Part 27 (1/2)

”He'll do well enough,” said one; ”but who's to mind him whilst we're away, who'll turn the fire, who'll see that he doesn't burn?”

With that Patrick opened his lips: ”Andrew Coffey!” said he.

”Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey!”

”I'm much obliged to you, gentlemen,” said Andrew Coffey, ”but indeed I know nothing about the business.”

”You'd better come down, Andrew Coffey,” said Patrick. It was the second time he spoke, and Andrew Coffey decided he would come down.

The four men went off, and he was left all alone with Patrick.

Then he sat and he kept the fire even, and he kept the spit turning, and all the while Patrick looked at him.

Poor Andrew Coffey couldn't make it all out, at all, at all, and he stared at Patrick and at the fire, and he thought of the little house in the wood, till he felt quite dazed.

”Ah, but it's burning me, ye are!” says Patrick, very short and sharp.

”I'm sure I beg your pardon,” said my grandfather, ”but might I ask you a question?”

”If you want a crooked answer,” said Patrick; ”turn away, or it'll be the worse for you.”

But my grandfather couldn't get it out of his head, hadn't everybody, far and near, said Patrick had fallen overboard. There was enough to think about, and my grandfather did think.

”Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey! It's burning me ye are.”

Sorry enough my grandfather was, and he vowed he wouldn't do so again.

”You'd better not,” said Patrick, and he gave him a c.o.c.k of his eye, and a grin of his teeth, that just sent a s.h.i.+ver down Andrew Coffey's back. Well, it was odd, that here he should be in a thick wood he had never set eyes upon, turning Patrick Rooney upon a spit. You can't wonder at my grandfather thinking and thinking and not minding the fire.

”Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey! It's the death of you I'll be.”

And with that what did my grandfather see, but Patrick unslinging himself from the spit, and his eyes glared and his teeth glistened.

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

It was neither stop nor stay my grandfather made, but out he ran into the night of the wood. It seemed to him there wasn't a stone but was for his stumbling, not a branch but beat his face, not a bramble but tore his skin. And wherever it was clear the rain pelted down and the cold March wind howled along.

Glad was he to see a light, and a minute after he was kneeling, dazed, drenched, and bedraggled by the hearth side. The brushwood flamed, and the brushwood crackled, and soon my grandfather began to feel a little warm and dry and easy in his mind.

”Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey!”

It's hard for a man to jump when he has been through all my grandfather had, but jump he did. And when he looked around, where should he find himself but in the very cabin he had first met Patrick in.

”Andrew Coffey, Andrew Coffey, tell me a story.”

”Is it a story you want?” said my grandfather as bold as may be, for he was just tired of being frightened. ”Well, if you can tell me the rights of this one, I'll be thankful.”

And he told the tale of what had befallen him from first to last that night. The tale was long, and maybe Andrew Coffey was weary. It's asleep he must have fallen, for when he awoke he lay on the hill-side under the open heavens, and his horse grazed at his side.