be caught, if it were he that had done the deed, and he would be hanged. If he were as clever again as he was, he could not escape Cormac."
That was how he used to spend the time, debating the matter as long as there was anybody in the house to listen to him. When he was alone, he used to talk to himself and argue with himself and dispute with himself. Sometimes, while thus disputing with himself, he would raise his voice, so that Poll heard him, and she used to be under the impression that there were two or three people with him, he used to make so much noise.
In spite of his grief he had a good appetite, and he was recovering very fast. He was soon at the door, with his shoulder to the jamb as usual; but there was a want of colour in his face, compared with what there had been, and you could see that his clothes were not so well filled out as they used to be before the poor man got ill. You could see that some of the flesh was gone and a great deal of the fat. The shoulder was thin in the coat; the arm was thin in the sleeve; the thigh was thin in the breeches; the poor man had too much room in his clothes, and he used to feel the wind searching his bones all round in the empty passages between the skin and the clothes, so that he could not stay long at the door without coming now and then to the fire to warm himself.
One day, about a fortnight after he had left his bed, he came to the door, with the smell of the fire strong upon his clothes. No sooner did he look up the road than he saw a woman coming down the height towards him. At the first look he was rather startled, because he thought she was very
