Mrs. Mulcahy watched him go, and then tiptoed softly across the room to the clock, and put the hands back a good seven or eight minutes.
“Five minutes on a good horse makes a world o’ difference sometimes,” she said to herself, and went back to the woman, who sat twisting her fingers together and shaking her head and moaning with an empty look in her eyes.
“You’ve been quick,” she said to Trooper Dan, as he came out buttoning his tunic. “Quarter past when you said you’d go in fifteen minutes, and I thought I’d have time to get you a bite o’ breakfast. You might have time for that inside your fifteen minutes yet, though.”
Dan looked at the clock and then sharply at her, but she was busying herself with the kettle with a face as innocent as a child’s.
“Get yourself the bread an’ the butter,” she said. “I’ll have the tea made, and there’s a slice o’ bacon in the pan.”
“There’s hardly time for that,” he said doubtfully.
“Time—nonsense. You’ll ride the harder an’ the stronger for some food. It’s a terrible hurry yeare in to be after poor Stevie.”
“Aye, though, if I’d my own way ... d’you think it’s pleasure I’m takin’—you an’ yer poor Stevie?” he finished irritably. “I’ll go’n get my saddle on an’ swallow a bite when I’m back.”
“Dan dear,” said his wife, softly, “I didn’t mean that, an’ you know it. It’s me that knows you hate huntin’ the lad as much as I hate you doin’ it.”
“If I was a good policeman, I wouldn’t hate me job,” said Dan, and “I’d rather a good man than a good policeman any day,” said his wife, and kissed him.