This was clearly young Dandy.
This Mrs. Casey proffered tea. It was laid in the best parlour, a room of leaden atmosphere, with a great deal of fancy-work about. The grate, instead of cascades of sooty paper, was genteelly hidden by a painted fire-screen, covered with crimson daffodils with purple leaves, and a stork, greatly disturbed at his surroundings, flapping over them. This, they were informed, was the work of Anastasia Casey above at the convent.
Tea was welcome, but oppressed by fashion; appearing on a japanned tray, with slices of baker's bread cut neatly, and pats of butter to apply to it.
Gheena yearned for soda cake, hot—she had seen one in the kitchen—but ate the crumbling papery-crusted slices with resignation, while Mrs. Casey hoped it wasn't too stale entirely, and discussed the war as something one saw in the papers.
"There was talk of Tom Guinane's goin'," she said, pouring out more tea. "Would ye have a neg with it, Miss Gheena, or a taste of jam? The appetite's lavin' ye—but he said he couldn't lave the boat. I would not thrust them Guinanes, anyways," added Mrs. Casey. "There's too much politics in them, spachin' an' chattin' instead of working steady, an' then laying the blame on the King if there isn't the price of a pint in ye're pocket; that's the soort them Guinanes are, Miss."
Gheena nodded. Tom Guinane was a Sinn Feiner, blackly opposed, it would sometimes appear, to everything except all land for nothing, taxes paid by England, free carriage of all fish. These, when he was really brought to bay, were the limits he advanced.
"They are a bad lot out there on Lishannon," said Gheena thoughtfully.
"And in a bad place for a bad lot," put in Basil, "On the point."
Darby Dillon's crutch banged open the door, and he came in, wanting to know why he was left for several hours—in fact, until he drove up and saw Gheena's mother—waiting, in the wrong place.
"If I said McInerny's I meant Malachi's," repeated Gheena impenitently. "And you must have known, Darby, I wasn't likely to want to walk across the shingle to McInerny's in these shoes."