When the Widow Rooney was forcibly ejected from the house of Mrs. James
Casey, and found that Andy was not the possessor of that lady's charms,
she posted off to Neck-or-Nothing Hall, to hear the full and true
account of the transaction from Andy himself. On arriving at the old
iron gate, and pulling the loud bell, she was spoken to through the
bars by the savage old janitor and told to “go out o' that.” Mrs. Rooney
thought fate was using her hard in decreeing she was to receive denial
at every door, and endeavoured to obtain a parley with the gate-keeper,
to which he seemed no way inclined.
“My name's Rooney, sir?”
“There's plenty bad o' the name,” was the civil rejoinder.
“And my son's in Squire O'Grady's sarvice, sir.”
“Oh--you're the mother of the beauty we call Handy, eh?”
“Yis, sir.”
“Well, he left the sarvice yistherday.”
“Is it lost the place?”
“Yis.”
“Oh dear! Ah, sir, let me up to the house and spake to his honour, and
maybe he'll take back the boy.”
“He doesn't want any more servants at all--for he's dead.”
“Is it Squire O'Grady dead?”
“Aye--did you never hear of a dead squire before?”
“What did he die of, sir?”
“Find out,” said the sulky brute, walking back into his den.
It was true--the renowned O'Grady was no more. The fever which had set
in from his “broiled bones,” which he _would_ have in spite of anybody,
was found difficult of abatement; and the impossibility of keeping
him quiet, and his fits of passion, and consequent fresh supplies of
“broiled bones,” rendered the malady unmanageable; and the very
day after Andy had left the house the fever took a bad turn, and in
four-and-twenty hours the stormy O'Grady was at peace.
What a sudden change fell upon the house! All the wedding paraphernalia
which had been brought down lay neglected in the rooms where it had
been the object of the preceding day's admiration. The deep, absorbing,
silent grief of the wife,--the more audible sorrow of the girls,--the
subdued wildness of the reckless boys, as they trod silently past the
chamber where they no longer might dread reproof for their noise,--all
this was less touching than the effect the event had upon the old
dowager mother. While the senses of others were stunned by the blow,
hers became awakened by the shock; all her absurd aberration passed
away, and she sat in intellectual self-possession by the side of her
son's death-bed, which she never left until he was laid in his
coffin. He was the first and last of her sons. She had now none but
grandchildren to look upon--the intermediate generation had passed away,
and the gap yawned fearfully before her. It restored her, for the time,
perfectly to her senses; and she gave the necessary directions on the
melancholy occasion, and superintended all the sad ceremonials befitting
the time, with a calm and dignified resignation which impressed all
around her with wonder and respect.
Superadded to the dismay which the death of the head of a family
produces was the terrible fear which existed that O'Grady's body would
be seized for debt--a barbarous practice, which, shame to say, is still
permitted. This fear made great precaution necessary to prevent persons
approaching the house, and accounts for the extra gruffness of the gate
porter. The wild body-guard of the wild chief was on doubly active duty;
and after four-and-twenty hours had passed over the reckless boys, the
interest they took in sharing and directing this watch and ward seemed
to outweigh all sorrowful consideration for the death of their
father. As for Gustavus, the consciousness of being now the master of
Neck-or-Nothing Hall was apparent in a boy not yet fifteen; and not only
in himself, but in the grey-headed retainers about him, this might be
seen: there was a shade more of deference--the boy was merged in “_the
young master_.” But we must leave the house of mourning for the present,
and follow the Widow Rooney, who, as she tramped her way homeward, was
increasing in hideousness of visage every hour. Her nose was twice its
usual dimensions, and one eye was perfectly useless in showing her the
road. At last, however, as evening was closing, she reached her cabin,
and there was Andy, arrived before her, and telling Oonah, his cousin,
all his misadventures of the preceding day.
The history was stopped for a while by their mutual explanations and
condolences with Mrs. Rooney, on the “cruel way her poor face was used.”
“And who done it all?” said Oonah.
“Who but that born divil, Matty Dwyer--and sure they towld me _you_ were
married to her,” said she to Andy.
“So I was,” said Andy, beginning the account of his misfortunes afresh
to his mother, who from time to time would break in with indiscriminate
maledictions on Andy, as well as his forsworn damsel; and when
the account was ended, she poured out a torrent of abuse upon her
unfortunate forsaken son, which riveted him to the floor in utter
amazement.
