Harding, and _his_ washing no corricter than _hers_, though he'd more
good nature in him over the accidents, and iron-moulds on the
table-cloths, and pocket-handkerchers missin', and me ruined entirely
with making them good, and no thanks for it, till a good-natured sowl of
a foreigner that kept a pie-shop larned me to make the coffee, and lint
me the money to buy a barra, and he says: 'Go as convanient to the ships
as ye can, Mother; it'll aise your mind. My own heart,' says he, laying
his hand to it, 'knows what it is to have my body here, and the whole
sowl of me far away.'"

"Did you pay him back?" I asked. I spoke without thinking, and still
less did I mean to be rude; but it suddenly struck me that I was young
and hearty, and that it would be almost a duty to share the contents of
my leather bag with this poor old woman, if there were no chance of her
being able to repay the generous foreigner.

"Did I pay him back?" she screamed. "Would I be the black-hearted thief
to him that was kind to me? Sorra bit nor sup but dry bread and water
passed me lips till he had his own agin, and the heart's blessings of
owld Biddy Macartney along with it."

I made my peace with old Biddy as well as I could, and turned the
conversation back to her son.

"So you live in the docks with your coffee-barrow, Mother, that you may
be sure not to miss Micky when he comes ashore?"

"I do, darlin'. Fourteen years all but three days. He'll be gone fifteen
if we all live till Wednesday week."