"Oh, sure, what did I say, fine lad, but _avick machree_, son of my heart? _Avick machree_, I said. O son of my heart, that's what you are. You wouldn't take wrong meaning from what an old woman said, and her with her teeth gone, and under the black clouds of sorrow!" A glint in the moonlight caught Shane's eyes. He gripped her right hand. "Is that Moyra's wedding-ring you have on? Did you--did you--take it--from her hand?" "Oh, sure, what use would she have for it, and she in the sods of Ballymaroo? And the grand Australian gold is in it, worth a mint of money. And what use would you have for it, and you in strange parts, where a passionate foreign woman would be giving you love, maybe? The fine lad you are, will draw the heart of many. But it's drawing back coldly they'd be, and they seeing that on your finger, or on a ribbon around your neck. Drawing back they'd be, and giving the love was yours to another fellow. A sin to waste the fine Australian gold it is. And you wouldn't begrudge me the price of a couple o' heifers would grow into grand cows? You wouldn't, fine lad--" He flung her hand from him so savagely that she fell, and he went swiftly toward the house where the dead woman was. Back of him in the haggard came the _glug-glug_ of the naggin bottle, and from down the loaning came the rich, untrained contralto of the singing girl: "Nor shoe nor stocking will I put on, nor comb go in my hair. And neither coal nor candle-light shine in my chamber fair. Nor will I wed with any young man until the day I die, Since the low lowlands of Holland are between my love and me." Section 3 As he paused at the half-door, the laughter and the chatter in the kitchen ceased, and he was aware of the blur of faces around the room, white faces of men and women and alien eyes. Over the peat fire--there was a fire even in June--the great black kettle sang on the crane, to make tea for the mourners. Here and there were bunches of new clay pipes scattered, and long rolls of twisted tobacco, for the men to smoke, and saucers full of snuff for both men and women. A great paraffin lamp threw broad, opaque shadows, making the whole a strange blur in the kitchen, while in the bedroom opening off it, where the tense, dead woman lay, was a glare of candles as from footlights, and there gathered the old women of the neighborhood, discussing everything in hushed, vindictive whispers--the price of cows, morbid diseases, the new wife some man had, and whether such a girl was with child.... And the dead woman, who had loved talk such as this, as a drunkard loves the glass, gave no heed.... Strange!... And every hour or so they would flash to their knees, like some quick instinctive movement of birds, and now carelessly, now over-solemnly they would say a rosary for the dead woman's soul: