CHAPTER XIII
The Wonderful Ending
“Sure, and it’s not meself can tackle the road, the day. As well be ‘docked’ for the end as the beginnin’, an’ I’m minded to keep that lot company a piece,” remarked Timothy Dowd, to his sister’s husband’s cousin. “That monkey is most interestin’, most interestin’ an’ improvin’; an’ ’tisn’t often a lad from old Ireland has the chance to get acquaintance of the sort, leave alone that Glory girl, what’s took up quarters in me heart an’ won’t be boosted thence, whatever. The poor little colleen! A-lookin’ for one lost old man out of a world full! Bless her innocent soul! Yes. I’ve a mind to company them a bit. What say, Mary, woman?”
“What need to say a word, sence when a man’s bent to do a thing he does it? But keep an open ear, Timothy, boy. I’m curious to know what sort o’ trouble ’tis, Dennis hints at, as comin’ to them old people yon. And he’d never say, considerin’ as he does, that what goes on in the big house is no consarn o’ the cottage, an’ fearin’ to remind ’em even’t we’re alive, lest they pack us off an’ fetch in folks with no childer to bless an’ bother ’em. Yes, go, Timothy; and wait; here’s one them handy catch-pins, that Glory might tighten her skirt a bit.”
Timothy’s usually merry face had been sadly overclouded as he watched the departure of Glory and her companions, but it lightened instantly when Mary favored his suggestion to follow and learn their fortune. With his hat on the back of his head, his stick over his shoulder, and his unlighted pipe in his mouth–which still managed to whistle a gay tune despite this impediment–he sauntered along the road in the direction the others had taken, though at some distance behind them. But when they passed boldly through the great iron gates and followed the driveway winding over the beautiful lawn, his bashfulness overcame him, and he sat down on the bank-wall to await their return, which must be, he fancied, by that same route; soliloquizing thus:
“Sure, Tim, me boy, if it’s tramps they object to, what for ’s the use o’ turnin’ your honest self into such? Them on ahead has business to tend to; the business o’ makin’ sweet music where music there is none; an’ may the pennies roll out thick an’ plenteous an’ may the Eyetalian have the good sense in him to share them same with my sweet colleen. It’s thinkin’ I am that all is spent on such as her is money well invested. So I’ll enjoy the soft side this well-cut top-stone, till so be me friends comes along all in a surprise to see me here.”
His own whistling had ceased, and though he listened closely he could not hear Luigi’s organ or any sound whatever. The truth was that the way seemed endless from the entrance to the house upon the terrace; and that having reached it at last, both Luigi and Glory were dismayed by the magnitude of the mansion and confused by its apparently countless doorways. Before which they should take their stand, required time to decide; but unobserved, they finally settled this point. Luigi rested his instrument upon its pole, loosed Jocko to his gambols, and tuned up.
The strains which most ears would have found harsh and discordant sounded pleasantly enough to the listening Timothy, who nodded his head complacently, wishing and thinking:
“Now he’s off! May he keep at it till he wheedles not only the pence but the dollars out the pockets o’ them that hears! ’Twill take dollars more’n one to keep Glory on her long road, safe and fed, and—Bless us! What’s that?”
What, indeed, but the wildest sort of uproar, in which angry voices, the barking of dogs, the screams of frightened women drowning the feeble tones of “Oft in the Stilly Night,” sent Timothy to his feet and his feet to speeding, not over the graveled driveway, but straight across the shaven lawn, where passage was forbidden. But no “Keep off the grass” signs deterred him, as he remembered now, too late, all that he had heard of the ferocity of the Broadacre dogs which its master kept for just such occasions as this.