“I thought I'd get pity here, at all events,” said poor Andy; “but
instead o' that it's the worst word and the hardest name in your jaw you
have for me.”
“And sarve you right, you dirty cur,” said his mother. “I ran off like
a fool when I heerd of your good fortune, and see the condition that
baggage left me in--my teeth knocked in and my eye knocked out, and all
for your foolery, because you couldn't keep what you got.”
“Sure, mother, I tell you--”
“Howld your tongue, you _omadhaun!_ And then I go to Squire O'Grady's to
look for you, and there I hear you lost _that_ place, too.”
“Faix, it's little loss,” said Andy.
“That's all you know about it, you goose; you lose the place just when
the man's dead and you'd have had a shuit o' mournin'. Oh, you are the
most misfortunate divil, Andy Rooney, this day in Ireland--why did I
rear you at all?”
“Squire O'Grady dead!” said Andy, in surprise and also with regret for
his late master.
“Yis--and you've lost the mournin'--augh!”
“Oh, the poor Squire!” said Andy.
“The iligant new clothes!” grumbled Mrs. Rooney. “And then luck tumbles
into your way such as man never had; without a place, or a rap to bless
yourself with, you get a rich man's daughter for your wife, and you let
her slip through your fingers.”
“How could I help it?” said Andy.
“Augh!--you bothered the job just the way you do everything,” said his
mother.
“Sure I was civil-spoken to her.”
“Augh!” said his mother.
“And took no liberty.”
“You goose!”
“And called her Miss.”
“Oh, indeed you missed it altogether.”
“And said I wasn't desarvin' of her.”
“That was thrue--_but you should not have towld her so_. Make a woman
think you're betther than her, and she'll like you.”
“And sure, when I endayvoured to make myself agreeable to her----”
“_Endayvoured_!” repeated the old woman contemptuously. “_Endayvoured_,
indeed! Why didn't you _make_ yourself agreeable at once, you poor dirty
goose?--no, but you went sneaking about it--I know as well as if I was
looking at you--you went sneakin' and snivelin' until the girl took
a disgust to you; for there's nothing a woman despises so much as
shilly-shallying.”
“Sure, you won't hear my defince,” said Andy.
“Oh, indeed you're betther at defince than attack,” said his mother.
“Sure, the first little civil'ty I wanted to pay to her, she took up the
three-legged stool to me.”
“The divil mend you! And what civil'ty did you offer her?”
“I made a grab at her cap, and I thought she'd have brained me.”
Oonah set up such a shout of laughter at Andy's notion of civility to
a girl, that the conversation was stopped for some time, and her aunt
remonstrated with her at her want of common sense; or, as she said,
hadn't she “more decency than to laugh at the poor fool's nonsense?”
“What could I do agen the three-legged stool?” said Andy.
“Where was your _own_ legs, and your own arms, and your own eyes, and
your own tongue?--eh?”
“And sure I tell you it was all ready conthrived, and James Casey was
sent for, and came.”
“Yis,” said the mother, “but not for a long time, you towld me yourself;
and what were you doing all that time? Sure, supposing you _wor_ only a
new acquaintance, any man worth a day's mate would have discoorsed her
over in the time and made her sinsible he was the best of husbands.”
“I tell you she wouldn't let me have her ear at all,” said Andy. “Nor
her cap either,” said Oonah, laughing.
“And then Jim Casey kem.”
“And why did you let him in?”
“It was _she_ let him in, I tell you.”
“And why did you let her? He was on the wrong side of the door--that's
the _outside_; and you on the right--that's the _inside_; and it was
_your_ house, and she was _your_ wife, and you were her masther, and
you had the rights of the church, and the rights of the law, and all the
rights on your side; barrin' right rayson--that you never had; and sure
without _that_, what's the use of all the other rights in the world?”
“Sure, hadn't he his friends, _sthrong_, outside?”
“No matther, if the door wasn't opened to them, for _then_ YOU would
have had a stronger friend than any o' them present among them.”
“Who?” inquired Andy.
“The _hangman_” answered his mother; “for breaking doors is hanging
matther; and I say the presence of the hangman's always before people
when they have such a job to do, and makes them think twice sometimes
before they smash once; and so you had only to keep one woman's hands
quiet.”
