“She slept along wi’ me,” Ellen replied. “Blood is warm even when it runs thin.”
“If ye had the price of that lady’s dress, ye’d not have to sleep out for a week of Sundays,” said Jim, pointing to the woman with the lorgnette. “See her brats too! Look how they’re glowerin’ at Norah Ryan!”
“The children are very pretty,” said the woman, and a slight touch of regret softened her harsh voice. Perhaps for the moment she longed for the children which might have been hers if all had gone well. “Norah Ryan is a very soncy wench, isn’t she, Jim?” she went on. “What is the bald man readin’?”
“_Christian Guide_,” said Jim, who spent a whole year at school and who could read a little.
“I ken him well,” said Ellen, assuming a knowing look and winking slightly. “It was years ago, he was young--and ye ken yerself.”
“Phew!” Jim whistled, taking the pipe from his mouth and lowering the left eyelid. “He was one of them sort?... _Christian Guide_, indeed!... A decent man, now, I suppose, and would hardly pass a word with ye!”
“If ye told old baldhead’s wife what ye told me what would she say?”
“Oh! I wadna dae that, Jim. He always paid on the nail.”
“_Christian Guide_,” sniggered Jim, hurrying to the rail and spitting into the water.
“There are some great dresses on those people,” said Maire a Glan, nipping Dermod Flynn on the thigh with her finger and thumb. “See that woman sittin’ there with the bald-headed man. Her dress is a good one. All the money that ye earned for two whole years in Tyrone would hardly put flounces on it; wouldn’t flounce it, as the man said.”
“Maybe not,” said Dermod, turning round slightly, but still standing in such a way that his bare knee was concealed from everybody on board.
“It’s a great dress, a grand dress and a dress for a queen,” Maire a Glan went on. “Look at the difference between it and the dress that Gourock Ellen is wearin’!”
“Just so,” said Dermod, peeping at the exposed kneecap. “Could ye give me a needle and thread this night, Maire a Glan?” he asked.
“I could, indeed, Dermod,” said the old woman. “That wife of the bald-headed man is a fine soncy-lookin’ stump of a woman.”
“Is she better-lookin’ than Gourock Ellen?” asked Dermod with a laugh.
“Ye are droll, Dermod,” said Maire a Glan, nipping the boy’s thigh again. “D’ye know where Gourock Ellen slept last night? Under a cold bridge with the winds of heaven whistlin’ through the eye of it.”