Chapter II

And is Norah along wid you? Well, Norah jewel, how’s yourself all this year?
Sure she’s thin grown and white, sir, to what I remember her last time we were here.
Took a could in the spring? Ah, begorrah, the March win’ ’s as bad as a blight;
But the weather we git in Afghanistan, troth, ’twould destroy her outright.
For in summer Ould Horny seems houldin’ the earth in the heat of his hand,
And in winther the snow’s the great ghost of a world settled down on the land,
Wid a blast keenin’ over it fit to be freezin’ the sun where he shone;
If they’d lease you that counthry rint-free, you ’d do righter to let it alone.