"Here's a shillin' for you," he said. "I've no job you'd care about.
But the woman and the child might like a cup of tay."
"All right," said the tramp, placated. "Tea's not in my way. I'll be back in 'arf a mo'. Don't you be makin' love to my ol' woman."
He flicked his thumb and finger at the woman with an ugly jocularity: then went, with the tramp's shambling trot, out of the stable-yard the way he had come, down the back avenue which opened on to the road to Killesky.
CHAPTER III
A TEA PARTY
"I've seen that man of yours before," said Patsy, turning round and gazing at the woman.
He felt the most extraordinary pity for her. She must have been a pretty girl once, he thought, noticing the small pure outlines of the face. The child was like her, not like the ruffian who had just set off in the direction of Conneely's Hotel. A pretty boy, with soft, pale silken hair and blue eyes that looked scared. Patsy remembered his own childhood with the terrible old grandfather, and his heart was soft with compassion.
"I don't think so, sir," said the woman. She was English by her voice.
"He hasn't been in these parts before."
Patsy noticed with the same sharp pity which seemed to hurt him, that she trembled. She was tired and hungry, perhaps; not cold, surely, in this glorious June sunshine.
"Sit down," he said, "sit down." He indicated a stone seat by the open door of the house. "You are tired, my poor girl. I've put the kettle on. It'll be boilin' by this time. I'll wet the cup of tay and it'll do you good."