Mrs. Duggan seemed to bear out Joe's character of her; for now, like
Spenser's hag Occasion, "ever as she went her tongue did walk," and
the path it took was not one of peace. "Maybe, after this happenin',
some she could name might have the wit to believe what other people
tould thim, who knew bitter than to be thinkin' to feed a misfortnit
crathur of an ould cow on sand and sayweed as if she was a sayl or
a saygull, and it a scandal to the place to behould her foostherin'
along down there wid the waves' edges slitherin' up to her nose,
and she sthrivin' to graze, and the slippery stones fit to break
her neck." Such was the purport of Mrs. Duggan's remarks, which
were punctuated by Joe McEvoy's peremptory requests that she would
lave gabbin' and givin' impidence, and his appeals to the others
to inform him whether they weren't all to be pitied for havin' to
put up wid the ould screech-owl's foolish talk.

"Sure, that's the way they do be keepin' it up continial, Micky
lad," Mrs. Fottrel called to him, shrilly, as if athwart gusts of
high wind. "I'll pass yon me word the two of thim 'll stand at their
doors of an evenin" and give bad langwidge to aich other across
the breadth of the road till they have us all fairly moidhered wid
the bawls of thim, and I on'y wonder the thatch doesn't take and
slip down on their ould heads."

"Belike it's lave of the likes of YOU I ought to be axin' where I'm
to git grazin' for me own cattle?" a growl of sarcastic thunder
was just then observing, to which flashed a scathing response: "And,
bedad, then, it's lave you had a right to be axin' afore you sent
off me poor son Hughey's bit of a Pat, to be wastin' his time
mindin' your ould scarecrow and gettin' himself dhrownded in the
tide. It's no thanks to you if the innicent child isn't as like