IX.

Somewhere towards the dawn, in the vague shadow-land between a dream and the awakening, Kate thought she was startled by a handful of rice thrown at her carriage on her marriage morning. The rattle came again, and then she knew it was from gravel dashed at her bedroom window. As she recognised the sound, a voice came as through a cavern, crying, "Kate!"

She was fully awake by this time. "Then it's to be Pete," she thought.

"It's bound to be Pete, it's like," she told herself. "It's himself outside, anyway."

It was Pete indeed. He was standing in the thin darkness under the window, calling the girl's name out of the back of his throat, and whistling to her in a sort of whisper. Presently he heard a movement inside the room, and he said over his shoulder, "She's coming."

There was the click of a latch and the slithering of a sash, and then out through the little dark frame came a head like a picture, with a face all laughter, crowned by a cataract of streaming black hair, and rounded off at the throat by a shadowy hint of the white frills of a night-dress.

"Kate," said Pete again.

She pretended to have come to the window merely to look out, and, like a true woman, she made a little start at the sound of his voice, and a little cry of dismay at the idea that he was so close beneath and had taken her unawares. Then she peered down into the gloom and said, in a tone of wondrous surprise, "It must be Pete, surely."

"And so it is, Kate," said Pete, "and he couldn't take rest without spaking to you once again."

"Ah!" she said, looking back and covering her eyes, and thinking of Black Tom and the fairies. But suddenly the mischief of her s.e.x came dancing into her blood, and she could not help but plague the lad. "Have you lost your way, Pete?" she asked, with an air of innocence.

"Not my way, but myself, woman," said Pete.

"Lost yourself! Have the lad's wits gone moon-raking, I wonder? Are you witched then, Pete?" she inquired, with vast solemnity.

"Aw, witched enough. Kate----"

"Poor fellow!" sighed Kate. "Did she strike you unknown and sudden?"

"Unknown it was, Kirry, and sudden, too. Listen, though----"

"Aw dear, aw dear! Was it old Mrs. Cowley of the Curragh? Did she turn into a hare? Is it bitten you've been, Pete?"

"Aw, yes, bitten enough. But, Kate----"

"Then it was a dog, it's like. Is it flying from the water you are, Pete?"

"No, but flying _to_ the water, woman. Kate, I say----"

"Is it burning they're doing for it?"

"Burning and freezing both. Will you hear me, though? I'm going away--hundreds and thousands of miles away."

Then from the window came a tone of great awe, uttered with face turned upward as if to the last remaining star.

"Poor boy! Poor boy! it's bitten he is, for sure."

"Then it's yourself that's bitten me. Kirry----"

There was a little crow of gaiety. "Me? Am I the witch? You called me a fairy in the road this evening."

"A fairy you are, girl, and a witch too; but listen, now----"

"You said I was an angel, though, at the cowhouse gable; and an angel doesn't bite."

Then she barked like a dog, and laughed a shrill laugh like a witch, and barked again.

But Pete could bear no more. "Go on, then; go on with your capers! Go on!" he cried, in a voice of reproach. "It's not a heart that's at you at all, girl, but only a stone. You see a man going away from the island----"

"From the island?" Kate gasped.

"Middling down in the mouth, too, and plagued out of his life between the ruck of you," continued Pete; "but G.o.d forgive you all, you can't help it."

"Did you say you were going out of the island, Pete?"

"Coorse I did; but what's the odds? Africa, Kimberley, the Lord knows where----"

"Kimberley! Not Kimberley, Pete!"

"Kimberley or Timbuctoo, what's it matter to the like of you? A man's coming up in the morning to bid you good-bye before an early sailing, and you're thinking of nothing but your capers and divilments."

"It's you to know what a girl's thinking, isn't it, Mr. Pete? And why are you flying in my face for a word?"

"Flying? I'm not flying. It's driven I am."

"Driven, Pete?"

"Driven away by them that's thinking I'm not fit for you. Well, that's true enough, but they shan't be telling me twice."

"They? Who are they, Pete?"

"What's the odds? Flinging my mother at me, too--poor little mother!

And putting the b.a.s.t.a.r.d on me, it's like. A respectable man's girl isn't going begging that she need marry a lad without a name."

There was a sudden e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n from the window-sash. "Who dared to say that?"

"No matter."

"Whoever they are, you can tell them, if it's me they mean, that, name or no name, when I want to marry I'll marry the man I like."

"If I thought that now, Kitty----"

"As for you, Mr. Pete, that's so ready with your cross words, you can go to your Kimberley. Yes, go, and welcome; and what's more--what's more----"

But the voice of anger, in the half light overhead, broke down suddenly into an inarticulate gurgle.

"Why, what's this?" said Pete in a flurry. "You're not crying though, Kate? Whatever am I saying to you, Kitty, woman? Here, here--bash me on the head for a blockhead and an omathaun."

And Pete was clambering up the wall by the side of the dairy window.