Chapter III

Glad enough to be out of it? Well, in a way, but I’ve this on me mind,
That I’m come like the winther’s worst day, after lavin’ me betthers behind;
An’ the nearer I git to the ould place at home, it’s the stranger I seem,
Missin’ thim I’ll behold there no more till me furlough I take in a dream.
But the divil a dream’s in it now, and I’d liefer dream ugly than think
What Jack Connolly’s folk ’ill remember whinever they notice the blink
Of me coat past their hedge, and I goin’ their road. Jack’s poor mother belike
‘Ill be feedin’ her hins in the door, or else gath’rin’ her clothes at the dyke,
And it’s down to the gate she’ll be runnin’ and callin’, an’ biddin’ me step in;
And she’ll say to me: ‘Well, Dan, you’re home, and I’m glad, sure, to see you agin.’
Quare an’ glad, I’ll be bound, wid the thought in her heart of how long she might wait,
Ere she’d see her own slip of a redcoat come route-marchin’ in at her gate;
He that’s campin’ apart from us, joined wid the throop who shift quarters no more;
Crep’ in under the tent that’s wide worlds beyond call, tho’ ’twas pitched at your door.
Ah, the crathur: ’tis poor bits of hope folk take up wid whin luck’s turnin’ bad.
She that not so long since ’ud be thinkin’ she’d soon git a sight of the lad,
There she’ll stand wid her eyes on me face, till I see all as plain ’s if I heard
How she’s wond’rin’, an’ dhreadin’ to ask, have I brought her so much as a word.
That’s the notion’s come home wid me; faix, I get thinkin’ it every odd while,
Maybe oft as a lamed horse shrinks his fut in the lenth of a stony mile.
You’ll remember Jack Connolly, sir? Ay for sure, ’tis good neighbours you’ve been
Since he wasn’t the height of your stick, and meself but a bit of spalpeen.
Great the pair of us both were; out most whiles off over the bog and away,
But the end of it happint us yonder at sunset last Pathrick’s Day.