_ CHAPTER XVII
It was ten o'clock in the forenoon. Peter Walsh, having breakfasted, strolled down the street towards the quay. When he reached it he surveyed the boats which lay there with a long, deliberate stare. The
Blue Wanderer was at her moorings. The
Tortoise, with a new iron on her rudder, had gone out at seven o'clock. There were three boats from the islands and one large hooker lying at the quay. Peter Walsh made quite sure that there was nothing which called for comment or investigation in the appearance of any of these. Then he lit his pipe and took his seat on one of the windows of Brannigan's shop. Four out of the six habitues of this meeting place were already seated. Peter Walsh made the fifth. The sixth man had not yet arrived.
At half past ten Timothy Sweeny left his shop and walked down to the quay. Timothy Sweeny, though not the richest, was the most important man in Rosnacree. His public house was in a back street and the amount of business which he did was insignificant compared to that done by Brannigan. But he was a politician of great influence and had been made a Justice of the Peace by a government anxious to popularise the administration of the law in Ireland. The law itself, as was recognised on all sides, could not possibly be made to command the respect of any one; but it was hoped that it might excite less active hostility if it were modified to suit the public convenience by men like Sweeny who had some personal experience of the unpleasantness of the penalties which it ordained.
It was seldom that Timothy Sweeny left his shop. He was a man of corpulent figure and flabby muscles. He disliked the smell of fresh air and walking was a trouble to him. The five loafers on Brannigan's window sills looked at him with some amazement when he approached them.
"Is Peter Walsh here?" said Sweeny.
"I am here," said Peter Walsh. "Where else would I be?"
"I'd be glad," said Sweeny, "if you'd step up to my house with me for two minutes the way I could speak to you without the whole town listening to what we're saying."
Peter Walsh rose from his seat with quiet dignity and followed Sweeny up the street.
"You'll take a sup of porter," said Sweeny, when they reached the bar of the public house.
Peter finished the half pint which was offered to him at a draught.
"They tell me," said Sweeny, "that the police sergeant was up at the big house again this morning. I don't know if it's true but it's what they're after telling me."
"It is true," said Peter. "I'll say that much for whoever it was that told you. It's true enough. The sergeant was off last night after dark. He thinks he's damned smart that sergeant, and it was after dark he went the way nobody would see him; but he was seen, for Patsy the smith was on the side of the road, mortal sick after the way that Joseph Antony Kinsella made him turn to making a rudder iron and him as drunk at the time as any man ever you seen. It was him told me about the sergeant and where he went last night."
"Well," said Sweeny, "and what did he tell you?"
"He told me that the sergeant went along the road till he met with the gentleman that does be going about the country and has the two ladies with him, the one of them that might be his wife and the other has Jimmy Kinsella engaged to row her round the bay while she'd be bathing."
"There's too many going round the country and the bay and that's a fact. We could do with less."
"We could, surely. But there's no harm in them ones. What the sergeant said to the gentleman Patsy the smith couldn't hear but it was maybe half an hour after when the sergeant went home again and he had a look on him like a man that was middling well satisfied. Patsy the smith saw him for he was in the ditch when he passed, terrible sick, retching the way he thought the whole of his liver would be out on the road before he'd done. Well, there was no more happened last night; but it wasn't more than nine o'clock this morning before that same sergeant was off up to the big house and I wouldn't wonder but it was to tell the strange gentleman that's there whatever it was he heard him last night. He had that kind of a look about him anyway."
"I don't like the way things is going on," said Sweeny. "What is it that's up at the big house at all?"
"They tell me," said Walsh, "that he's a mighty high up gentleman whoever he is."
"He may be, but I'd be glad if I knew what he's doing here, for I don't like the looks of him."
Patsy the smith, pallid after the experience of the night before, walked into the shop.
"If Peter Walsh is there," he said, "the sergeant is down about the quay looking for him."
"You better go to him," said Sweeny, "and mind now what you say to him."
"You'll not say much," said Patsy the smith, "for he'll have you whipped off into one of the cells in the barrack before you've time to speak. He's terrible determined."
