A NICE, SLOW DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 19856, 3 May 1928, Page 9

A NICE, SLOW DEATH

Ono day, in an outburst of that rare confidence which occasionally overtakes the Irish peasant—otherwise the most inscrutably reserved of Western peoples—she said to me:— “ I’ll! tell ye this now, an’ it's a sure word ” —tho heavy black eyes behind the big gold-riramed spectacles shone larger and more mystical than ever—“ ’(is no matter what was to come upon this world, ’twill never touch mo nor har’rm me so long as I' am now. I’ll never lie drowned, nor shot, nor burnt, nor kilt at all, at all.” She paused dramatically. There was something gnome-like about Ellen always; she was very little and almost mis-shapen by rheumatism, but she looked more gnome-like than ever s.s she stood peering up at me and uttering this truly remarkable pronouncement with emphatic solemnity. I was careful not to smile, but, involuntarily, I exclaimed; “It’s well to be you, Ellen!” She made me a sort of little bow, and the smugness which was so characteristic of her in certain moods slid, so to speak, over the solemnity of her mien, and she said, with no little comnlacency: “Faith, ye r re right there, I guess. But ’tis not every wan that has what I haveno, sure. Ye see, the way it was, when I was a poor young girl, a holypriest gave me a blessed token, and there’s few In the whole wide world has that medal, only meself; but as long as that holy, blessed token hangs round my neck I’ll never come to an onnatural end, but I’ll just have a nice, long, slow death in me bed.”—Hl* Mat Mahon (‘lrish yignettes*),