Willy Burke, or, The Irish orphan in America - Digital Repository ...

14 WILLY BURKE ; OR,
lest any expression of them might be injurious to her husband
; but at length she could contain herself no longer,
and ventured to ask—
" Andy, ahagurl what 's the matter
with ye at all ? Sure you don 't look like the same man
since we left Liverpool ! If its grievin' ye are for lavin'
home, sure, aroon ! there 's no use m frettin' about what
can't be helped ; an' only it was God's will we wouldn't
be on the shaughran this blessed day : so for that raison
we must make the best of it, an' not murmur, for fear
God might afflict us more an' more !"
" Well, since ye want to know, Biddy, astore !" returned
her husbaud, " I '11 just tell you the thruth. Ever
since we left home there 's something over me, an' I
dunna what it is ;
I think I'm as well as ever I was, but,
somehow or another, there 's like a heavy weight on my
heart, an' at times it crushes me so that I 'm as much
dead as alive, whatever 's the raison of it. But my dear,
I 'm always thinking that I '11 never see the other side ;
an' sure, God help me, that same would not trouble me
much, only for you an' the childre, poor things !"
" Tut, tut, man !" said his wife, affecting a tone of remonstrance,
though she found it difficult to restrain her
tears, on hearing her own secret forebodings echoed back
from her husband's heart. " Sure it 's a shame to hear a
sensible man talkin' that way. It 's the black grief, I tell
you, that 's makin' you so down-hearted ; and it doesn't
become a God-fearin' man to be so aisy cast down. With
the help of God, we '11 both live to see the childre well
settled in Amerikey, an' then it 's no matther how soon
we 're taken home ; for God knows there 's no great
pleasure to be expected in this world. Keep up your
heart then, Andy— for the love o' God do ! not to spake