“Do you hear that now?” said Kinsella to his friend in a whisper. “Believe you me, Peter Walsh, it’s as good for the whole of us that she’s not in the police.”
“What’s that you’re saying?” said Priscilla.
The boat, though the wind had almost left her sails, drifted up on the rising tide and was already past the spot where the two men were sitting. Peter Walsh got up and shouted his answer after her.
“Joseph Antony Kinsella,” he said, “is just after telling me that it’s his belief that you’d make a grand sergeant of police.”
“It’s a good job for him that I’m not,” said Priscilla. “For the first thing I’d do if I was would be to go out and see what it is he has going on on Inishbawn.”
Peter Walsh, without unduly hurrying himself, arrived at the slip before the Tortoise. Priscilla stepped ashore and handed him the rudder.
“Take that to the smith,” she said, “and tell him to put a new iron on it this evening. We’ll want it again tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll tell him, Miss; but I wouldn’t say he’d do it for you.”
“He’d jolly well better,” said Priscilla.
“That same Patsy the smith,” said Peter Walsh, “has a terrible strong hate in him for doing anything in a hurry whether it’s little or big.”