They're the right sons of their mother.
When I go out they'll grab the coin I've saved up, and leave me to lie here and rot, maybe.
"Lad, it's a fearful thing to die without having no one around that cares, and to know that even after I've gone out I'm going to lie here and have my dead eyes looking up at the ceiling.

So I'm writing to you, Pierre, part to tell you what you ought to know; part because I got a sort of crazy idea that maybe you could get down here to me before I go out.
"You don't owe me nothing but hard words, Pierre; but if you don't try to come to me, the ghost of your mother will follow you all your life, lad, and you'll be seeing her blue eyes and the red-gold of her hair in the dark of the night as I see it now.

Me, I'm a hard man, but it breaks my heart, that ghost of Irene.

So here I'll lie, waiting for you, Pierre, and lingering out the days with whisky, and fighting the wolf eyes of them there sons of mine.

If I weaken--If they find they can look me square in the eye--they'll finish me quick and make off with the coin.