Patsy's face was yellow--a witness to the fact that his liver was still in him--and he was inclined to take a pessimistic view of life. Peter Walsh paid no attention to his prophecy. Sweeny looked anxious.
The sergeant was standing outside the door of Bran-nigan's shop. He accosted Peter Walsh as soon as he caught sight of him.
"Sir Lucius bid me tell you," he said, "that you're to have the
Tortoise ready for him at twelve o'clock, and that his lordship will be going with him, so he won't be needing you in the boat."
"It would fail me to do that," said Peter, "for she's out, Miss Priscilla and the young gentleman with the sore leg has her."
"Sir Lucius was partly in doubt," said the sergeant, "but it might be the way you say, for I told him myself that the boat was gone. But his lordship wouldn't be put off, and you're to hire another boat."
"What boat?"
"It was Joseph Antony Kinsella's he mentioned," said the sergeant, "when I told him it was likely he'd be in with another load of gravel. But sure one boat's as good as another so long as it is a boat. His lordship wouldn't be turned aside from going."
"Them ones," said Peter Walsh, "must have their own way whatever happens. It's pleasure sailing they're for, I'm thinking, among the islands?"
"It might be," said the sergeant "I didn't ask."
"You could guess though."
"And if I could, do you think I'd tell you? It's too fond of asking questions you are, Peter Walsh, about what doesn't concern you."
The sergeant turned his back and walked away. Peter Walsh watched him enter the barrack. Then he himself went back to Sweeny's shop.
"They're wanting a boat," he said. "Joseph Antony Kinsella's or another."
"And what for?"
"Unless it's to go out to Inishbawn," said Peter, "I don't know what for."
"Bedamn then," said Sweeny, "there's no boat for them."
"I was thinking that myself."
"I wouldn't wonder," said Sweeney, "but something might stop Joseph Antony Kinsella from coming in today after all, thought he's due with another load of gravel."
"He mightn't come," said Patsy the smith. "There's many a thing could happen to prevent him."
"What time were they thinking of starting?" said Sweeny.
"Twelve o'clock," said Peter Walsh.
"Patsy," said Sweeny, "let you take Brannigan's old punt and go down as far as the stone perch to try can you see Joseph Antony Kinsella coming in."
Patsy the smith was in a condition of great physical misery; but the occasion demanded energy and self-sacrifice. He staggered down to the slip, loosed the mooring rope of Brannigan's dilapidated punt and drove her slowly down the harbour, waggling one oar over her stern.
"Let you go round the town," said Sweeny to Peter Walsh, "and find out where the fellows is that came in with the boats that's at the quay this minute. It's time they were off out of this."
Peter Walsh left the shop. In a minute or two he came back again.
"There's Miss Priscilla's boat," he said, "the
Blue Wanderer. You're forgetting her."
"They'd never venture as far as Inishbawn in her," said Sweeny.
"They might then. The wind's east and she'd run out easy enough under the little lug."
"They'd have to row back."
"The likes of them ones," said Peter Walsh, "wouldn't think about how they'd get back till the time came. I'm uneasy about that boat, so I am."
"Tell me this now," said Sweeny, after a moment's consideration. "Did the young lady say e'er a word to you about giving the boat a fresh lick of paint?"
"She did not. Why would she? Amn't I just after painting the boat?"
"Are you sure now she didn't say she'd be the better of another coat?"
"She might then, some time that I wouldn't be paying much attention to what she said. I'm a terrible one to disremember things anyway."
"You'd better do it then," said Sweeny. "There's plenty of the same paint you had before in Brannigan's, and it will do the boat no harm to get a lick with it."
Peter Walsh left the shop again and walked in a careless way down the street. Sweeny followed him at a little distance and spoke to the men who were sitting on Brannigan's window sills. They rose at once and walked down to the slip. In a few minutes the
Blue Wanderer was dragged from her moorings and carried up to a glassy patch of waste land at the end of the quay. Her floor boards were taken out of her, her oars, rudder and mast were laid on the grass. The boat herself was turned bottom upwards."