“Faix, some of them would smash a door as soon as not,” said Andy.
“Well, then, you'd have the satisfaction of hanging them,” said the
mother, “and that would be some consolation. But even as it is, I'll
have law for it--I will--for the property is yours, any how, though the
girl is gone--and indeed a brazen baggage she is, and is mighty heavy
in the hand. Oh, my poor eye!--it's like a coal of fire--but sure it was
worth the risk living with her for the sake of the purty property. And
sure I was thinkin' what a pleasure it would be living with you, and
tachin' your wife housekeepin', and bringing up the young turkeys and
the childhre--but, och hone, you'll never do a bit o' good, you that got
sitch careful bringin' up, Andy Rooney! Didn't I tache you manners,
you dirty hanginbone blackguard? Didn't I tache you your blessed
religion?--may the divil sweep you! Did I ever prevent you from sharing
the lavings of the pratees with the pig?--and didn't you often clane out
the pot with him? and you're no good afther all. I've turned my honest
penny by the pig, but I'll never make my money of _you_, Andy Rooney!”
There was some minutes' silence after this eloquent outbreak of Andy's
mother, which was broken at last by Andy uttering a long sigh and an
ejaculation.
“Och? it's a fine thing to be a gintleman,” said Andy.
“Cock you up!” said his mother. “Maybe it's a gintleman you want to be;
what puts that in your head, you _omadhaun_?”
“Why, because a gintleman has no hardships, compared with one of uz.
Sure, if a gintleman was married, his wife wouldn't be tuk off from him
the way mine was.”
“Not so soon, maybe,” said the mother, drily.
“And if a gintleman brakes a horse's heart, he's only a '_bowld rider_,'
while a poor sarvant is a 'careless blackguard' for only taking a
sweat out of him. If a gintleman dhrinks till he can't see a hole in a
laddher, he's only '_feesh_--but '_dhrunk_' is the word for a poor man.
And if a gintleman kicks up a row, he's a 'fine sperited fellow,' while
a poor man is a 'disordherly vagabone' for the same; and the Justice
axes the one to dinner and sends th' other to jail. Oh, faix, the law
is a dainty lady; she takes people by the hand who can afford to wear
gloves, but people with brown fists must keep their distance.”
“I often remark,” said his mother, “that fools spake mighty sinsible
betimes; but their wisdom all goes with their gab. Why didn't you take
a betther grip of your luck when you had it? You're wishing you wor
a gintleman, and yet when you had the best part of a gintleman (the
property, I mane) put into your way, you let it slip through your
fingers; and afther lettin' a fellow take a rich wife from you and turn
you out of your own house, you sit down on a stool there, and begin to
_wish_ indeed!--you sneakin' fool--wish, indeed! Och! if you wish with
one hand, and wash with th' other, which will be clane first--eh?”
“What could I do agen eight?” asked Andy.
“Why did you let them in, I say again?” said the mother, quickly.
“Sure the blame wasn't with me,” said Andy, “but with--”
“Whisht, whisht, you goose!” said his mother. “Av course you'll blame
every one and everything but yourself--'_The losing horse blames the
saddle_.'”
“Well, maybe it's all for the best,” said Andy, “afther all.”
“Augh, howld your tongue!”
“And if it _wasn't_ to be, how could it be?”
“Listen to him!”
“And Providence is over us all.”
“Oh! yis!” said the mother. “When fools make mistakes they lay the blame
on Providence. How have you the impidence to talk o' Providence in that
manner? _I'll_ tell you where the Providence was. Providence sent you to
Jack Dwyer's, and kep Jim Casey away, and put the anger into owld Jack's
heart--that's what the Providence did!--and made the opening for you to
spake up, and gave you a wife--a wife with _property!_ Ah, there's where
the Providence was!--and you were the masther of a snug house--that was
Providence! And wouldn't myself have been the one to be helping you
in the farm--rearing the powlts, milkin' the cow, makin' the iligant
butther, with lavings of butthermilk for the pigs--the sow thriving, and
the cocks and hens cheering your heart with their cacklin'--the hank
o' yarn on the wheel, and a hank of ingins up the chimbley--oh! there's
where the Providence would have been--that _would have been Providence
indeed!_--but never tell me that Providence turned you out of the house;
_that_ was your own _goostherumfoodle._”
“Can't he take the law o' them, aunt?” inquired Oonah.
