Julia made no delay, only sold the second heifer to Big Cusack. Not much she got out of the thing. The two beasts “had themselves ett,” he said, “very nearly,” meaning that nearly the whole price was owing to him for their grass. Peetcheen hadn’t paid a penny for them, since first he got Big Cusack to take them in on his pasture-field. In fact, Julia was none too well treated in the business of her fortune. It was all gone now, except the few pounds she got from Mr. Cusack over the heifers.
But “Divil’s cure to her!” was what was mostly said about her; “why couldn’t she keep a civil tongue in her head, and not harish the dacent boy out of the place that he was raired in; and the father and grandfather before him?”
Julia of course heard nothing of this. There wasn’t one would be willing to draw her tongue on them; and anyway, there would be no sense in interfering. She never asked advice from man nor mortal; so she had no chance of finding out how much truth there was in the story about Peetcheen being in America. She went off, as soon as she could take her passage.
A few days after she left, “Glory be!” says Dark Moll, sitting by the fire, with old Mrs. Caffrey opposite to her, and the child asleep on her lap, “glory be, there’ll be p’ace and quietness here now, anyway! And I’ll come back, never you fear, acushla, the way you’ll not be lonesome and fretted here wid yourself! Nor be at a short for some sinsible person to take the babby out of your arrums while you’d be out....”
But she never finished the sketch she was giving of what all she would do. For at that word, old Mrs. Caffrey gave a screech that very nearly lifted the thatch off the house.
“Oh, Peetcheen! Peetcheen!” she cried; “and is it yourself that’s in it? Come over to meself, the way I’ll get a good look at ye! The Lord save us! but where wor ye this lin’th of time, at all at all?”
“What’s all this?” said Moll; “what are you sayin’? Is it Peetcheen you think is here? or could it be Something Not Right ... and the people saying it was what he should be ‘away’ wid the Good People ... and me a poor blind ould woman that can’t know what’s going on....”
But the same Moll was very hardy, and not easily daunted by man nor mortal; just she said that wanting to get compassionated. But neither Peetcheen nor his mother took any heed of her. For it was Peetcheen, right enough! and very slaved-looking he was; with his feet on the world, you might say, his brogues were so worn and broken. And by that sign, the people thought it was on the stray he must have been, ever since he went off after selling the heifer at the fair.
But no one ever got much account of the business or of what became of the money he had then; whether he spreed it all, or if he held on to any of it. It was like as if he had brought back some of it, anyway. For they had more appearance of comfort about them the next winter than ever they had before. Peetcheen got a neighbour to draw home a nice little bit of turf for the winter, from the bog; and there was a new shawl for the mother, for going to Mass.
Peetcheen, you remember, had that laid out in his own mind, when he was on his way home, after marrying Julia. And, moreover, the big arm-chair, that Julia had put by, above in the room, the way it wouldn’t be getting knocked about in the kitchen ... and as well, she didn’t want Peetcheen to have the comfort of falling asleep in it, as many a time he did ... well, that chair was brought back and put in the chimney-corner. And many a comfortable snooze Peetcheen took in it now, when he would feel inclined to rest himself; a wish he often had.