A stranger from America turned up there; at least, that’s what he said he was, and no one for long enough knew anything different. But it was really Patsy Ratigan, no less, that had left Ardenoo years upon years before, and in too great a hurry to leave any message to say why or where he was going. Now he was back, and feeling none too sure what kind of welcome would be waiting for him. So he thought, when he got there, the day after he landed from America, that he’d keep himself quiet, till he saw how the thing would go on.
The place looked to Patsy wider and more silent than ever; the people fewer, and any he met, either they didn’t know him, or he couldn’t put a name upon them. That was just what he wanted, really; and still, he thought it very strange that everything was so changed from his recollection of it! He forgot that the world and all it contains must always be moving. If you come back to a place you left, even a very short time before, you’ll always find something not the same as it was. If it’s only a kettle that you leave swinging over the fire, while you run out for a few sprigs to hurry it to boil, it won’t be the same when you come in again. The water will be hotter or colder; the fire will be stronger or maybe gone black out.
Patsy should have bethought himself of the length of time he had been away, and then he wouldn’t have been so put out, to find things different. And, indeed, whatever change he saw in Ardenoo, there was more upon himself! Hard-set any of the neighbours would have been, even the comrade-boys that knew him best in the old wild days, to make out the thin rake of a fellow, ragged and light, that he used to be, in this big, stout, heavy-looking man. And he dressed, moreover, in black glossy clothes and a slouch hat; and with a gold watch-chain and ring upon him.
Grand indeed Patsy looked! And still, as well-appearing as he was, sitting resting himself by the side of the road, he was very uneasy in his mind. For he was thinking that he was on the last of his cigars, and wondering in his own mind how he was going to knock out another smoke, let alone any other little necessary comfort he might want. Very downhearted he was, and was feeling as lonesome as a milestone without a number upon it, when somebody else came in sight, walking along very brisk, although with a stick.
“I should know that person, anyway!” said Ratigan to himself; “she seems familiar.... Why, if it isn’t Dark Moll Reilly! And she with the ould shawl ... and the fiddle under it, on her back ... and all the ould bags hanging round her, to gather whatever she’s given.... She’s apt to have all the news of the place ... if there is any to know! If I can get chatting with her ... and she’ll not see who I am....”
So when she got near where he was, he called out to her:
“Hi! you there! my good woman! where are you off to?”
At the words, Moll stopped short, and began poking with the stick, as if to feel her way. It was as if hearing the voice had put a “blind” upon poor Moll; like the bit of board, or old cloth, you’ll see sometimes fastened across the face of a beast that is a rogue, to keep it from straying out of its own pasture.
“I ask yer pardon, sir,” she said, “but sure, I’m dark, you perceive! and couldn’t tell, no more nor the dead, where y’are or who y’are!”
With that, she dropped a curtsey, with her back to Ratigan, by the way of that she was so confused.