Priscilla's Spies Part 38

"And what's more," said Peter Walsh, "she'll stop him if she's able. For she doesn't want them out on Inishbawn, no more than we do."

"Are you sure now that she meant that?" said Sweeny.

"I'm as sure as if she said it, and surer."

"She's a fine girl, so she is," said Patsy the smith.

"Devil the finer you'd see," said one of the loafers, "if you was to search from this to America."

This, though a s.p.a.cious, was a thin compliment.

There are never, even at the height of the transatlantic tourist season, very many girls between Rosnacree and America.

"Anyway," said Sweeny hopefully, "it could be that the wind will go round to the southeast before morning. The gla.s.s didn't rise any since the thunder."

"It might," said Peter Walsh.

A southeast wind is dreaded, with good reason, in Rosnacree Bay. It descends from the mountains in vicious squalls. It catches rus.h.i.+ng tides at baffling angles and lashes them into white-lipped fury. St.u.r.dy island boats of the larger size, boats with bluff bows and bulging sides, brave it under their smallest lugs. But lesser boats, and especially light pleasure crafts like the _Tortoise_ do well to lie snug at their moorings till the southeasterly wind has spent its strength.

CHAPTER XX

Timothy Sweeny, J. P., as suited a man of portly figure and civic dignity, was accustomed to lie long in his bed of a morning. On weekdays he rose, in a bad temper, at nine o'clock. On Sundays, when he washed and shaved, he was half an hour later and his temper was worse. An apprentice took down the shutters of the shop on weekdays at half past nine. By that time Sweeny, having breakfasted, sworn at his wife and abused his children, was ready to enter upon the duties of his calling.

On the morning after the thunderstorm he was wakened at the outrageous hour of half past seven by the rattle of a shower of pebbles against his window. The room he slept in looked out on the back-yard through which his Sunday customers were accustomed to make their way to the bar.

Sweeny turned over in his bed and cursed. The window panes rattled again under another shower of gravel. Sweeny shook his wife into consciousness. He bade her get up and see who was in the back-yard.

Mrs. Sweeny, a lean hara.s.sed woman with grey hair, fastened a dingy pink nightdress round her throat with a pin and obeyed her master.

"It's Peter Walsh," she said, after peering out of the window.

"Tell him to go to h.e.l.l out of that," said Sweeny.

Mrs. Sweeny wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, opened the bottom of the window and translated her husband's message.

"Himself's asleep in his bed," she said, "but if you'll step into the shop at ten o'clock he'll be glad to see you."

"I'll be obliged to you, ma'am," said Peter Walsh, "if you'll wake him, for what I'm wanting to say to him is particular and he'll be sorry after if there's any delay about hearing it."

"Will you shut that window and have done talking," said Sweeny from the bed. "There's a draught coming in this minute that would lift the feathers from a goose."

Mrs. Sweeny, though an oppressed woman, was not wanting in spirit. She gave Peter Walsh's message in a way calculated to rouse and irritate her husband.

"He says that if you don't get up out of that mighty quick there'll be them here that will make you."

"h.e.l.l to your soul!" said Sweeny, "what way's that of talking? Ask him now is the wind in the southeast or is it not?"

"I can tell you that myself," said Mrs. Sweeny. "It is not; for if it was it would be in on this window and my hair would be blew off my head."

"Ask him," said Sweeny, "what boats is in the harbor, and then shut down the window."

Mrs. Sweeny put her head and shoulders out of the window.

"Himself wants to know," she said, "what boats is at the quay. You needn't be looking at me like that, Peter Walsh. He's sober enough. Hard for him to be anything else for he's been in his bed the whole of the night."

"Will you tell him, ma'am," said Peter Walsh, "that there's no boats in it only the _Tortoise_, and that one itself won't be there for long for the wind's easterly and it's a fair run out to Inishbawn."

Mrs. Sweeny repeated this message. Sweeny, roused to activity at last, flung off the bedclothes.

"Get out of the room with you," he said to his wife, "and shut the door.

It's down to the kitchen you'll go and let me hear you doing it."

Mrs. Sweeny was too wise to disobey or argue. She s.n.a.t.c.hed a petticoat from a chair near the door and left the room hurriedly. Sweeny went to the window.

"What the h.e.l.l work's this, Peter Walsh?" he said. "Can't you let me sleep quiet in my bed without raising the devil's own delight in my back-yard. If I did right I'd set the police at you."

"I'll not be the only one the police will be at," said Peter, "if that's the way of it. So there you have it plain and straight."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is this. The young lady is off in her own boat. She and the young fellow with the sore leg along with her, and she says the master and the strange gentleman will be down for the _Tortoise_ as soon, as ever they have their breakfast ate. That's what I mean and I hope it's to your liking."

"Can you not go out and knock a hole in the bottom of the d.a.m.ned boat?"

said Sweeny, "or run the blade of a knife through the halyards, or smash the rudder iron with the wipe of a stone? What good are you if you can't do the like of that? Sure there's fifty ways of stopping a man from going out in a boat when there's only one boat for him to go in?"

"There may be fifty ways and there may be more; but I'd be glad if you'd tell me which of them is any use when there's a young police constable sitting on the side of the quay that hasn't lifted his eye off the boat since five o'clock this morning?"

"Is there that?"

"There is. The sergeant was up at the big house late last night. I saw him go myself. What they said to him I don't know, but he had the constable out sitting opposite the boat since five this morning the way n.o.body'd go near her."

"Peter Walsh," said Sweeny, and this time he spoke in a subdued and serious tone, "let you go in through the kitchen and ask herself to give you the bottle of whisky that's standing on the shelf under the bar.

When you have it, come up here for I want to speak to you."

"Peter Walsh did as he was told. When he reached the bedroom he found Sweeny sitting on a chair with a deep frown on his face. He was thinking profoundly. Without speaking he held out his hand. Peter gave him the whisky. He swallowed two large gulps, drinking from the bottle. Then he set it down on the floor beside him. Peter waited Sweeny's eyes, narrowed to mere slits, were fixed on a portrait of a plump ecclesiastic which hung in a handsome gold frame over the chimney piece. His hands strayed towards the whisky bottle again. He took another gulp. Then, looking round at his visitor, he spoke.

"Listen to me now, Peter Walsh. Is there any wind?"

"There is surely, a nice breeze from the east and there's a look about it that I wouldn't be surprised if it went to the southeast before full tide."

"Is there what would upset a boat?"

"There's no wind to upset any boat that's handled right. And you know well, Mr. Sweeny, that the master can steer a boat as well as any man about the bay."

"Is there wind so that a boat might be upset if so be there happened to be some kind of mistake and her jibing?"