“To be sure he can--and shall, too,” said the mother. “I'll be off to
'torney Murphy to-morrow; I'll pursue her for my eye, and Andy for the
property, and I'll put them all in Chancery, the villains!”
“It's Newgate they ought to be put in,” said Andy.
“Tut, you fool, Chancery is worse than Newgate: for people sometimes get
out of Newgate, but they never get out of Chancery, I hear.”
As Mrs. Rooney spoke, the latch of the door was raised, and a miserably
clad woman entered, closed the door immediately after her, and placed
the bar against it. The action attracted the attention of all the
inmates of the house, for the doors of the peasantry are universally
“left on the latch,” and never secured against intrusion until the
family go to bed.
“God save all here!” said the woman, as she approached the fire.
“Oh, is that you, ragged Nance?” said Mrs. Rooney; for that was the
unenviable but descriptive title the new-comer was known by: and though
she knew it for her _soubriquet_, yet she also knew Mrs. Rooney would
not call her by it if she were not in an ill temper, so she began humbly
to explain the cause of her visit, when Mrs. Rooney broke in gruffly--
“Oh, you always make out a good rayson for coming; but we have nothing
for you to-night.”
“Throth, you do me wrong,” said the beggar, “if you think I came
_shooling._ [Footnote: Going on chance here and there, to pick up what
one can.] It's only to keep harm from the innocent girl here.”
“Arrah, what harm would happen her, woman?” returned the widow,
savagely, rendered more morose by the humble bearing of her against whom
she directed her severity; as if she got more angry the less the poor
creature would give her cause to justify her harshness. “Isn't she
undher my roof here?”
“But how long may she be left there?” asked the woman, significantly.
“What do you mane, woman?”
“I mane there's a plan to carry her off from you to-night.”
Oonah grew pale with true terror, and the widow screeched, after the
more approved manner of elderly ladies making believe they are very much
shocked, till Nance reminded her that crying would do no good, and
that it was requisite to make some preparation against the approaching
danger. Various plans were hastily suggested, and as hastily
relinquished, till Nance advised a measure which was deemed the best. It
was to dress Andy in female attire and let him be carried off in place
of the girl. Andy roared with laughter at the notion of being made a
girl of, and said the trick would instantly be seen through.
“Not if you act your part well; just keep down the giggle, jewel, and
put on a moderate _phillelew,_ and do the thing nice and steady, and
you'll be the saving of your cousin here.”
“_You_ may deceive them with the dhress; and _I_ may do a bit of a small
_shilloo,_ like a _colleen_ in disthress, and that's all very well,”
said Andy, “as far as seeing and hearing goes; but when they come to
grip me, sure they'll find out in a minute.”
“We'll stuff you out well with rags and sthraw, and they'll never know
the differ--besides, remember, the fellow that wants a girl never comes
for her himself, [Footnote: This is mostly the case.] but sends his
friends for her, and they won't know the differ--besides, they're all
dhrunk.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they're always dhrunk--that same crew; and if they're not
dhrunk to-night, it's the first time in their lives they ever were
sober. So make haste, now, and put off your coat, till we make a purty
young colleen out o' you.”
It occurred now to the widow that it was a service of great danger Andy
was called on to perform; and with all her abuse of “_omadhaun_” she
did not like the notion of putting him in the way of losing his life,
perhaps.
“They'll murdher the boy, maybe, when they find out the chate,” said the
widow.
“Not a bit,” said Nance.
“And suppose they did,” said Andy, “I'd rather die, sure, than the
disgrace should fall upon Oonah, there.”
“God bless you, Andy dear!” said Oonah. “Sure, you have the kind heart,
anyhow; but I wouldn't for the world hurt or harm should come to you on
my account.”
“Oh, don't be afeard!” said Andy, cheerily; “divil a hair I value all
they can do; so dhress me up at once.”
After some more objections on the part of his mother, which Andy
overruled, the women all joined in making up Andy into as tempting
an imitation of feminality as they could contrive; but to bestow the
roundness of outline on the angular form of Andy was no easy matter,
and required more rags than the house afforded, so some straw was
indispensable, which the pig's bed only could supply. In the midst of
their fears, the women could not help laughing as they effected some
likeness to their own forms, with their stuffing and padding; but
to carry off the width of Andy's shoulders required a very ample and
voluptuous outline indeed, and Andy could not help wishing the straw
was a little sweeter which they were packing under his nose. At last,
however, after soaping down his straggling hair on his forehead, and
tying a bonnet upon his head to shade his face as much as possible, the
disguise was completed, and the next move was to put Oonah in a place of
safety.
