“And that’s all you know about her?”
“Herself and a gentleman that was along with her settled with my da yesterday for the use of the boat, the way I’d row her anywhere she’d a fancy to go.”
“That was the gentleman who has Flanagan’s old boat, I suppose?”
“It was not then, but a different gentleman altogether.”
“Then you can leave him out,” said Priscilla, “and tell me all you know about the other couple, the ones who lost their boat.”
“Them ones,” said Jimmy, “has no sense, no more than a baby would have. Did you hear what they’re after paying Flanagan for that old boat of his?”
“Four pounds a week.”
“You’d think,” said Jimmy, “that when they’d no more care for their money than to be throwing it away that way they’d be able to afford to pay for a roof over their heads and not to be sleeping on the bare ground with no more than a cotton rag to shelter them. It was last Friday they came in to Inishbawn looking mighty near as if they’d had enough of it. ‘Is there any objection,’ says he, ‘to our camping on this island?’ ‘We’ll pay you,’ says the lady, ‘anything in reason for the use of the land.’ My da was terrible sorry for them, for he could see well that they weren’t ones that was used to hardship; but he told them that it would be better for them not.”
“On account of the rats?”
“Rats! What rats?”