There was also a movement in the throng, a drift which, had you followed it, would have taken you round the corner of the house to the stable-yard and back again.
Back again, for every individual having feasted his eyes on the sight to be seen retraced his steps, so that the show might not be given away.
The sight was Mr Murphy.
The broad, red face of Mr Murphy as he filed away at the bars of the potato room window was a sight indeed.
One bar was out, and he was completing the demolition of the second, sweating but cool, grinning like a cat, and exchanging jokes with friends and enemies alike.
There were men and women in the throng who had good cause to hate Paddy Murphy, but there was not a man or a woman who had even the thought of betraying him. A whisper would have ruined him if conveyed to the “quality” in the house; but no one whispered. Larry Lyburn, the coachman, the stable helpers, all knew what was on; yet they led out Mr Fanshawe’s horse, and a horse for General Grampound and a horse for Miss Lestrange, and did the business, deaf and dumb to everything else. Mrs Kinsella knew what was afoot, and the maids; as for Patsy, when he had brought the prisoned one some breakfast, he had brought him also another file.
It was all very wrong, of course; but there it was. There was not an ounce of sympathy for Paddy Murphy, but a lot for his condition. Prison to all these minds was as bad as death, and they helped him, just as they would have helped him had he been drowning in the pond.
Whilst helping they jeered at him and joked with him, knowing well enough that he would never after take revenge for these jeers with the remembrance of their silence in his mind.
“There’s no signs of the polis yet, is there, Micky Strachan?” asked Paddy, as he filed away.
“Not a speck,” replied the individual addressed; “they’re all beyant at Shepherd’s Cross.”