Jonaique looked round the room, expecting some one to question him. As n.o.body did so, except with looks of inquiry, he said, "My ould man heard it all. He's been tailor at the big house since the time of Iron Christian himself."

"Truth enough," said Caesar.

"And he was sewing a suit for the big man in the kitchen when the bad work was going doing upstairs."

"You don't say!"

"'You've robbed me!' says the Ballawhaine."

"Dear heart alive!" cried Grannie. "To his own son, was it?"

"'You've cheated me!' says he, 'you deceaved me, you've embezzled my money and broke my heart!' says he. 'I've spent a fortune on you, and what have you brought me back?' says he. 'This,' says he, 'and this--and this--barefaced forgeries, all of them!' says he."

"The Lord help us!" muttered Caesar.

"'They're calling me a miser, aren't they?' says he. 'I grind my people to the dust, do I? What for, then? _Whom_ for? I've been a good father to you, anyway, and a fool, too, if n.o.body knows it!' says he."

"n.o.body! Did he say n.o.body, Mr. Jelly?" said Caesar, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his mouth.

"'If you'd had _my_ father to deal with,' says he, 'he'd have turned you out long ago for a liar and a thief.' 'My G.o.d, father,' says Ross, struck silly for the minute. 'A thief, d'ye hear me?' says the Ballawhaine; 'a thief that's taken every penny I have in the world, and left me a ruined man.'"

"Did he say that?" said Caesar.

"He did, though," said Jonaique. "The ould man was listening from the kitchen-stairs, and young Ross snaked out of the house same as a cur."

"And where's he gone to?" said Caesar.

"Gone to the devil, I'm thinking," said Jonaique.

"Well, he'd be good enough for him with a broken back--pity the ould man didn't break it," said Caesar. "But where is the wastrel now?"

"Gone to England over with to-night's packet, they're saying."

"Praise G.o.d, from whom all blessings flow," said Caesar.

A grunt came out of the corner from behind a cloud of smoke. "You've your own rasons for saying so, Caesar," said the husky voice of Black Tom. "People were talking and talking one while there that he'd be 'bezzling somebody's daughter, as well as the ould miser's money."

"Answer a fool according to his folly," muttered Caesar; and then the door jerked open, and Pete came staggering into the room. Every pipe shank was lowered in an instant, and Grannie's needles ceased to click.

Pete was still bareheaded, his face was ghastly white, and his eyes wandered, but he tried to bear himself as if nothing had happened.

Smiling horribly, and nodding all round, as a man does sometimes in battle the moment the bullet strikes him, he turned to Grannie and moved his lips a little as if he thought he was saying something, though he uttered no sound. After that he took out his pipe, and rammed it with his forefinger, then picked a spill from the table, and stooped to the fire for a light.

"Anybody--belonging--me--here?" he said, in a voice like a crow's, coughing as he spoke, the flame dancing over the pipe mouth.

"No, Pete, no," said Grannie. "Who were you looking for, at all?"

"n.o.body," he answered. "n.o.body partic'lar. Aw, no," he said, and he puffed until his lips quacked, though the pipe gave out no smoke.

"Just come in to get fire to my pipe. Must be going now. So long, boys!

S'long! Bye-bye, Grannie!"

No one answered him. He nodded round the room again and smiled fearfully, crossed to the door with a jaunty roll, and thus launched out of the house with a pretence of unconcern, the dead pipe hanging upside down in his mouth, and his head aside, as if his hat had been tilted rakishly on his uncovered hair.

When he had gone the company looked into each other's faces in surprise and fear, as if a ghost in broad daylight had pa.s.sed among them. Then Black Tom broke the silence.

"Men," said he, "that was a d------ lie."

"Si------" began Caesar, but the protest foundered in his dry throat.

"Something going doing in Ramsey," Black Tom continued. "I believe in my heart I'll follow him."

"I'll be going along with you, Mr. Quilliam," said Jonaique.

"And I," said John the Clerk.

"And I"--"And I," said the others, and in half a minute the room was empty.

"Father," whimpered Grannie, through the gla.s.s part.i.tion, "hadn't you better saddle the mare and see if any thing's going wrong with Kirry?"

"I was thinking the same myself, mother."

"Come, then, away with you. The Lord have mercy on all of us!"

XVIII.

As soon as he was out of earshot Pete began to run. Within half an hour he was back at Elm Cottage. "She'll be home by this time," he told himself, but he dared not learn the truth too suddenly. Creeping up to the hall window, he listened at the broken pane. The child was crying, and Nancy Joe was talking to herself, and sobbing as she bathed the little one.

"Bless its precious heart, it's as beautiful as the angels in heaven.

I've bathed her mother on the same knee a hundred times. 'Deed have I, and a thousand times too. Mother, indeed! What sort of mothers are in now at all? She must have a heart-as hard as a stone to lave the like of it. Can't be a drop of nature in her.... Goodness, Nancy, what are saying for all? Kate is it? Your own little Kirry, and you blackening her! Aw, dear!--aw, dear! The bogh!--the bogh!"

Pete could not go in. He crept back to the cabin in the garden and leaned against it to draw his breath and think. Then he noticed that the dog was on the path with its long tongue hanging over its jaw. It stopped its panting to whine woefully, and then it turned towards the darker part of the garden.

"He's telling me something," thought Pete.

A car rattled down the side road at that moment, and the light of its lamp shot through the bushes to his feet.

"The ould gate must be open," he thought.

He looked and saw that it was, and then a new light dawned on him.

"She's gone up to Philip's," he told himself. "She's gone by Claughbane to Ballure to find me."

Five minutes afterwards he was knocking at Ballure House. His breath was coming in gusts, perspiration was standing in beads on his face, and his head was still bare, but he was carrying himself bravely as if nothing were amiss. His knock was answered by the maid, a tall girl of cheerful expression, in a black frock, a white ap.r.o.n, and a snow-white cap. Pete nodded and smiled at her.

"Anybody been here for me? No?" he asked.

"No, sir, n--o, I think not," the girl answered, and as she looked at Pete her face straightened.