever; but 'lowanced in her intellecks, for all,” said Kelly. And Cæsar cried, “A brand plucked from the burning! Lord, give me more of the like at the judgment.”