“Ay, is it true,” said the mother; “the poor child, he went off, ere last night, and had nothing only a clean shirt and a pair of stockings between him and the world...” and she began to cry.
“Just so,” said Moll, “like the boy going away to seek his fortune in the old story, wid the half-cake and the blessing from his mammy....”
“He had that, whether or which,” said Mrs. Caffrey; “for a quieter, better boy never broke bread! And there he is now gone off from me; whatever riz his mind, that he couldn’t content himself at home here with me?”
“God send him safe, whatever way he struck off!” said Moll; “and lonesome you’ll be here, agrah! without your fine boy!”
“I miss him, the shockingest ever you knew!” said the mother, and she wiped her eyes on the corner of her little shawl; “if it was no more than the look of his brogues of an evening, and they steaming there by the fire....”
“Ay, do ye miss him, and will, too!” said Moll, very compassionately; “and the empty settle-bed and all! But if it would be consolations to ye, I could stop here for a while, anyway, and keep an eye on things, while you would have to be away; getting the water, or kindling ... or below at the Shop....”
Well, Mrs. Caffrey had no wish for Moll to be there for a constancy for different reasons. Moll was not very tasty in some of her ways, and she had a very long tongue. But Mrs. Caffrey had no excuse ready, and so it was easier to let the dark woman stay than to turn her away; and Mrs. Caffrey always did the easiest thing.
This is how Moll got a stopping-place there for a time. It contented her well. She had been very anxious to quit Molally’s, where she had been. They were decent people enough, but the house was narrow, and himself would be up striking lights at all hours, going out to look after the ewes and lambs that he had in his care. He was a herd. Moll felt it hard being disturbed out of her sleep. She thought she might do worse than stop at Caffrey’s for a bit, anyway.
Peetcheen went off, and a wandering boy like him will often go far enough, before he meets up with a chance of work. He was in Dublin for a while, but he thought bad of having to keep on at it, ding-dong, the whole day. He wanted to be somewhere that you need not be in a hurry, and if you like, betimes you might turn up a bucket and sit on it, and take a few blasts of a pipe; and not one to find fault with you for it.
But even at Ardenoo, a pet job like that is not very easy to find. Peetcheen thought he had his fortune made, when he got work at fifteen shillings a week, instead of the six he would get at Ardenoo. But he had not reckoned on paying out for everything he wanted, even to his washing, that the poor mother always did for him at home. He found the money little enough, and he had nothing at all to send to her, as he thought of doing. Maybe another boy would have managed better. But Peetcheen was just himself, and not another! He had no great sense about anything.