“What! Willy!” he said, coming forward, and staring at Willy with wild eyes in which frightened conjecture slowly steadied into reassurance. “Was it you who drove up?” A sort of sob shook his voice. “My dear boy, I am rejoiced to see you; but, good heavens, how wet you are!”—going to the sideboard and pouring out a glass of brandy. “Here, you must drink this at once.”
“I don’t want it,” said Willy; “I don’t want anything.”
He stood still looking at his father, who, from some cause or other, was shaking in every limb.
“How did you get up to the house, Willy?” I interposed. “Did you know of the tree that was blown across the avenue?”
“They told me of it below at the lodge, and I walked from the corner,” he answered. “I’ve got something to say to you, sir,” he went on, addressing his father. “You needn’t go away, Theo; you might as well hear it too.”
Uncle Dominick lifted the glass of brandy to his lips, and swallowed it at a gulp.
“Well, my dear boy,” he said, with a smile, and in a stronger voice, “let us hear what you have got to say.”
“It’s easy told,” Willy said, putting his hands into his pockets. “I went up to Cork on Saturday night, and Anstey Brian followed me this morning, and I married her there.”