So Moll gave him all the directions for finding his way, which Ratigan knew as well as she did; and then she went off on her own business, leaving him sitting still by the roadside.
“Divil may care what way you go, for I don’t!” said Moll to herself, when she got a piece off from Ratigan; “to say he was too mean even to offer me the price of a pint, and I as dry as a limekiln, telling him all the news!... Who is he now, at all? For I can’t believe that he’s a stranger in these parts. He was too ready with his talk ... and too anxious for news....”
She went on again, another little bit, thinking hard. Then, “I have it now!” she thought, laughing to herself; “it’s that bright boyo, Patsy Ratigan, as sure as God made little apples! And the great big size of him now! The broad red face of him! and he the full of his skin; instead of the way he was, so thin that there wasn’t as much fat upon him as would grease a gimlet! And the thick back to his head! and used to have a long neck upon him, like a distracted gander peeping down a pump-hole to look for poreens!”[15]
Moll, as I said, had better use of her eyes than the people thought. Still, she never would have known Ratigan again, only that her ears were so sharp. It was his voice she knew.
“And why did he tell that story? It’s terrible to be a liar!” thought Moll; “but sure, he must have some good reason.... Let you say nothing, Moll Reilly,” she went on to herself, “until you see how the cat jumps....”
Now it was true enough, what Moll had said to Ratigan about the Heffernans not often going from about their own place. Mickey wasn’t able for much travelling, on account of the bad leg; and Marg didn’t feel it right to leave him. Besides, she had always been one to keep herself to herself.
The place she went most to was Grennan’s. And so it happened some time after Ratigan coming back, though no word of that had reached the Furry Farm, that Marg said one evening to Mickey, “I have an occasion for going over to Grennan’s ... some eggs that Kitty is gathering for me ... and now, I have the churning done, and the butter made and all cleared away. So I’ll bring a sup of the fresh buttermilk with me, for it’s always welcome in a house like theirs; and it the Hallow Eve and all....”
Dan Grennan had got in on Dempsey’s farm when he married Kitty. But it was a small holding, and not worth much, by the time all the older girls had been fortuned off it. And though Dan had brought some money home with him out of America, it didn’t stand long, between rent that was owing, and then old Mrs. Dempsey having to be buried, when her time came; and of course Dan wanted to do the decent thing by Kitty’s mother. So when all that was attended to, there wasn’t much coming in, and Dan was glad enough to undertake the herding of the Furry Farm for Heffernan. It lay convenient to their own little place, too.
Marg had another reason for wanting to go to Grennan’s that same evening, but she didn’t want Mickey to know anything about it just then.
“Well, go, in the name of God!” said Heffernan, to her standing ready to start; “and as you are going, you might as well throw an eye over that young stock that I have there beyant. Dan is good, and very good; but it’s the master’s eye that puts meat upon his beasts, and I’m not able this len’th of time to be going across fields and rough ways....”