In the course of the next half hour the owners of the boats which lay alongside the quay sauntered down one by one. Brown lugsails were run up on the smaller boats. The mainsail of the hooker was slowly hoisted. At half past eleven there was not a single boat of any kind left afloat in the harbour. Peter Walsh, his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, was laying long stripes of green paint on the already shining bottom of the Blue Wanderer. He worked with the greatest zeal and earnestness. Timothy Sweeny looked at the empty harbour with satisfaction. Then he went back to the shop and dosed comfortably behind his bar.
Patsy the smith stood in the stern of the punt and waggled his oar with force and skill. He disliked taking this kind of exercise very much indeed. His nature craved for copious, cooling drafts of porter, drawn straight from the cask and served in large thick tumblers. He had intended to spend the morning in taking this kind of refreshment The day was exceedingly hot. When he reached the end of the quay his mouth was quite dry inside and his legs were shaking under him. He looked round with eyes which were strikingly bloodshot. There was no sign of Joseph Antony Kinsella's boat on the long stretch of water between him and the stone perch. If he could have articulated at all he would have sworn. Being unable to swear he groaned deeply and took his oar again. The punt wobbled forward very much as a fat duck walks.
When he reached Delgipish he looked round again. A mile out beyond the stone perch he saw a boat moving slowly towards him. His eyes served him badly and although he could see the splash of the oars in the water he could not make out who the rower was. A man of weaker character, suffering the same physical torture, would have allowed himself to drift on the shore of Delginish and there would have awaited the coming of the boat he had seen. But Patsy the smith was brave. He was also nerved by the extreme importance of his mission. It was absolutely necessary that something should happen to prevent Joseph Antony bringing his boat to Rosnacree harbour. The sight of one brown sail and then another stealing round the end of the quay gave him fresh courage. Timothy Sweeny and Peter Walsh had done their work on shore. He was determined not to fail in carrying through his part of a masterly scheme.
For twenty minutes Patsy the smith sculled on. It seemed to him sometimes as if each sway of his body, each tug of his tired arms must be the last possible. Yet he succeeded in going on. He dared not look round lest the boat he had seen should prove after all not to be the one he sought. Such a disappointment would, he knew, be more than he could bear. At last the splash of oars reached his ears and he heard himself hailed by name. The voice was Kinsella's. The relief was too much for Patsy. He sat down on the thwart behind him and was violently sick. Kinsella laid his boat alongside the punt and looked calmly at his friend. Not until the worst spasms were over did he speak.
"Faith, Patsy," he said, "it must have been a terrible drenching you gave yourself last night, and the stuff was good too, as good as ever I seen. What has you in the state you're in at all?"
The sickness had to some extent revived Patsy the smith. He was able to speak, though with difficulty.
"Go back out of that," he said.
"And why would I go back?"
"Timothy Sweeny says you're to go back, for if you come in to the quay today there'll be the devil and all if not worse."
"If that's the way of it I will go back; but I'd be glad, so I would, if I knew what Sweeny means by it. It's a poor thing to be breaking my back rowing a boatload of gravel all the way from Inishbawn and then to be told to turn round and go back; and just now too, when the wind has dropped and it's beginning to look mighty black over to the eastward."
"You're to go back," said Patsy, "because the strange gentleman that's up at the big house is wanting your boat."
"Let him want!"
"He'll get it, if so be that you go in to the quay, and when he has it the first thing he'll do is to go out to Inishbawn. It's there he wants to be and it's yourself knows best what he'd find if he got there. Go back, I tell you."
"If you'll take my advice," said Kinsella, "you will go back yourself. There's thunder beyond there coming up, and there'll be a breeze setting towards it from the west before another ten minutes is over our heads. I don't know will you care for that in the state you're in this minute, with that old punt and only one oar. The tide'll be running strong against the breeze and there'll be a kick-up at the stone perch."