“Get upon the hurdle in the corner, under the thatch,” said Nance.
“Oh, I'd be afeard o' my life to stay in the house at all.”
“You'd be safe enough, I tell you,” said Nance; “for once they see that
fine young woman there,” pointing to Andy, and laughing, “they'll be
satisfied with the lob we've made for them.”
Oonah still expressed her fear of remaining in the cabin.
“Then hide in the pratee-trench, behind the house.”
“That's better,” said Oonah.
“And now I must be going,” said Nance; “for they must not see me when
they come.”
“Oh, don't leave me, Nance dear,” cried Oonah, “for I'm sure I'll faint
with the fright when I hear them coming, if some one is not with me.”
Nance yielded to Oonah's fears and entreaties, and with many a blessing
and boundless thanks for the beggar-woman's kindness, Oonah led the
way to the little potato garden at the back of the house, and there
the women squatted themselves in one of the trenches and awaited the
impending event.
[Illustration: The Abduction]
It was not long in arriving. The tramp of approaching horses at a sharp
pace rang through the stillness of the night, and the women, crouching
flat beneath the overspreading branches of the potato tops, lay
breathless in the bottom of the trench, as the riders came up to the
widow's cottage and entered. There they found the widow and her pseudo
niece sitting at the fire; and three drunken vagabonds, for the fourth
was holding the horses outside, cut some fantastic capers round the
cabin, and making a mock obeisance to the widow, the spokesman addressed
her with--
“Your sarvant, ma'am!”
“Who are yiz at all, gintleman, that comes to my place at this time o'
night, and what's your business?”
“We want the loan o' that young woman there, ma'am,” said the ruffian.
Andy and his mother both uttered small squalls.
“And as for who we are, ma'am, we're the blessed society of Saint
Joseph, ma'am--our coat of arms is two heads upon one pillow, and our
motty, 'Who's afraid?--Hurroo!'” shouted the savage, and he twirled his
stick and cut another caper. Then coming up to Andy, he addressed him
as “young woman,” and said there was a fine strapping fellow whose heart
was breaking till he “rowled her in his arms.”
Andy and the mother both acted their parts very well. He rushed to the
arms of the old woman for protection, and screeched small, while the
widow shouted “_millia murther!_” at the top of her voice, and did not
give up her hold of the make-believe young woman until her cap was torn
half off, and her hair streamed about her face. She called on all the
saints in the calendar, as she knelt in the middle of the floor and
rocked to and fro, with her clasped hands raised to heaven, calling down
curses on the “villains and robbers” that were tearing her child from
her, while they threatened to stop her breath altogether if she did not
make less noise, and in the midst of the uproar dragged off Andy, whose
struggles and despair might have excited the suspicion of soberer men.
They lifted him up on a stout horse, in front of the most powerful man
of the party, who gripped Andy hard round the middle and pushed his
horse to a hand gallop, followed by the rest of the party. The proximity
of Andy to his _cavaliero_ made the latter sensible to the bad odour
of the pig's bed, which formed Andy's luxurious bust and bustle; but he
attributed the unsavoury scent to a bad breath on the lady's part, and
would sometimes address his charge thus:--
“Young woman, if you plaze, would you turn your face th' other way;”
then in a side soliloquy, “By Jaker, I wondher at Jack's taste--she's
a fine lump of a girl, but her breath is murther intirely--phew--young
woman, turn away your face, or by this and that I'll fall off the horse.
I've heerd of a bad breath that might knock a man down, but I never met
it till now. Oh, murther! it's worse it's growin'--I suppose 't is the
bumpin' she's gettin' that shakes the breath out of her sthrong--oh,
there it is again--phew!”
