early and spread the table with the best in the house for her man’s
breakfast. There were fine home-cured bacon, and eggs, and tea, and
potato cake and oaten bread. When Billy had done justice to these good
things, and had his wife’s assurance that his pockets were full of more
of them, for the day’s provisions, he grasped his pike, and rose to go.
Then did his _guid wife_, “in lieu of sentimental, or patriotic, or
pious admonition,” thus address him in valediction:
“Ye hae got as guid a brekfust as ony mon in Ballyclare; sae kill
naebody till they kill you, and then doe for yerself, Billy Morrison.”
One fancies that Billy Morrison gave a good account of himself that day
in Antrim town, and did credit, with his strong pike arm, to his wife’s
good feeding. And so it has not seemed unfitting to evoke, from the
past, her homely sturdy form, and set her even by the side of the tragic
figure of Willie Neilson’s widowed mother. For from the sturdiness of
the one, no less than from the heroism of the other, proceeds the
unconquerable spirit of Ireland.
Finis.
_Printed by_ M. H. GILL & SON, LTD., _Dublin_.
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_);
was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=).