Patsy the smith saw the wisdom of this advice. Tired as he was he seized his one oar and began sculling home. Kinsella watched him go and then did a peculiar thing. He took the shovel which lay amidships in his boat and began to heave his cargo of gravel into the sea. As he worked a faint breeze from the west rose, fanned him and died away. Another succeeded it and then another. Kinsella looked round him. The four boats which had drifted out from the quay before the easterly breeze of the morning, had hauled in their sheets. They were awaiting a wind from the west. The heavy purple thunder cloud was rapidly climbing the sky. Kinsella shovelled hard at his gravel. His boat, lightened of her load, rose in the water, showing inch by inch more free board. A steady breeze from the west succeeded the light occasional puffs. It increased in strength. The four boats inside him stooped to it. They sped across and across the channel towards the stone perch in short tacks. Kinsella hoisted his sail and took the tiller. The boat swung up into the wind and coursed away to the south west, close hauled to a stiff west wind. The thunder cloud burst over Rosnacree.
Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington drove into the town and pulled up in front of Brannigan's shop at a quarter to twelve. They looked round the empty harbour in some surprise. Sir Lucius went at once into the shop. Lord Torrington, being an Englishman with a proper belief in the forces of law and order, walked a few yards back and entered the police barracks.
"Brannigan," said Sir Lucius, "where's my boat? and where's that ruffian Peter Walsh?"
"Your boat, is it?" said Brannigan.
"I sent down word to Peter Walsh to have her ready for me at twelve, or, if my daughter had taken her out----"
"It would be better," said Brannigan, "if you were to see Peter Walsh yourself. Sure I don't know what's happened to your boat."
"Where's Peter Walsh?"
"He's down at the end of the quay putting an extra coat of paint on Miss Priscilla's boat I don't know what sense there is in doing the like, but of course he wouldn't care to go contrary to what the young lady might say."
Sir Lucius left the shop abruptly. At the door he ran into Lord Torrington and the police sergeant.
"Damn it all, Lentaigne," said Lord Torrington, "how are we going to get out?"
"There was boats in it," said the police sergeant, "plenty of them, when I gave your lordship's message to Peter Walsh."
"Where are they now?" said Lord Torrington. "What's the good of telling me they were here when they're not?"
The police sergeant looked cautiously round.
"I wouldn't say," he said at last, "but they're gone out of it, every one of the whole lot of them."
Peter Walsh, his paint brush in his hand, and an expression of respectful regret, on his face, came up to Sir Lucius and touched his hat.
"What's the meaning of this?" said Sir Lucius. "Didn't I send you word to have a boat, either my own or some other, ready for me at twelve?"
"The message the sergeant gave me," said Peter Walsh, "was to engage Joseph Antony Kinsella's boat for your honour if so be that Miss Priscilla had your own took out."
"And why the devil didn't you?" said Lord Torrington.
"Because she's not in it, your honour; nor hasn't been this day. I was waiting for her and the minute she came to the quay I'd have been in her, helping Joseph Antony to shovel out the gravel the way she'd be fit for two gentlemen like yourselves to go in her."
"Is there no other boat to be got?" said Lord Torrington.
"Launch Miss Priscilla's at once," said Sir Lucius.
"Sure the paint's wet on the bottom of her."
"Launch her," said Sir Lucius, "paint or not paint."
"I'll launch her if your honour bids me," said Peter Walsh. "But what use will she be to you when she's in the water? She'll not work to windward for you under the little lug that's in her, and it's from the west the wind's coming now."
He looked round the sky as he spoke.
"Glory be to God!" he said. "Will you look at what's coming. There's thunder in it and maybe worse."
Sir Lucius took Lord Torrington by the arm and led him out of earshot of the police sergeant and Peter Walsh.
"We'd better not go today, Torrington. There's a thunder storm coming. We'd simply get drenched."
"I don't care if I am drenched."
"And besides we can't go. There isn't a boat. We couldn't get anywhere in that little thing of Priscilla's. After all if she's on an island today she'll be there tomorrow."
"If that fool of a sergeant told us the truth this morning," said Lord Torrington, "and there's some man with her I want to break every bone in his body as soon as I can."
"He'll be there tomorrow," said Sir Lucius, "and I'll see that there's a boat here to take us out." _