Chapter VII

An’ thin the winther began, on a suddint it seemed, for the trees
Were flamin’ like fire in the wood whin it tuk to perish an’ freeze;
An’ thro’ your bones like a knife wint the win’ that come keenin’ around,
An’ afther that wid the pours o’ rain we were fairly dhrowned.
For the wather’d be runnin’ in sthrames beneath the step at the door,
An’ t’ould thatch that’s thick wid holes let it dhrip in pools on the floor,
Till sorra the fire ’ud burn, wid the peat-sods no betther than mud,
Since the stacks thimselves outside seemed meltin’ away in the flood.
But the worst of it was those times, that, what wid the wet an’ the frost,
Ne’er a hand’s turn could be done in the fields, so wan’s wages were lost.
Many’s the week I could scarce git a job from wan end to the other,
An’ many’s the night they wint hungry to bed, both childher an’ mother--
An’, begorra, the hardest day’s work a man ever did is to sit
Wid his hands before him at home, whin the childher haven’t a bit.
Thin the wife tuk sick, an’ was mortial bad, an’ cravin’ a dhrink as she lay,
An’ I couldn’t so much as git her, the crathur, a sup o’ tay;
An’ the floor was says o’ mud, an’ the house a smother o’ smoke,
Till between thim all, begorra, me heart it was fairly broke.