378 The Real Charlotte, 



the narrow strip of road, that was all the space left to her by 

 the carts. The coffin was almost abreast of Francie now, 

 and her eyes rested with a kind of fascination on its bare, 

 yellow surface. She became dimly aware that Norry the 

 Boat was squatted beside it on the straw, when one of the 

 other women began suddenly to groan and thump on the 

 coffin-lid with her fists, in preparation for a burst of the Irish 

 Cry, and at the signal Norry fell upon her knees, and flung 

 out her arms inside her cloak, with a gesture that made her 

 look like a great vulture opening its wings for flight. The 

 cloak flapped right across the mare's face, and she swerved 

 from the cart with a buck that loosened her rider in the 

 saddle, and shook her hat ofl". There was a screech of 

 alarm from all the women, the frightened mare gave a second 

 and a third buck, and at the third Francie was shot into the 

 air, and fell, head first, on the road. 



CHAPTER LI. 



The floor of the potato loft at Gurthnamuckla had for a 

 long time needed repairs, a circumstance not in itself dis- 

 tressing to Miss Mullen, who held that eff"ort after mere 

 theoretical symmetry was unjustifiable waste of time in either 

 housekeeping or farming. On this first of June, however, 

 an intimation from Norry that " there's ne'er a pratie ye have 

 that isn't ate with the rats," given with the thinly-veiled 

 triumph of servants in such announcements, caused a tru- 

 culent visit of inspection to the potato loft ; and in her first 

 spare moment of the afternoon. Miss Mullen set forth with 

 her tool-basket, and some boards from a packing-case, to 

 make good the breaches with her own hands. Doing it her- 

 self saved the necessity of taking the men from their work, 

 and moreover ensured its being properly done. 



So she thought, as, having climbed the ladder that led 

 from the cowhouse to the loft, she put her tools on the 

 ground, and surveyed with a workman's eye the job she had 

 set herself. The loft was hot and airless, redolent of the 

 cowhouse below, as well as of the clayey mustiness of the 

 potatoes that were sprouting in the dirt on the floor, and 

 even sending pallid, worm-like roots down into space through 

 the cracks in the boards. Miss Mullen propped the window- 