It was as well, perhaps, for the prosecution of the deceit, that the
distaste the fellow conceived for his charge prevented any closer
approaches to Andy's visage, which might have dispelled the illusion
under which he still pushed forward to the hills and bumped poor Andy
towards the termination of his ride. Keeping a sharp look-out as he went
along, Andy soon was able to perceive they were making for that wild
part of the hills where he had discovered the private still on the night
of his temporary fright and imaginary rencontre with the giants, and the
conversation he partly overheard all recurred to him, and he saw at once
that Oonah was the person alluded to, whose name he could not catch, a
circumstance that cost him many a conjecture in the interim. This gave
him a clue to the persons into whose power he was about to fall, after
having so far defeated their scheme, and he saw he should have to deal
with very desperate and lawless parties. Remembering, moreover, the
herculean frame of the inamorato, he calculated on an awful thrashing as
the smallest penalty he should have to pay for deceiving him, but was,
nevertheless, determined to go through the adventure with a good heart,
to make deceit serve his turn as long as he might, and at the last, if
necessary, to make the best fight he could.
As it happened, luck favoured Andy in his adventure, for the hero of the
blunderbuss (and he, it will be remembered, was the love-sick gentleman)
drank profusely on the night in question, quaffing deep potations to
the health of his Oonah, wishing luck to his friends and speed to their
horses, and every now and then ascending the ladder from the cave, and
looking out for the approach of the party. On one of these occasions,
from the unsteadiness of the ladder, or himself, or perhaps both, his
foot slipped, and he came to the ground with a heavy fall, in which his
head received so severe a blow that he became insensible, and it was
some time before his sister, who was an inhabitant of this den, could
restore him to consciousness. This she did, however, and the savage
recovered all the senses the whisky had left him; but still the stunning
effect of the fall cooled his courage considerably, and, as it were,
“bothered” him so, that he felt much less of the “gallant gay Lothario”
than he had done before the accident.
The tramp of horses was heard overhead ere long, and _Shan More_, or
Big John, as the Hercules was called, told Bridget to go up to “the
darlin',” and help her down.
“For that's a blackguard laddher,” said he; “it turned undher me like
an eel, bad luck to it!--tell her I'd go up myself, only the ground is
slipping from undher me--and the laddher--”
Bridget went off, leaving Jack growling forth anathemas against the
ground and the ladder, and returned speedily with the mock-lady and her
attendant squires.
“Oh, my jewel!” roared Jack, as he caught sight of his prize. He
scrambled up on his legs, and made a rush at Andy, who imitated a
woman's scream and fright at the expected embrace; but it was with much
greater difficulty he suppressed his laughter at the headlong fall with
which Big Jack plunged his head into a heap of turf, [Footnote: Peat]
and hugged a sack of malt which lay beside it.
Andy endeavoured to overcome the provocation to merriment by screeching;
and as Bridget caught the sound of this tendency towards laughter
between the screams, she thought it was the commencement of a fit
of hysterics, and it accounted all the better for Andy's extravagant
antics.
“Oh, the craythur is frightened out of her life!” said Bridget. “Leave
her to me,” said she to the men. “There, jewel machree!” she continued
to Andy, soothingly, “don't take on you that way--don't be afeerd,
you're among friends--Jack is only dhrunk dhrinking your health,
darlin', but he adores you.” Andy screeched.
“But don't be afeerd, you'll be thrated tender, and he'll marry you,
darlin', like an honest woman!”
Andy squalled.
“But not to-night, jewel--don't be frightened.”
Andy gave a heavy sob at the respite.
“Boys, will you lift Jack out o' the turf, and carry him up into the
air? 't will be good for him, and this dacent girl will sleep with me
to-night.”
Andy couldn't resist a laugh at this, and Bridget feared the girl was
going off into hysterics again.
“Aisy, dear--aisy--sure you'll be safe with me.”
“Ow! ow! ow!” shouted Andy.
“Oh, murther!” cried Bridget, “the sterricks will be the death of her!
You blackguards, you frightened her coming up here, I'm sure.”
The men swore they behaved in the genteelest manner. “Well, take away
Jack, and the girl shall have share of my bed for this night.”
Andy shook internally with laughter.
“Dear, dear, how she thrimbles!” cried Bridget, “Don't be so frightful,
_lanna machree_--there, now--they're taking Jack away, and you're alone
with myself and will have a nice sleep.”
The men all the time were removing _Shan More_ to upper air; and the
last sounds they heard as they left the cave were the coaxing tones of
Bridget's voice, inviting Andy, in the softest words, to go to bed.